Posted on 01/27/2005 3:10:44 PM PST by swilhelm73
Clinton, N.Y. - A University of Colorado professor who suggested the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were justified and those who died in the World Trade Center were not innocent victims has ignited protests on an upstate New York college campus where he's been invited to speak.
Ward Churchill, an expert on indigenous issues and chairman of the ethnic studies program at CU-Boulder, will take part in a panel discussion Feb. 3 at Hamilton College.
Administrators defended Churchill's appearance but admitted his views are considered "repugnant and disparaging" by many people.
"Hamilton, like any institution committed to the free exchange of ideas, invites to its campus people of diverse opinions, often controversial," the school said in a statement from college spokesman Michael DeBraggio.
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In a treatise titled "Some People Push Back," written after the bombings, Churchill asserted the nearly 3,000 people killed at the World Trade Center worked for "the mighty engine of profit" but chose to ignore their role.
"True enough, they were civilians of a sort," he wrote. "But innocent? Gimme a break."
Churchill went on to describe the World Trade Center victims as "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolph Eichmann, who carried out Hitler's plan to exterminate Europe's Jews during World War II.
"I think the professor's words are repugnant and plain looney," said Colorado state Sen. Shawn Mitchell. Last year Mitchell, a Broomfield Republican, pushed legislation to protect the political views of conservative college students.
"It's unfortunate any group anywhere is interested in what he has to say," Mitchell said. "But I hope their response is to defeat his message with a better message of their own. I hope people have the good sense to stay away from this hatemonger, but if they feel compelled to respond, they should answer with speech and not obstruction and physical interference."
Churchill was also at the center of controversy in Denver when he and others were arrested after protesting the city's Columbus Day Parade because they believed it was degrading to American Indians.
He was acquitted last week of failing to listen to police officers who had asked the protesters to get out of the way of the parade.
The invitation to Churchill has split the campus of 1,700 Hamilton students, as well as the faculty.
Art history professor Steven Goldberg said it was "morally outrageous" to bring Churchill to campus. History professor Robert Paquette called it "an act of utter irresponsibility."
Jessica Miraglia, 19, a sophomore from Reading, Pa., created a poster that read: "You don't have to agree with them in order to learn from them."
"Hamilton, like any institution committed to the free exchange of ideas"
As long as they are Socialist ones.
There is a free flow of ideas on campuses... between status quo socialist ideas and more radical socialist ideas
Good f'ing grief. I just don't get it, how does this guy keep his job? How does this type of "essay" contribute anything to education?
They should put this as*hole in a room full of New York cops/firefighters and let him read it.
"You don't have to agree with them in order to learn from them."
Oooooh Jessica! The old "Character doesn't count" routine. I wonder if she'd have any problem learning from a KKK grand poobah.
If he can defend his ideas he should be willing to let members of the audience come armed.
Now that is the best idea I've heard all day.
>>>> Clinton, N.Y. <<<<
Figures
Is a punch in the nose ok yet?
As stupid as this guy apparently is, what educational benefit is expected from him showing up on campus? I mean, I believe in free speech, but I wouldn't want to pay someone to teach my kids idiocy.
He's an embarrassment to the good name Churchill.
A good Freeping might be in order. Here's his contact information:
Ward L Churchill
Ethnic Studies
University of Colorado at Boulder
339 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0339
Ward.Churchill@Colorado.EDU
Office: 303-492-8852
He's an embarrassment to the good name Churchill.
That was my thought too. I have so much respect for Winston Churchill as a historical figure (personally, I think he was the greatest political leader of the 20th Century), just the name Churchill attached to a quote will make me stop and take notice. Too bad this piece of human trash sullies that great name by his mere existence. Maybe he should stand before a group of victims families when call them "little Eichmanns". But we all know that coward will only spout such garbage from the safety of a liberal college campus.
This doofas is essentially a walking Saturday Night Live skit. Thanks for posting the pictures. They really made a world of difference when I could put a face to his loony words. He's SOOOOOO serious! The best thing to do with a leftist kook like this is to give him maximum media exposure. I even hope he gets on television. Yeah dude, keep "helping" your cause. BUHWAHAHA!!
"the free exchange of ideas"
it's more like:
a free exchange of emotions
on university campi today
they gave up thinking a long time ago.
As a 2004 Hamilton alum I can say that Hamilton is actually a conservative campus. The students are fairly apathetic but there are several conservative professors who are the ones causing the stink about Churchill coming to campus. So to joke about "socialist ideas" being the accepted norm on college camuses in general is one thing, but Hamilton is conservative and "socialist ideas" are far from the accepted norm at Hamilton.
Thats said, my understanding is that over the past 20 years Churchill has spoke at over 200 colleges and universities and there has never been any controversy like this over his invitation to speak. The reason you are even talking about this now and know about it is only because the conservative professors at Hamilton have alterted the AP to the controversy that they themselves started. The conservative professors at Hamilton started this controversy by posting around the campus a flier they drafted which equates Churchill to a terrorist. In response, Jessica posted her fliers around campus stating that "You don't have to agree with them to learn from them." That is all that happened at Hamilton. There were no "protests" to Churchill coming to campus as the name of the article would suggest. There were just some fliers.
My point is that not all colleges are liberal and that even though Hamilton is conservative this "controversy" is really not that big of a deal in light of Churchill's track record of previous speaking engagements. The truth is that, while Hamilton is conservative, the school does a good job of bringing both liberal and conservative speakers to campus. During my time at Hamilton the speakers who visited included liberal former president Bill Clinton, conservative former NYC mayor Rudy Guliani, conservative radical Walter Williams, and conservative radical David Horowitz. Churchill and other liberal speakers just balance things out. What bothers Jessica, I think, is that Walter Williams and David Horowitz are just as conservative as Churchill is liberal (if that even make sense) but there was little or no controversy over their arrival on campus. We can learn from every speaker, liberal or conservative, no matter how radical they are.
They have a token conservative (even David Horowitz once) almost every year. Seriously, that's better than most.
No they aren't. Williams and Horowitz are actually much, indeed infinitely, more liberal. They at least are liberals in some (classical) sense of the term. Churchill doesn't appear to be liberal in any sense. He's a leftist-extremist.
A good case could be made that the war in which they were combatants has been waged more-or-less continuously by the "Christian West" – now proudly emblematized by the United States – against the "Islamic East" since the time of the First Crusade, about 1,000 years ago. More recently, one could argue that the war began when Lyndon Johnson first lent significant support to Israel's dispossession/displacement of Palestinians during the 1960s, or when George the Elder ordered "Desert Shield" in 1990, or at any of several points in between. Any way you slice it, however, if what the combat teams did to the WTC and the Pentagon can be understood as acts of war – and they can – then the same is true of every US "overflight' of Iraqi territory since day one. The first acts of war during the current millennium thus occurred on its very first day, and were carried out by U.S. aviators acting under orders from their then-commander-in-chief, Bill Clinton. The most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course.
That they waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and restraint.
They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."
There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .
Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. 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.
Full text here.
Glad you signed up today to push out the usual Womyn's Center line ("students...apathetic...Hamilton...conservative...can learn from...liberal...radical").
And, no, Ward Churchill isn't the same as Rudy Giuliani or an african-american guest commentator from the PBS Nightly Business Report.
Class of '88
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