http://www.michellemalkin.com/
Posted on 03/24/2005 11:57:46 PM PST by ajolympian2004
KOA reporting: From Denver, live right now, CU-Boulder Chancellor Phil DiStefano will hold a news conference regarding the review related to Professor Ward Churchill this afternoon at 3:00 p.m. (5:00pm EST)
I'll liveblog anything newsworthy...ROUGH TRANSCRIPTION
DiStefano: [This is] an important moment in the university history...CU has been the focal point of intense public debate...I personally found the [Churchill 9/11] essay to be profoundly repugant and hurtful [to the 9/11 victims]...
Important values:
-freedom of expression
-personal integrity
-academic freedom
-intellectual honesty
It often has been said that a university is a marketplace of ideas...Indeed, one of our most cherished freedoms is academic freedom...But...with freedom comes with responsibility...
Summary of report:
...we initially focused on churchill's conduct, speeches, and writings. Also [investigated] potential research misconduct.
Two primary questions:
1) Did certain statements by Churchill exceed [acceptable boundaries?]
2) Is there evidence Churchill engaged in other conduct (research misconduct teaching misconduct, and fraudulent representations in his teachings) that warrants further action?
Key findings:
- Many Americans were outraged and angry by Prof. Churchill's most egregious statements relating to the [9/11 victims]...[but] we must consider any actions against Churchill in the context of the First Amendment...we have found that the contect and rhetoric, no matter how repugnant, are protected by the First Amendment. Limits have not been exceeded.
- In the course of this review, we have determined that the allegations of research misconduct warrant further action.
- Question of ethnicity. Regarding misrepresentation of ethnicity to gain credibility...we believe such misrepresentation may constitute research misconduct and failure to reach standards of research integrity.
- We have concluded that allegations of research conduct related to plagiarism HAVE SUFFICIENT MERIT TO WARRANT FURTHER INQUIRY. Will refer to Boulder Campus Standing Committee on research misconduct.
Q&A:
Review could take up to seven months.
Update: Report is available here. Here's a helpful excerpt outlining the charges of research misconduct that the reviewers considered:
In the course of this review, the University received information from scholars, expert in the fields in which Professor Churchill writes, who tendered allegations of research misconduct which, if true, could violate standards of professional integrity. The following information was considered:
* Professor John LaVelle of the University of New Mexico forwarded allegations to the reviewers that Professor Churchill's work is "sorely lacking in historical/factual veracity and scholarly integrity."29 One of Professor LaVelle's most serious allegations is that Professor Churchill has misrepresented an important statute in the field of federal Indian law, the General Allotment Act of 1887,30 and that this misrepresentation is a central premise of one of Professor Churchill's scholarly theories. According to Professor Churchill, the General Allotment Act "imposed a formal eugenics code" that tribes themselves adopted by making blood quantum a requirement of membership.31 Professor LaVelle has asserted that Professor Churchill's criticisms of Indian tribes for using blood quantum standards as part of their tribal enrollment criteria rests on false information about the Act.32 Professor LaVelle asserts that "[t]he main flaw of this federal/tribal conspiracy theory is that it rests on — and propagates — demonstrably false information concerning the contents and impact of the General Allotment Act." Professor Churchill continued to maintain the theory subsequent to publication of Professor LaVelle's articles.34 Other scholars have relied in their work on Professor Churchill's assertion that the General Allotment Act contained a blood quantum requirement.35
* Professor LaVelle makes a similar allegation about an assertion Professor Churchill has advanced concerning the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990.36 The Indian Arts and Crafts Act is aimed at preventing non-Indians from marketing their art as Indian-produced.37 Professor Churchill says the following about the Arts and Crafts Act:
The government "standard" involved — usually called "blood quantum" within the lexicon of "scientific" racism — is that a person can be an "American Indian artist" only if he or she is "certifiably" of "one-quarter or more degree of Indian blood by birth." Alternatively, the artist may be enrolled as a member of one or another of the federally-sanctioned "tribes" currently existing within the U.S. . . .38
Professor LaVelle refers to Professor Churchill's description of the Act as a "false characterization" and states further that Professor Churchill's description is "erroneous — and egregiously so."39
* Professor Thomas Brown of Lamar University forwarded information alleging that a theory Professor Churchill has published as fact-that the U.S. Army perpetuated genocide—is clearly contrary to the source Professor Churchill cites.40 Professor Churchill has asserted that the U.S. Army deliberately distributed smallpox-infested blankets to Mandan Indians in 1837, causing an epidemic in which over 100,000 people died.41 However, the source he cites is contrary to both the number of dead and his version of the story.42 Indeed, his source, Professor Russell Thornton of UCLA and other experts agree that the story is without historical basis.43 Professor Brown states:
Situating Churchill's rendition of the epidemic in a broader historiographical analysis, one must reluctantly conclude that Churchill fabricated the most crucial details of his genocide story. Churchill radically misrepresented the sources he cites in support of his genocide charges, sources which say essentially the opposite of what Churchill attributes to them.44
* Professor Fay G. Cohen of Dalhousie University in Canada told the University of Colorado during this review that Professor Churchill plagiarized her work by publishing a chapter entitled "In Usual and Accustomed Places" in a book entitled The State of Native America.45 The chapter was nearly the same as an article entitled "Implementing Indian Treaty Fishing Rights: Conflict and Cooperation" that she had published in a volume edited by Professor Churchill.46 The book chapter showed the author to be "Institute for Natural Progress," and the "About the Contributors" section of the book, in turn, attributed the work of the Institute of Natural Progress to Ward Churchill. In 1997 the Dalhousie University legal counsel rendered an opinion concluding that the chapter was plagiarized."47
Professor Cohen alleged that she did not communicate the allegations of plagiarism discussed above to the University of Colorado until March 2005 because she was intimidated by Professor Churchill based on past dealings. She recounted that when she withdrew her work from The State of Native America, a book edited by Professor Churchill, due to substantive editorial disagreements, he telephoned her late at night and said in a menacing voice: "I'll get you for this." While the threat and resulting intimidation described by Professor Cohen did not directly relate to the research misconduct allegation, they would be relevant to a question which may be raised during the course of the research misconduct inquiry, that is, why Professor Cohen did not pursue the plagiarism claim sooner.
* Rhonda Kelly, the sister of Professor Churchill's late wife, Leah Renae Kelly, has made allegations to the reviewers concerning a fifty-page "biographical preface" written by Professor Churchill for a book of essays by Leah Kelly entitled In My Own Voice. The essays were posthumously published in 2001 in a book edited by Professor Churchill. Rhonda Kelly denounces the preface as "inaccurate and defaming" because, in her view, the preface incorrectly describes Leah's upbringing on and near a Canadian Ojibway reserve. Further, she says Churchill misrepresents Ojibway society as matrilineal when in fact it is patrilineal. The Assembly of First Nations, representing Native peoples across Canada, has also passed a resolution in support of Rhonda Kelly and denouncing the book.48
* Professor LaVelle also alleges that Professor Churchill has misused the materials of another scholar, Rebecca L. Robbins, Ph.D. Professor LaVelle points out that a passage from an essay in a 1993 book by Professor Churchill closely resembles a similar passage from a 1992 publication by Dr. Robbins.49 Years after Professor LaVelle raised the issue, Professor Churchill republished the essay with some changes but still containing Robbins' work without attribution.50
The inquiry into allegations of research misconduct is a function assigned to the faculty. The University of Colorado at Boulder Standing Committee on Research Misconduct (the "Committee") has the duty to review, inter alia, allegations of "[f]abrication, falsification, plagiarism and other forms of misappropriation of ideas, or additional practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted in the research community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research."51 Allegations of research misconduct that are not frivolous are reviewed by the Committee. With the exception of Rhonda Kelly's allegations, with respect to which the reviewers were unable to obtain independent verification, the referenced allegations meet that minimum standard and will be referred to the Committee for further inquiry. If the Committee determines that Professor Churchill engaged in research misconduct, the Committee is to make recommendations regarding possible disciplinary action ranging from warning to dismissal. Consistent with University policy, the Committee's process will afford Professor Churchill all due opportunity to respond to the allegations.
This. Loon. Still. Has. A. Job.
Update: And he's headed for a speaking gig in a comfortable habitat...UC Berkeley!
Update II: In case you missed it, Victor Davis Hanson writes about Churchill today at NRO: Academia's everyman. And more from AP on CU's decision to review tenure.
Update III: David Harsanyi, terrific conservative columnist at the Denver Post, was on O'Reilly tonight. Both agree the report was essentially a whitewash. Harsanyi pointed particularly to Churchill's advocacy of violence. He's been "emboldened" by the university, Harsanyi said, which is "passing the buck."
Yup.
Reader Doug asks: "Will this go on so long that he ends up lionized by the myopic historical lens that warped Che Guevara? Will 'Ward Lives!' become the t-shirt slogan of the future?"
Argh!
Pot meet kettle.
Isn't Malkin the wacko who wrote a book justifying FDR's detention of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII?
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