[quote]Snoop wrote:
Does living in a democracy give life meaning, value, or purpose? [/quote]
No - but our system of democracy gives us the freedom to persue the things you speak of.
Battlelust,
“I did notice that you were careful to use the nebulous term “flirt,” but I’m really not sure what exactly you mean by this assertion that Chomsky denies the holocaust!”
Chomsky wrote the foreword for a book penned by Robert Faurisson, a radical French Holocaust denier. Chomsky praised his scholarship and lauded Faurisson’s work, which terms the Holocaust a “historical lie”.
“I’ve seen Chomsky speak, read some of his major works (and his shitty minor works), and respect the man’s considerable intellect.”
I respect his intellect as well. Chomsky’s brain horsepower has never been in question.
“As to Ward Churchill, I’d hardly call him a Marxist or a liberal (more of a left-wing anarchist).”
My apologies for the mislabel - I get my Left-wing radicals all mixed up. But Churchill would be at home in a room full of Marxists with his anti-capitalism rants and so forth. But left-wing anarchist it is.
“That said, he should have kept his mouth shut on the 9-1-1 issue. A quick 30 second reflection before writing should have nixed the idea of comparing the World Trade Center civilian casualties to Eichmann.”
Well, judgment is part of character. Moreover, the language wasn’t cautious - it was aggressive, inflammatory, and deliberately controversial. It wasn’t a slip of the tongue.
“I’m also curious as to how you define “legitimate” indigenous groups…”
The one I meant was the American Indian Movement (AIM). And there was that incident where he attacked a Native American woman, breaking her wrist, for exposing him as a fraud.
“…or “serious” university programs.”
Anything that ends in ‘studies’ is a therapeutic set of survey courses.
We should have gone into Iraq. I remember back then thinking: Saddaam is acting just like a highschool kid trying to push the limits of what he can get away with. If you let kids do that, you will absolutely fail and every other kid sees it. I simply remember 4 or 5 times over maybe a 4 month period that Sadaam refused to follow the agreements of HIS TREATY WITH THE U.S. made after the last war. We beat him. He violated his treaty. That is saying “War’s on again.”
The sad thing is that democracy has proved ineffective in small countries. Its just too easy for a local mafia or corrupt government to feed their own personal greed. Its hard enough to control those things in the U.S.
People in these countries have to realize: The day it becomes clear that a leader is corrupt, you all get up off your asses, march on the capital and hang the bastard.
thunder,
Ward Churchill is the co-director of AIM in Colorado. The majority of the organization takes him seriously as a representative of the Keetoowah Band Cherokee. How is this an instance of being rejected by AIM? And before the usual charge is made, Churchill’s lineage has been verified by two separate, independent genealogical researchers: he is an indian by established standards. Now, whether or not those standards are acceptable (I have blond hair, blue eyes and I qualify for Eastern Band Cherokee!) is another question for another time.
and, just some facts on Chomsky’s relationship to Faurisson (who was repeatedly physically assaulted and almost killed by gangs of Jewish students, thus prompting Chomsky’s essay in defense of free scholarship) and I will rest as we’ve veered away from the question of Ward Churchill’s tasteless comments.
Chomsky wrote:
Faurisson’s conclusions are diametrically opposed to views I hold and have frequently expressed in print (for example, in my book Peace in the Middle East, where I describe the Holocaust as “the most fantastic outburst of collective insanity in human history”). But it is elementary that freedom of expression (including academic freedom) is not to be restricted to views of which one approves, and that it is precisely in the case of views that are almost universally despised and condemned that this right must be most vigorously defended. It is easy enough to defend those who need no defense or to join in unanimous (and often justified) condemnation of a violation of civil rights by some official enemy. [5] (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/8102-right-to-say.html)
In defense of Faurisson himself, he wrote:
Let me add a final remark about Faurisson’s alleged “anti-Semitism.” Note first that even if Faurisson were to be a rabid anti-Semite and fanatic pro-Nazi – such charges have been presented to me in private correspondence that it would be improper to cite in detail here – this would have no bearing whatsoever on the legitimacy of the defense of his civil rights. On the contrary, it would make it all the more imperative to defend them since, once again, it has been a truism for years, indeed centuries, that it is precisely in the case of horrendous ideas that the right of free expression must be most vigorously defended; it is easy enough to defend free expression for those who require no such defense. Putting this central issue aside, is it true that Faurisson is an anti-Semite or a neo-Nazi? As noted earlier, I do not know his work very well. But from what I have read – largely as a result of the nature of the attacks on him – I find no evidence to support either conclusion. Nor do I find credible evidence in the material that I have read concerning him, either in the public record or in private correspondence. As far as I can determine, he is a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort. [6] (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/8102-right-to-say.html)
Chomsky granted permission for the essay to be used for any purpose. Serge Thion then used it as a preface when publishing a book by Faurisson, without Chomsky’s knowledge. Later Chomsky requested that the essay not be used in this manner, since he believed the French intellectual community was so incapable of understanding freedom of speech that it would only confuse them further, but his request came too late for the book to be changed. Chomsky subsequently said that asking for the preface to be removed is his one regret in the matter.
Chomsky’s essay sparked an even greater controversy. Critics such as Pierre Vidal-Naquet attacked him not for defending the principle of freedom of speech, but for defending Faurisson personally against charges of anti-Semitism. [7] (Pierre Vidal-Naquet: "On Faurisson and Chomsky" (1981). Ressources documentaires sur le génocide nazi / Documentary Resources on the Nazi Genocide © Michel Fingerhut, auteurs et éditeurs, 1996-8)
obviously, I’m not trying to have a typical T-Mag-Political-Forum-urine-fest-bitch-fight with you. I simply want to clarify some comments that you made. I agree with you on my marxism/left anarchism distinctions: who really cares? My apologies for the hideous length of this post, but I truly appreciate the atypical rationality of this discussion. Thanks.
Battlelust,
On Chomsky’s apology:
I’ve read through his comments before, but much like Ward Churchill’s half-retraction - ie, I didn’t mean what you think I did - Chomsky treads too close to the line merely to put up a defense that he was supporting freedom of expression.
We can take Chomsky’s apology on its face value, but there’s something to writing a foreword for a book and hailing the scholarship of an author whose twisted revision of history that doesn’t pass the smell test. The claims made by Faurisson are wildly controversial on which reasonable people don’t politely disagree. For Chomsky to associate himself with such radical thought implies an appreciation for it.
As I said earlier, judgment is character, and Chomsky’s decision to offer praise to a Holocaust denier might have been merely a professional mistake, but I have a difficult time believing that.
As to Ward Churchill, I have no idea whether his Indian bona fides are good or not, but there are people within the movement that don’t think so. Ms. Standing Elk was one of those.
As is, Ward Churchill is nothing more than a gadfly, a desparate wannabe revolutionary. As stated earlier, his claims that America has suffered from its foreign policy neglects the lessons of history and doesn’t account for the many things broken in Arab culture that have nothing to do with whether or not we buy oil from thei countries. Ward Churchill, howeverm peddles radical theories without haveing the good sense to examine what’s right in front of him.
Also, he courts controversy, and now that he’s got it, he doesn’t want it. Too bad - you don’t get to brand yourself a ‘radical Indian activist’ and then get spooked when your comfortable university job might be in jeopardy because you run your mouth.
[quote]Snoop wrote:
I am not trying to say that Saddam was a good person or that he did not need to be removed from a position of power. I fully support our actions in Iraq; what I was attempting to say was that we should not be surprised when they strike back and should in-fact expect it.[/quote]
This commentary was in reference to 9/11/01 – I thought that Saddam and the Iraqis weren’t a moving force in that attack? I fail to see the point, other than some facile statement that someone against whom force is applied might try to apply force of his own.
Are you referencing a particular country in South America, or blaming the U.S. for the entirety of the continent? Also, to the extent one is trying to measure success, one needs to remember the point at which a particular state was in before intervention, and use that as the measuring point.
Who imposed democracy on the Russians? They certainly didn’t implement anything along the lines of the American system.
Hmmm. Let’s see. Just remembering from history, it seems that a little problem with Viet Nam was distracting both available force and political will during the Pol Pot regime. Not to mention the adamant denials that anything bad was happening under that glorious communist regime (see, e.g. Noam Chomsky).
As for Mao, I am trying to remember when China developed nuclear technology, but it was a long time ago and that factor changes the calculus considerably. Not to mention that at the time he was operating the U.S. had just expended massive resources in the defeat of Japan and Germany, and had a more pressing problem in the U.S.S.R. under Stalin. In the Cold War calculus, it was hoped – and eventually accomplished – to turn China from a fellow traveler with Stalin’s U.S.S.R. to a countervailing force. Perhaps this was not a perfect calculation, but it made sense in the Cold War schema.
Not every - not even most - calculations are made solely on the basis of what would help “corporate America,” whatever that might mean (corporations actually compete with each other you know).
Yes, those genocidal maniacs tend to be a problem. Is there a form of government that you can think of that has tended to minimize their production over time? Any guesses?
Oh no! There are LAWS?! I guess I’m not free after all.
I feel free mainly because their are checks against any one person or group accumulating too much power, because there are particular guarantees in the Constitution against the government using its power in certain particularly loathsome ways to crush me, and because the military does not involve itself in the running of or power succession in our civilian government, among other things.
Perfect? No. Best yet overall? Yes.
There is a good point hidden in there, and that is that the rule of law must be present to create a stable democracy. The rule of law requires strong courts and police, as well as the commitment of those institutions to the principles of democracy and freedom. Capitalism is also important, at least with regard to maximum respect for private property rights.
As for “all that great,” just remember the point of reference: how life was for those who were or who became disfavored under the Baathists.
No, but it tends to leave one freer to pursue meaning, value or purpose to the extent he chooses to do so.
A couple of interesting takes on the Churchill controversey – I think all three are quite sound.
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2005/02/ward-churchill-story.html
Friday, February 04, 2005
The Ward Churchill Story
Gerard Van der Leun at American Digest has an extended investigative post on Ward Churchill ( Cherokee Wannabe: ".... clues about not only what, but who Ward Churchill Is" @ AMERICAN DIGEST ), the professor of ethnic studies who made controversial remarks characterizing those who died in the 9/11 attack as ‘little Eichmanns’. Those statements, while outrageous to some, were probably widely shared in the circles he frequented. For example, the Boiling Frog Catalogue ( http://www.web.net/~boilingfrog/catalogue.html ) sells a VHS tape called US Off the Planet whose contents are described as:
[i]An inspiring meeting of revolutionary minds. Ward Churchill and Chellis Glendenning came together for the first time in Eugene OR on June 17th, 2001 where they shared their insights during a celebration of two local anarchist rebellions. US Off the Planet presents a radical discussion of colonialism, imperialism, genocide and resistance, underscoring the confluence of interests between revolutionists who are struggling for a bio-centric future, and indigenous people struggling to preserve their cultures, histories, and way of life. [/i]
The tape, priced at $20, must have appealed to some sort of audience. And there is probably a market for Satyamag ( Satya April 04: Interview with Ward Churchill ), where readers could read the writings of someone described as “one of the most provocative thinkers around. A Creek and enrolled Keetoowah Band Cherokee, Churchill is a longtime Native rights activist. He has been heavily involved in the American Indian Movement and the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. He is Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado and has served as a delegate to the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations.”
The book publisher AK Press ( http://www.akpress.org/ ) which describes itself as a “distributor organized around anarchist principles” thought highly enough of Ward to publish “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality”, in which the ‘little Eichmanns’ remark appears.
Churchill got around internationally; for example, he spoke at London’s University of Western Ontario ( http://www.firstnationsdrum.com/Spring%202004/EduChurchill.htm ), where recalling his days "as a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) security team at the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota in the early 1970’s, " he shared his war stories. “I speak with a harsh voice,” he said, “but I speak in truth.” He went to conferences as far as Norway ( http://www.world-foundation.nu/bokenfoton.htm )representing himself as a Cherokee, one among many oppressed minorities in attendance, most of whom could pass for Norwegian. American Digest calls into question at least the American Indian Movement part of Churchill’s history. Mr. Van der Leun quotes documents available the AIM Council on Security and Intelligence web page explicitly denouncing Churchill as a fake and poseur ( AIM Council on Security and Intelligence ).
But in a week which featured the State of the Nation Address, the release of the Volcker report and news that action figure Cody was held hostage by terrorists, the attention lavished on a relatively obscure academic recalls the inordinate power of the Scott Peterson and Michael Jackson cases to put more newsworthy subjects into the shade. The fascination may not be with Ward Churchill himself but with the Leftist demimonde glimpsed briefly through him. Churchill, Peterson and Jackson are, besides being themselves, gateways into worlds in which the incomprehensible is merely ordinary. It is not that the worlds of the radical Left, the scumbag and high-class pervert are the same; they are different in every particular and yet are somehow identical in a elusive way. The common description I came near to supplying is ‘fantasy’, though it is not quite that; because deep down those worlds concern themselves with practical gratification. I think the right term is ‘sad’; reprehensible yes; disgusting yes; and sad.
And two posts ruminating on Free Speech issues inherent in this whole situation.
One from Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA Law:
February 03, 2005
Voltaire and Ward Churchill
As you probably know by know, Ward Churchill is the University of Colorado professor and far left activist whose inflammatory essay on the 9/11 terrorist act compared the victims thereof to “little Eichmanns.” I stand by my view that the man is an ass ( ProfessorBainbridge.com ). Unlike Churchill ( http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~417~2673375,00.html ), however, I take a rather expansive view of the First Amendment. As one of those rare conservatives in the academy, moreover, it is in my self-interest to insist that tenure and academic freedom must be protected.
Hence, I must register dismay at the actions the University of Colorado and its board of regents are contemplating ( Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines ):
[i] Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano ordered a 30-day review of Ward Churchill’s speeches and writings to determine if the professor overstepped his boundaries of academic freedom and whether that should be grounds for dismissal.
Also Thursday, the Board of Regents issued an apology for Churchill's remarks at a meeting and voted to support the university's review of Churchill.[/i]
This one of those occasions when those of us on the right need to suck it up and echo the line famously attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” We do not remain true to our values if we are willing to say “free speech for me, but not for thee,” even if that is what Churchill likely would say if the shoe were on the other foot.
As Colin Powell once said “Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.” Or, to quote John Milton, “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” These are the values we conservatives embrace. We can’t remain true to ourselves and ignore them. Even when the speaker is an ass who has used the most opprobrious language. As the father of all true conservatives, Edmund Burke, once reminded us: “The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.”
And one from Eugene Volokh, also from UCLA law but visiting at Stanford Law this year:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_02_00.shtml#1107524536
Ward Churchill:
Ward Churchill is the University of Colorado professor who wrote the horrific screed praising the murder of the people in the World Trade Center (on the grounds that they were “little Eichmanns”). His article reveals him to be a depraved person, much as people who applaud the butchery of innocent people are generally depraved. (I see no way of reading “If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it” as anything but applauding the deaths.) I realize that he doesn’t think they’re innocents – but that a Nazi thinks Jews culpable and therefore meriting death, or a Klansman thinks blacks culpable and therefore meriting death, hardly absolves him of charges of depravity.
Firing for his views: Nonetheless, I agree with Glenn Reynolds ( Instapundit ) and Steve Bainbridge ( ProfessorBainbridge.com ) that he ought not be fired for this depravity (and there is talk of that happening)( Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines ). I think Justice Hugo Black was right to say that First Amendment rights “must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish”; and the same is true of academic freedom principles, flowing both from the First Amendment rights of public university employees and from their tenure contracts and professional norms. If the Ward Churchills of the world are fired for their speech, disgusting as it is, that would be a perfect precedent for left-wing faculties and administrations to fire right-wing professors for much less offensive statements. And given the political complexion of universities these days (and the fact that most of the decisions will be made by university administrations and not by elected officials), this will end up happening to conservatives much more often than to liberals. So I think that protecting Churchill from being fired is both good in principle and good in practice.
Stripping him of chairmanship: Nonetheless, there is no reason that the University had to keep him as Chair of his department, had he not resigned that post. The chairmanship of a department is an administrative post; while a professor’s job is to publish his own work and his own views, the chair’s job is to advance the academic mission of the university. (Teaching is a separate and complicated matter, but as best I can tell none of Churchill’s offensive statements were made in class.) See Jeffries v. Harleston (2nd Cir. 1995) ( http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/2nd/937876.html ), which sensibly draws this distinction.
If the University concludes that keeping a person such as this as the administrative face of the department will cast the department and the university into disrepute, it can properly remove him as chair, while retaining his right to say whatever incendiary things he likes as professor. And of course I’d say the same as to department chairs who said things I liked: A university should have fairly broad authority to strip them of their chairmanship, though not of their posts.
Firing him for lying (if he had indeed lied) about being an American Indian:
But all this speaks only of whether Churchill could be fired for his views. There is also the question whether he has knowingly falsely claimed to be an American Indian and a member of various tribes (see this story http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410295 ). If indeed it turns out that he lied – and the lies, even if not in his scholarship, were attempts to build credibility as a scholar and public intellectual speaking on behalf of the American Indian community – then I think he ought to be disciplined, and quite possibly fired, for that.
As readers may recall, “Joseph Ellis, historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, admitted [in 2001] that he led his students at Mount Holyoke College to believe that he had served as a paratrooper in Vietnam, when in reality his three years of service had been spent teaching history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was also accused of embellishing his role in the civil rights and antiwar movements. He was subsequently suspended from Mount Holyoke for one year without pay and stripped of his endowed chair. Ellis won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for history for Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation.” (Quote from infoplease. Joseph Ellis, 2001 News ) As I recall, there was no reason to think that this lie really misinformed Ellis’s students about important historical questions; but it is still highly reprehensible, and properly punishable, behavior in a scholar. Ellis was only suspended for a year, but he’s a Pulitzer Prize winner and, as I understand, a historian of substantial quality. Had he done less good work, his bad acts may well have led to his being fired, and quite properly so.
Moreover, knowing lies are generally not protected by the First Amendment; and though we usually don’t imprison people just because they lied about their own biography, I see no First Amendment problem in firing such people, even tenured academics, based on that. Moreover, as a matter of academic freedom principles, I don’t think there’s anything especially dangerous in enforcing basic requirements of honesty in one’s public statements, particularly about one’s own life history. There is some risk of error in adjudicating such controversies, but much less than the risk involved in deciding which viewpoints are so heinous as to be beyond the pale of academic tolerance.
If Churchill actually lied about his racial affiliation in an attempt to get a job – or his chairmanship or similar posts, including temporary ones – then that’s outright resume fraud, and may even be criminal (especially if the lie was in the service of getting something of financial value). But even if he knowingly told a falsehood simply to get more credibility, that would be serious professional misconduct.
Of course, all this assumes that he in fact claimed to be an American Indian (or a member of particular tribes), that he knew that he is indeed not an American Indian (or a member of the claimed tribe), and that the statements were unambiguous enough. (There can sometimes be some ambiguity: For instance, if someone who is Jewish only on his father’s side claims to be Jewish, I would surely not call him a liar just because the strictest definitions of Jewishness require that one’s mother be Jewish, at least unless he was speaking in a context where he knew that his statements would be interpreted using that strict definition.)
But if these charges are true ( Instapundit ), then they would warrant punishment, including possibly firing. Naturally, whoever fires him for this or supports such a firing must be prepared to apply the same standard regardless of the professor’s viewpoints. But I certainly would be prepared to apply such a standard across the board, since academic dishonesty is culpable whether it’s done by people with evil political ideologies or good ones.
Thanks to Sabastian Niles for the pointer to the AP story cited above.
Wow I had no idea there were so many patriots on a web site like this. Happy to see there are still guys left with some balls. Chuchill is a giant scumbag but truthfully I am glad he got to speak because I think people are finally waking up to the radical left B.S. that goes on at the majority of colleges. These jerk offs probably would have been deported in the 40’s during WWII. Is America perfect no, but we are the best nation the world has ever seen yes hands down and my guess ever will see. As for Snoop it seems like you feel a benevolent dictator would be the best system of government. Try naming one. And what happens when a dictator dies? Chaos. Are form of government may not be the only form that works but it is the best.
More on Ward Churchill and his controversies (interior links if you follow the link):
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_02_27-2005_03_05.shtml#1109610226
[David Kopel, February 28, 2005 at 12:03pm] 6 Trackbacks / Possibly More Trackbacks
Professors not opposed to Academic Fraud and Terrorism:
One hundred and ninety-nine faculty members at the University of Colorado at Boulder dishonored their school today by signing an advertisement in the Boulder Daily Camera in support of Professor Ward Churchill. Although the University of Colorado has many distinguished professors, the advertisement makes it clear that the University also has some professors with insufficient concern about academic and professional integrity. The Denver Post article on the ad is here; the Daily Camera ad itself is not on the web–although it would be a good idea for someone to place the ad on the web, as a permanent record of where some CU’s faculty stood.
The advertisement purports to defend “Professor Churchill’s right to speak what he believes to be the truth.” This statement ignores the fact–which is perfectly obvious to to anyone who has been reading Colorado newspapers over the last several weeks–that Churchill is a consummate liar. There is overwhelming evidence–which Churchill has failed to refute in even a minimally plausible way–of the following falsehoods by Churchill:
As detailed by Lamar University’s Thomas Brown, Churchill’s writings claim that the U.S. Army deliberately caused an 1837 smallpox epidemic among the Sioux by distributing infected blankets. Yet the very sources cited by Churchill state that the epidemic was accidentally spread by travelers and that the army had nothing to do with it.
As detailed by the University of New Mexico law school’s John LaVelle in the American Indian Quarterly and the Wicazo Sa Review, Churchill has lied about the 1887 General Allotment Act (falsely claiming that the Act required proof of a certain percentage of Indian blood in order for a person to be eligible to be allotted personal land on Indian reservations) in six books and eleven essays. LaVelle further demonstrates multiple instances of plagiarism by Churchill and of citing sources for the opposite of what they really said.
Churchill’s academic career has also included time as Instructor of studio art and art history at Black Hills State College, and he promoted himself as an “Indian artist” until a 1990 law federal prohibited non-Indians from selling their work as Indian art. As detailed detailed by KCNC television, Churchill’s 1981 serigraph “Winter Attack” is plagiarized from a nearly identical painting by the renowned artist Thomas Mails. Churchill merely reversed the left-to-right imagery, and colored a bush green.
“Professor Churchill’s right to speak what he believes to be the truth” does not protect Churchill’s apparently false claims that he received paratrooper training the Vietnam War, and that he served in a long-range reconnaissance patrol unit–although his military records show that he was instead in the motor pool. Mount Holyoke history professor Joseph Ellis was stripped of his endowed chair and suspended without pay for a year because of similar lies about his own Vietnam record.
As detailed by KHOW’s radio’s Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman and by the Pirate Ballerina weblog, Churchill’s entire academic career has been based on advancement through his bogus claim to be part Indian.
The CU 199 purport to “defend an environment in which ideas may be openly exchanged.” Yet Churchill himself has attempted to destroy such an environment, at CU and around the nation. Two former students have alleged that their grades were lowered in retaliation for their exercise of freedom of speech. (One student wrote a campus newspaper article reporting the evidence that Churchill is not an Indian; another student suffered retaliation for disagreeing with Churchill’s statements in class that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was a good thing.) A CU professor reported that Churchill physicially threated her because she favored naming a building after a retired administrator, rather than after an Indian tribe, as Churchill preferred. Churchill called for the murder of anarchist writer Bob Black. He called for the death of a student newspaper cartoonist who had criticized a racist professor in Hawaii who wrote about her fantasy of mutilating and killing a white woman.
Although CU professors are required by state law to sign an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the Colorado Constitution, Churchill has repeatedly called for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, and has urged his audiences to perpetrate 9/11 type terrorist attacks in the United States. In doing so, he has provided explicit instructions about where the attacks should take place, and how the attacker should dress so as to be able to get to the target.
Now perhaps Churchill has credible defenses to the above charges, but if so, we have not yet heard them. There is overwhelming evidence that the University of Colorado’s current investigation of Ward Churchill’s conduct is well-grounded. For the CU 199 to claim otherwise is foolish. The CU 199 allege that to investigate Churchill undermines “the very idea of the university itself.” To the contrary, the very idea of a university depends on professors who do their work honestly, rather than with fraud and plagiarism, and depends on professors who respond to their intellectual foes by using counter-arguments, rather than by threatening and promoting violence and homicide. That 199 professors could defend a fraudulent thug and bully like Ward Churchill shows how very far the University of Colorado has fallen from the very idea of a university itself.
UPDATE: Although the CU 199 never say so explicitly, the ad appears to adopt the theory of Churchill’s attorney, David Lane, that none of Churchill’s litany of misconduct can be the basis for firing him, because the current investigation of Churchill was started by the Regents after Churchill’s infamous “little Eichmanns” essay became the subject of public controversy. The ad from the CU 199 states that “the investigation of Professor Churchill’s scholarly record has been initiated in direct response to criticisms of his ideas and without any prior format complaint of specific professional or academic misconduct on his part.”
The claim of the CU 199 is wrong as a matter of fact, and as a matter of law. According to articles in the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News (Post archives are available on the web; Rocky archives are not), there have been repeated complaints made to the administration about Churchill’s misconduct in the classroom and his threats. Furhter, as reported in Westword in 1994, the National American Indian Movement filed a complaint with the University of Colorado about Churchill’s ethnic fraud. As was the norm at CU, none of these complaints appear to have resulted in any administrative action. Given such repeated failures, it is within the Regents’ discretion to order their own investigation.
Further, as the Second Circuit case of Jeffries v. Harrelston makes clear, there was nothing improper about the initiation of an investigation following the uproar regarding Churchill’s hateful comments. In Jeffries, the head of the Black Studies Department at the City College of New York was stripped of his chairmanship following the uproar resulting from a crackpot racist speech he gave in Albany. The Second Circuit explained that the City College Regents could demote Jeffries “based upon a reasonable prediction that the Albany speech would disrupt university operations.” The CU Regents certainly had the right to order the torpid CU administration to conduct an investigation of similar issues. (Although ordered by the Regents, the investigation is being conducted by three CU administrators, two of whom appear to have brushed off previous complaints about Churchill.)
Implicit in the ad from the CU 1999 is that the issues of academic fraud and plagiarism are off-limits because no-one has made a “formal complaint” to the CU administration. But there is no rule that a university must blind itself to a professor’s fraud and other misconduct unless someone files a “formal complaint.” There certainly should be an inquiry, however, about why the CU Arts & Sciences administration failed to take action following the publication of Professor LaVelle’s articles in the late 1990s, and failed to respond to a formal complaint which someone filed with CU about Churchill promoting terrorism at a speech in Minnesota.
Moreover, Churchill’s book on the Justice of Roosting Chickens, which contains the “little Eichmanns” essay, is itself a very fit starting point for an inquiry into Churchill’s scholarly competence; most of the book is a crackpot history of the United States, filled with obviously incompetent statements. Churchills calls George Washington was “the richest man in North America” during the revolutionary war. Churchill writes about “Future president Alexander Hamilton.” He asserts that white people “demonstrably perpetrate crimes at rates as great or greater than persons of color.” For this last claim, he supplies a footnote which does not support the claim; in fact, whether one relies on victim surveys or on arrest data, data overwhelmingly show higher crime rates among people of color. Churchill tells his readers that in 1980 the CIA operated in Jamaica “subverting military and police officials into undermining and ultimately deposing the liberal left government of Michael Manley.” Actually, Manley did charge that his political opponent, Edward Seaga, was supported by the CIA, but Manley was not deposed; he lost the 1980 election, then returned to power after winning the 1989 election.
In short, the Jeffries case affirms that Regent concern about the disruptive effects of Churchill’s hate speech was a lawful, constitutional grounds for commencing an investigation of Churchill’s academic record. Although the University of Colorado’s administration had repeatedly failed to take action in response to formal complaints about Churchill, the Regents’ investigation is under no stare decisis requirement to emulate the administration’s errors. Nor are the Regents obliged to ignore additional, substantial evidence of misconduct which has been uncovered by the media in recent weeks. The media have a First Amendment right to write articles and produce radio programs on subjects of interest to their audience and themselves. Churchill has no First Amendment right to silence the media simply because media interest in him was initially provoked by his mean-spirited essay celebrating the 9/11 attacks. Nor are the Regents or the CU administration required by the First Amendment to blind themselves to the new evidence of Churchill’s misconduct which the Colorado media have been exposing on an almost-daily basis.
Churchill should not be fired because he is a hate-monger, but the CU Regents have the legitimate authority to investigate whether Churchill’s hate-mongering disrupts the University of Colorado, and they have no duty to ignore evidence which is brought forward by third parties that Ward Churchill is an academic fraud. Nor are the Regents obliged to ignore the catastrophic liability that CU could face if one of Churchill’s acolytes follows Churchill’s instructions to perpetrate a 9/11 style terrorist attack.
The CU 199, however, simply elide these issues. Some of the 199 have impressive records of scholarship in their own specialties; others appear to be politically correct hacks. But the terrible judgement of 199 faculty members in attempting to protect a bully who is unfit to teach in any institution, let alone a state’s flagship university, will provide prospective students and parents with further reason to doubt that true intellectual diversity and freedom can be found at CU Boulder.