Posted on 06/13/2005 9:06:40 AM PDT by freespirited
Did Ward Churchill use his office at the University of Colorado, Boulder, for political and personal purposes contrary to university policy and state law?
This is the question posed by one of our sources, who points us to evidence that Churchill may have done just that.
In 1986, Churchill had his office at the Willard Administration Center on the campus of CU in Boulder. He was not yet a professor; rather, he was involved in the American Indian Equal Opportunities Program. A scanned image available on the AIM website*, shows that at least one letter Churchill sent on Colorado American Indian Movement (CO-AIM) letterhead, for which he was then co-director, represented Churchill's CU address and phone number as CO-AIM's address and phone number. From the first page of the October 1986 letter (bottom of the page):
Willard Administrative Center * Campus Box 146 * Boulder, Colorado 80309 * (303) 492-8241
(A previous letter Churchill wrote to Bill Means in May 1986, this time on CU's Educational Development Program stationery, lists the identical address and phone number.) The address is a CU address; the phone number is apparently a longtime possession of CU, since it currently rings in the office of Devin Nordberg of CU's Psychology Department, and in 1998 it was the phone number of Dr. Ron P.A. Gaykema, also of the Psychology Department.
Interestingly, when we checked today, none of the pages available on the website of CO-AIM lists a physical address of its offices; the only way it would appear one could contact CO-AIM is via an email address.
The October 1986 letter itself is a bitingly sarcastic rebuke addressed to Bill Means and (now-deceased) Bill Wahpepah at the International Indian Treaty Council, whom Churchill refers to as "Double-Billing." Nowhere is university business discussed or even alluded to. This is obviously CO-AIM correspondence conducted for CO-AIM's (or at least, Churchill's) benefit. The letter contains at its end the notation "WC/jas" which any typing student knows is the standard method to show the letter was dictated to and prepared by a third party. We have been unable to confirm whether a typist (presumably a state employee) with the initials "jas" worked for the university nearly 20 years ago, and in fact, the mere inclusion of the "WC/jas" does not mean the letter was actually typed by a third party; it could have been prepared by Churchill himself, who may have merely added the "WC/jas" for reasons of his own.
In any case, the letterhead with the CU address and phone number clearly demonstrates at least one instance of the use of university facilities for non-university business.
In 1975, the CU Regents adopted the following policy:
The University shall conduct its affairs so that no member of the University community shall derive private gain from his or her association with the University except as provided by explicit policies of the University.
And here's what, university policies define as fiscal misconduct (emphasis ours):
Examples include circumstances of embezzlement; defalcation; misappropriation of goods, services, or resources; diversion of assets; conflict of interest situations that result in financial loss; and violation of University fiscal policies and procedures for personal gain. Some of these terms are technical legal terms and the references noted above should be reviewed if clarification is required.
State rules (as quoted by CU policies here) state simply:
"All expenditures by State Agencies shall meet the following standards of propriety:
1. Are for official State business purposes only; and
2. Are reasonable and necessary under the circumstances
Further, current CU policy includes a handy "Seven Tests of Propriety" (emphasis ours):
Evaluating the propriety of some University expenditures requires a high degree of judgment. The list below contains seven tests of propriety that form an expenditure evaluation framework. University expenditures will be considered proper if they meet all of the following seven tests of propriety:
1.The expenditures are in the best interests of the University and for official University business only (see written Procurement Service Center Policies and Procedures for additional guidance on specific types of expenditures).
2.The expenditures comply with all existing federal, state, and University laws, rules, and policies.
3.The expenditures do not appear to, nor do they actually, provide any personal benefit to any employee without there being a valid business benefit to the University (see written Procurement Service Center Policies and Procedures for additional guidance on specific types of expenditures).
4.The expenditures are within approved budgets as determined by the appointed Fund/Unit Manager.
5.The expenditures are necessary to the accomplishment of University business, meaning that, without the expenditures, programmatic objectives would be difficult or otherwise more costly to achieve, or that the impact, level or quality of the achievement of these objectives would be reduced.
6.The expenditures are reasonable, meaning the quality and quantity of the goods or services were sufficient to meet, but not exceed, the identified need.
7. The appropriate level of management has approved the expenditures.
Even to the layman, Churchill's CO-AIM letter to Means clearly fails at least two of the "tests" (2, 5), and it's probable that a legal review would find at least two other failures (3 and 4), and finally, that the CU administration itself could shed light on whether the letter passed any of the three remaining tests (1, 6, 7). And the question of passing or failing the test may be moot; these "seven tests" appear to have been formulated in 1993, so it is questionable whether CU had similar "tests" or policies in place in 1986.
It is possible, though unlikely, that Churchill had the approval of CU officials to conduct CO-AIM business out of his campus office. This excerpt from a 1987 article in The Denver Post seems to imply at least a shut-eye approval (emphasis ours):
"Well, Churchill is not your normal desk jockey. He is the director of the Education Development Program, which develops campus minority projects, and the office is a good base from which to do his Native American work.
[...]
Now he has settled in at CU and is writing a book about the FBI and the confrontation at Pine Ridge. He is devoting much of his time to AIM issues."
Did Churchill misuse university facilities and resources for CO-AIM? Did he do it with the approval of CU administration? And despite any CU approval of his CO-AIM activities from his CU office, is he guilty of fiscal misconduct? Was he in violation of university policies that were in effect in 1986 (and this is a significant question, since some of the CU policies quoted above were formulated years later).
We've emailed a copy of this article along with a request for the answer to these questions to the appropriate CU officials. We'll keep our readers posted.
* AIM is not affiliated with CO-AIM, and has been in bitter contention for years with CO-AIM over a variety of charges and counter-charges.
UPDATE: We have located a current phone number for CO-AIM on this webpage (a February 2, 2005 press release): 303-871-0463. We find that the phone number is registered to a "G T Morris" of "1574 S Pennsylvania St" in Denver. "G T Morris" is in all probably the same Glenn Morris who joined Russell Means in incorporating the "The American Indian Movement" (if link fails to work, visit this page and search for for the business name "american indian movement") at that same address with the Colorado Secretary of State's office in 1992 (the not-for-profit organization started doing business under the name "The American Indian Movement of Colorado, Inc." in 1993; it was "administratively dissolved" in 2003, although from the looks of the CO-AIM website, nobody bothered to tell CO-AIM's webmaster of the dissolution).
Interestingly, the address listed for "The American Indian Movement" at the time of its dissolution was "201 W 5th Ave, Denver, CO 80204", which is also listed on Russell Means' website as the location of Four Winds American Indian Council, and is listed on this page as home of the Living Waters Indian Ministry. One can only imagine the immensity of the parking lot.
Just remember:
It was not Indians who spoke with forked tongues.
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