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Panel Recommends Firing Ward Churchill
A University of Colorado committee recommended on Tuesday firing a professor who called some of the World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," citing repeated research misconduct.
Panel Recommends Firing Colo. Professor
DAN ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
(06-13) 19:05 PDT DENVER (AP)
A University of Colorado committee recommended on Tuesday firing a professor who called some of the World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," citing repeated research misconduct.
The panel's recommendation now goes to university officials for a final decision.
Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, denied the allegations. He has vowed to fight his dismissal with a lawsuit.
"Baloney. That's my one-word-response," he said. He noted there have been previous calls for his removal, "whether or not it was legal."
The school's investigation focused on allegations that Churchill committed research misconduct and plagiarism.
In a written statement, Churchill dismissed the investigation as an attempt to silence him. He said he "could have done it better" in minor areas on some of the research in question but said he was being held to higher standards than most academics.
"This process has not demonstrated that I engaged in any serious research misconduct but that, after more than a year of painstaking review, those charged with firing me could find nothing more than a few footnotes and questions of attribution to quibble over," he wrote.
The panel did not address his essay relating the 2001 terrorist attacks to U.S. abuses abroad. The essay referred to some World Trade Center victims as "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who carried out Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate European Jews during World War II.
The essay was largely ignored until January 2005, when it came to light before a scheduled speech at a college in upstate New York.
Churchill's case has been cited by conservatives as an example of how universities have overstocked their faculties with leftists. Others raised concerns about academic freedom.
DAN ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
(06-13) 19:05 PDT DENVER (AP)
A University of Colorado committee recommended on Tuesday firing a professor who called some of the World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," citing repeated research misconduct.
The panel's recommendation now goes to university officials for a final decision.
Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, denied the allegations. He has vowed to fight his dismissal with a lawsuit.
"Baloney. That's my one-word-response," he said. He noted there have been previous calls for his removal, "whether or not it was legal."
The school's investigation focused on allegations that Churchill committed research misconduct and plagiarism.
In a written statement, Churchill dismissed the investigation as an attempt to silence him. He said he "could have done it better" in minor areas on some of the research in question but said he was being held to higher standards than most academics.
"This process has not demonstrated that I engaged in any serious research misconduct but that, after more than a year of painstaking review, those charged with firing me could find nothing more than a few footnotes and questions of attribution to quibble over," he wrote.
The panel did not address his essay relating the 2001 terrorist attacks to U.S. abuses abroad. The essay referred to some World Trade Center victims as "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who carried out Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate European Jews during World War II.
The essay was largely ignored until January 2005, when it came to light before a scheduled speech at a college in upstate New York.
Churchill's case has been cited by conservatives as an example of how universities have overstocked their faculties with leftists. Others raised concerns about academic freedom.
For more information:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...
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Wednesday, May 17, 2006
(05-17) 04:00 PDT Boulder, Colo. -- A University of Colorado committee released a report on Tuesday saying that Professor Ward Churchill, who wrote an essay in 2001 comparing some World Trade Center victims to Adolf Eichmann, had committed academic misconduct in research in his main field, ethnic studies.
The Standing Committee on Research and Misconduct accepted the findings from a five-member investigative panel that determined Churchill was guilty of plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and fabrication of scholarly work.
One example cited was Churchill misrepresenting facts when he "deliberately embellished historic claims regarding the General Allotment Act of 1887." That law initiated the allotment of land to individual Indians as their reservations were broken up for sale.
While unanimous on their findings, the five split on whether the professor should be discharged or suspended. The standing committee will decide on sanctions to recommend to the university next month.
The report also noted concern over the initiation of the inquiry after the controversy last year over the essay on the Sept. 11 attacks. A university spokesman, Barrie Hartman, said the accusations did not stem from that furor. Churchill's lawyer, David Lane, said the investigation was retaliation for the essay.
"I think the committee has lost sight of their mission," Lane said. Churchill did not teach in the spring and has no scheduled plans to teach in the fall.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/17/MNGIIIT7UB1.DTL&type=printable
editorials
Churchill should step down
By The Denver Post
DenverPost.com
Make no mistake (as Ward Churchill often does), the case against the University of Colorado professor is not about freedom of speech or political correctness or the reprehensible things he said in a 2001 essay about Sept. 11 victims. It's about academic misconduct.
Members of two panels have pored over his writings and research and found "serious, repeated and deliberate misconduct," including plagiarism and outright fabrications.
Most of them think he should be fired.
Churchill can avoid that fate, and should, by resigning his tenured position at CU and leaving academia.
A majority of CU's research misconduct committee this week called for Churchill to be fired, agreeing with a group of academic investigators who concluded that the ethnic studies professor intentionally falsified research, plagiarized and ghost-wrote articles that he used as references to prop up his own shoddy research.
The review panels have managed to separate unpopular speech (which is protected) from academic malfeasance (which isn't).
Churchill is in denial, trivializing his offenses and disparaging his critics.
It fogs CU's case that a few high-profile figures called for Churchill's head as a result of his outrageous opinions rather than his faulty scholarship. The first sentence of Churchill's statement this week captures his thinking: "On February 2, 2005, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens called for me to be fired because of statements I made about U.S. foreign policy that were clearly protected by the First Amendment. It would have been illegal to do so then, and it is just as illegal today."
Yet while plenty of us bridled at Churchill's chilling contempt for the Sept. 11 victims, CU understood from the outset that he should not be punished for challenging public opinion. Then-President Betsy Hoffman was a fierce defender of academic freedom, worrying about "a new McCarthyism" that could silence academicians. "We are in dangerous times again," she told the faculty.
The review panels properly avoided the perils and kept to the matter at hand: the integrity of Churchill's work. Their meticulous research should give everyone confidence in CU's process.
Churchill's job status now rests with interim CU-Boulder Chancellor Phil Stefano, acting on recommendations from the provost and a dean.
In calling for his dismissal, the standing committee on misconduct gave voice to why Churchill can't stay at CU. Since he won't admit his failures, the committee said it was "pessimistic that he is likely to change his behavior."
Surely Churchill must know that he doesn't belong in acadamia. He should acknowledge the judgment of his work by these two faculty reviews and step down.
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_3937135
Churchill's response to the U of CO Boulder report is here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/churchill06142006.html
In contrast, Ann Coulter's latest literary attempt includes 15 instances of plagiarism (so far):
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/For_new_book_Coulter_cribs_adult_0613.html
Note that Churchill's essay in question was not published and sold for profit, unlike Coulter's book.
Of course, with regard to Coulter, not one word yet about prison time or dismissal from her media appearances. So, have any of the hypocritical right-wing blogs denounced Coulter's plagiarism yet?