Posted on 02/03/2005 9:41:21 AM PST by freespirited
A University of Colorado regent says the board won't fire controversial ethnic-studies professor Ward Churchill when it meets today, despite urgent calls for his termination from lawmakers at the Capitol and Gov. Bill Owens.
"The law requires a process to fire a tenured professor," said Regent Michael Carrigan, who also is an attorney. "Calls to fire professor Churchill without due process are demands to take action that may be illegal. As such, they are irresponsible and ill-informed."
Lawmakers in the state House on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution denouncing the Boulder professor for writing an essay comparing some victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks to a Nazi war criminal.
The resolution was designed to shame Churchill; comfort 9/11 victims' families, who may have been hurt by his essay; and pressure the regents to fire him, said its sponsor, Rep. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch.
Churchill's essay "strikes an evil and inflammatory blow against the American healing process" after 9/11, according to the resolution.
The essay is "disgusting, vulgar (and) repugnant," said Harvey, who was among those calling for his resignation in a somber floor session.
But the regents cannot strip Churchill of tenure without due process, Carrigan said. At their meeting today, they will speak out against Churchill's essay and receive legal advice, he said.
Asked about the possibility of his firing, Churchill said, "They really don't want to do that unless they want me owning this university."
Owens called for Churchill's resignation Tuesday, saying, "Ideas have consequences, and words have meaning."
If the regents decide that dismissal is worth considering, they have to inform Churchill first, according to CU policy. He would then have 10 business days to ask the chancellor to take the matter to a special faculty committee.
After taking the issue to the committee, the chancellor would use the committee's findings to inform his recommendation to the regents.
Grounds for dismissal include incompetence, neglect of duty, insubordination, conviction of a felony or any offense involving moral turpitude, sexual harassment or any conduct falling below minimum standards of professional integrity.
Two tenured professors have been fired in the last five years - one for incompetence and one last April for "moral turpitude" following allegations of sexual harassment and assault on female students.
Churchill said he is not worried for his job because he is protected by CU's guarantee of academic freedom. If he does lose his job over this controversy, he'll sue, he said.
"My problem would be fighting off the number of lawyers that would want to be involved," he said. "This is exactly what I'm protected from - an attempt to take my job on the basis of a difference of opinion on a burning issue."
Regents have been receiving 200 e-mails a day on the controversy, Carrigan said.
Four House Republicans say they will try to strike $100,000 from CU's funding if the regents retain Churchill. They do not want state money paying his $94,242 salary, they said.
"He has a right to say anything he wants," said one of them, Rep. Bill Cadman of Colorado Springs. But, Cadman said, we don't have to "keep paying him to say it."
It's uncertain whether Democrats, who control both the Senate and the House, would support such a move.
One House Democrat said she would not.
"The General Assembly has no place in determining what a university does or does not do about its faculty," said Rep. Anne McGihon, D-Denver.
McGihon said she lost friends in the World Trade Center attack and found Churchill's essay "atrocious." But Wednesday's resolution should be the end of lawmakers' involvement in the controversy, she said.
In the essay, "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," Churchill accused "technicians" who died at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon of complicity in U.S. foreign policy that causes oppression around the world.
He called them "little Eichmanns," inviting a comparison to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.
Churchill maintains that he was referring to military-industrial workers, not everyone who died in the attacks.
"If (Wednesday's House) resolution is, in effect, a statement of sympathy with the victims of 9/11, hell, I'd sign it myself," Churchill said. "Now that we've gotten that agreement, how about a statement of sympathy for the ravaged families of Iraq and Palestine and Afghanistan and Guatemala?"
The American Indian Movement of Colorado, which counts Churchill as one of its leaders, also entered the fray Wednesday, saying in a statement that Churchill "is under attack by racists who would prefer to silence indigenous voices altogether."
Staff writer Amy Herdy contributed to this report.
Staff writer Dave Curtin can be reached at 303-820-1276 or dcurtin@denverpost.com. Staff writer Jim Hughes can be reached at 303-820-1244 or jhughes@denverpost.com
I wonder if there would be a "process" if they found out he was in the Klan.
Can you imagine these same protections afforded a conservative or (shudder) a Christian!
I am so angry!
I hope he get's hit by a bus, and then we can say he deserved it for being an idiot.
Meaning, they won't fire him today. I thought the national AIM disavowed him. And I'd like to see some exploration of his military background.
I'm guessing this guy is a grade A phony.
Jerryrutledge@adelphia.net, Tommyjclay@aol.com, Peter.Steinhauer@colorado.edu, Regent.Carlisle@colorado.edu, Regent.Hayes@colorado.edu, Carrigan@colorado.edu, Regent.Bosley@colorado.edu, Regent.Schauer@colorado.edu, Gail.Schwartz@colorado.edu
And to tell Ward what you think of him: Ward.Churchill@Colorado.edu
an arrogant despicable POS...
Why doesn't AIM put its money where its mouth is, then, and hire Churchill on their payroll? That way he can resign his position at the University, and become AIM's wandering emissary of hate and division, spreading his message of intolerance and bloodlust to any who would listen. He can bill it as "Prof. Churchill's Traveling Show of Bigotry and Prejudice".
There's a surprise. Hate speech is apparently okay so long as it's aimed in the right direction.
Watch the pressre increase as UC loses lots of funding and enrollments.
There Regents are dispicable weasels enabling Churchill, a bona fide psychopath. By the way he is NOT an American Indian as he claims.. any more than I am with my great-grandparent Native American.
Folks we need to lexus nexus search this guys work and find any fraud. We present that to the regents and he will be gone.
/ACLU-ABA-Boulder?
/sarcasm
Boy, that sure looks like an Indian, doesn't it? Sure has that redface look to him! Very Indianesque! Heap big Injun, right there! Heavy duty Indian! Not even slightly white! Straight Indian!
If I was as dog-@ss ugly as this guy I'd hate everything too.
Looks like Stephen King on a bad day!
The main thing, though, is how INDIAN he looks! Not white-bread at all! No no no! Heap big Injun!
**Regents Won't Fire Churchill**
Then maybe alumni need to take action and withold ALL donations to the University.
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