Posted on 02/10/2005 9:36:59 PM PST by neverdem
BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 10 - Prof. Ward L. Churchill has made a career at the University of Colorado out of pushing people's buttons, colleagues and students say, clearly relishing his stance as radical provocateur and in-your-face critic.
Whether it is getting arrested by the Denver police for trying to disrupt Columbus Day, which Professor Churchill has described as a "celebration of genocide" because of the deaths of Indians that resulted from European colonization, or ruffling feathers in the faculty lounge, hyperbole and bombast have always been ready tools in the Churchill kit bag, people here say.
Now many of the offended are pushing back. The storm of controversy that has blown up around Professor Churchill over his essay about the Sept. 11 attacks, with its reference to the Nazi Adolf Eichmann - the "technocrats" at the World Trade Center were "little Eichmanns," Professor Churchill said - has turned the professor into a talking point and a political punch line. On conservative talk radio, on campuses across the country, and especially here in Boulder, debate about Professor Churchill means debate about freedom of speech, the solemnity of Sept. 11 and the supposed liberal bias of academia.
Many people here say that the professor - with his scholarly record under investigation by the university l and with Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, calling for his dismissal - has become a symbol of academic expression under fire. Others worry that subjects like Sept. 11 have become "sacred," and cordoned off from unpopular analysis. Some say that the vitriolic debate itself is the message and that people have been transformed into mirror images of the man they love or loathe - little Churchills, as it were, who are just as entrenched, over-the-top and, apparently, eager to offend as he himself.
"Two sides are being presented without a lot of people listening," said Joe Flasher, 24, a graduate student in astrophysics. "You already have your opinion, right. So it's one person saying what they think and then the other person saying the complete opposite. It seems very polarized. But I guess it is the ultimate exercise in free speech."
Student organizations like College Democrats and College Republicans have skirmished over Professor Churchill, a member of the ethnic studies department. The Democratic group began a petition this week saying, "The attacks on Professor Ward Churchill are attacks on the academic freedom of the university." The Republicans, in calling for his dismissal, said that alumni should freeze donations and that parents should send their children elsewhere until political balance is brought to the professorial ranks.
"It's probably in their best interest to get rid of guys like that, but why hide what this place really is: a bunch of lunatic leftists," said Matthew Schuldt, senior vice chairman of College Republicans.
The undercurrent of the debate, faculty members and students say, is anxiety about how the outside world regards the university. A football recruiting scandal and several alcohol-related deaths among students over the last year created waves of bad publicity for the institution. Now some people fear that everyone will think the university is full of people like Professor Churchill, whose essay, which drew little attention at its publication after the attacks, gained notoriety when he was scheduled to speak at Hamilton College in upstate New York last week. It suggests little emotion about the deaths of thousands of people on Sept. 11 and a cold logic of foreign policy analysis salted with terms that seemed calculated to enrage rather than enlighten.
"If he had just been a little more thoughtful, nothing would have happened," Uriel Nauenberg, a professor of physics and the former chairman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly, said. "He did not have to say these things in the manner that he did."
Nonetheless, Professor Nauenberg said he did not believe that Professor Churchill should be forced out because of the essay, though he added that he personally found the expressions in the essay obnoxious.
Professor Churchill, 57, a Vietnam War veteran who became a lecturer at the university in 1978 and was granted tenure in 1991, has claimed affiliations over the years with many vociferous left-wing groups, including the Black Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society and the American Indian Movement. He said in an interview that winning peoples' attention often meant not being nice. The United States' foreign and domestic policies, he said, are brutal, and the words to describe that can be painful.
"I don't believe in the theory that we get to treat people like dogs, but you have to talk to us in a polite way," he said.
Faculty members say that an objection to his writing style or opinions, however outrageous or unpopular, is not enough to justify firing him. The 30-day review of his "writings, speeches, tape recordings and other works," that was announced last week by the university's governing body, the Board of Regents, must find evidence of outright academic dishonesty, said R L Widmann, a professor of English and the chairwoman of the Academic Affairs Committee of the Boulder Faculty Assembly.
" 'I published a falsehood and I knew it to be untrue' - that's what they'd have to find," Professor Widmann said.
But the passions have led to some dishonesty. University officials said on Monday, for instance, that they were canceling a speech by Professor Churchill because of security concerns. The student organizers of the speech had received death threats because of their support for the professor, university officials said, and safety could not be guaranteed.
The students, whose names were not released, admitted on Tuesday that the death threats were embellished.
"They said, 'We were just being political,' " Ron Stump, the vice chancellor for student affairs, said. "We expressed our disappointment."
The speech came off without incident - and without any apologies from Professor Churchill.
Many students interviewed on campus in recent days said they feared that the lines being drawn around Professor Churchill were also creating boundaries about what could be freely and safely talked about in the United States.
"I think it's no longer about free speech - it's turned into this kind of thing that we can't talk about Sept 11, that it's kind of become a sacred issue," said Erin Langer, 22, a senior humanities major from Naperville, Ill. "People forget we're in a university setting, and the way ideas are challenged is by looking at an extreme view. The fact that he is so extreme challenges people to think more."
Michelle York contributed reporting from New York for this article.
Another NYTimes article devoid of facts.
If the Professor lied on his resume to get his job, he should be fired.
If his scholarship is based on fraud, he should be fired.
I'm sure his views are shared by the rest of the faculty at the school.
We DO talk abut Sep 11 and we will until we draw our last breath. Those people were innocent and did not deserve to die in this manner by a bunch of crazed religious fanatics. We HONOR those of our people who were attacked on that day and WE WILL NEVER FORGET.
Personally if someone in my family died in any of that that day, ward whatever his last name is would hear from me. I would demand a meeting with him on national TV and tell him to look ME in the eye while calling one of my loved ones a little Eichmann.
I hope that "what goes around, comes around" gets
in this ar$eholes (Churchill's) face big time!Do I wish him harm? No.
Do I wish him well? He** no.
The guy has even made up lies in his scholarship:
This is enough to fire him without him winning any lawsuit.
http://hal.lamar.edu/~browntf/Churchill1.htm
Ideas that can be discussed in a university setting when everybody understands you are being challenged by an extreme view is one thing.
Making extreme statements in public and passing them off as facts is another.
Tell the chief to get back on the (college) reservation.
Bingo.
Sounds like you've been through the "infinite Why? loop" a time or two with your kids, LOL.
Gotta love 'em, their little brains are growing almost exponentially, sucking in information like a neutron star, what a joy to witness!
Haven't made any kids of my own yet (bet on the wrong pony a while back) and it's getting close to being too late for me (still haven't found a new filly), but grew up in a large enough family and changed enough diapers that it sometimes feels that way.
I empathize with you. It's tough explaining some of the world's nastiness to a beautiful little kid.
All I can say is don't lie, just give them as much truth as they can handle. They're gonna find out sooner or later, so it might as well be from you.
Do you remember how you first found out the truth about Santa Claus?
And if CU has the stones to do this, I'm sure he will have an endowed chair or at the very least a tenured position in Ethnic Studies waiting for him at Berkeley.
The prevailing view is that Freaks of a feather can Freak together all they want behind closed doors, nunya bidness.
But when you're an employee of a Freak, and because of their complete lack of any ethical or moral standards in their personal lives, they screw you over in their business lives, then it becomes a real issue.
If everyone was raised to the same high standards as I was, than the "behind closed doors" theory would be correct. But the fact is that the Freaks have no standards at all.
The moral of the story is that Freaks are bad.
Character matters.
Yeah, but that might have happened anyway. It is important to draw the line at some point in the most serious way. If we don't, we only encourage the other "Psychiatric Wards" out there to continue and heighten their insanity.
There was a time when people knew they had free speech but they also knew 'right from wrong'.
Just because you CAN say it doesn't mean you SHOULD say it. The sense of decency has been lost.
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