Posted on 02/22/2005 12:10:57 PM PST by freespirited
In little more than two weeks, an academic committee headed by CU Chancellor Phil DiStefano will issue a report on whether Professor Ward Churchill's "conduct, including his speech, provide any grounds for dismissal for cause, as described in the Regents' laws." It may be the most important document they've prepared in their lives.
What's at stake, potentially, is not only the professional fate of Churchill. Hanging in the balance is also the university's interpretation of academic tenure itself.
Does tenure shield professors from discipline for any speech, no matter how menacing; from any written claims, no matter how false; from any conduct, short of a felony? What does the standard of "professional incompetence" mentioned in the regents' laws mean, if anything? What are the "minimal standards of professional integrity" that must be met?
No matter what DiStefano's team concludes, it will only stir up further controversy unless the report addresses several specific allegations leveled against Churchill since his essay on 9/11 became widely known.
Allegation 1: Churchill repeatedly and explicitly, in speeches, essays and books, supports and encourages violence against the state and against categories of people he associates with oppression. Examples have been copiously documented in this newspaper and elsewhere. If these do not violate "minimal standards of professional integrity" in an institution dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge through civil discourse and uninhibited debate, is there any form of speech that would? Would tenure also protect a professor who promoted the theory that blacks lynched in the South a century ago deserved it, or that the male sexual appetite needs to be satisfied occasionally through forcible rape? If not, what is the difference between those justifications of lawless violence and Churchill's?
Allegation 2: Churchill's scholarly treatment of several issues - including an epidemic among Mandans and other Indians in 1837, and the contents and effect of the 1887 General Allotment Act - amounts to fabrication. If the allegation is true, should it trigger sanctions? If it shouldn't, how many instances of fabrication would be needed?
Allegation 3: Churchill has plagiarized from other authors on more than one occasion. Again, is the allegation true, is it enough to trigger sanctions and, if not, how many instances of plagiarism is a tenured professor allowed?
Allegation 4: Churchill has misrepresented his ethnicity, which in turn has benefitted his career. While this is a difficult matter to assess - no one expects DiStefano & Co. to conduct genealogical research - the committee at least needs to explain CU's policy on ethnic identification.
Allegation 5: Churchill has belatedly signed an oath required under Colorado law to support the federal and state constitutions. How can he fulfill that oath while endorsing violent attacks against the United States and the dissolution of the country?
To sum up, the DiStefano committee owes Coloradans a detailed report answering widely asked questions regarding the scope of academic freedom and the meaning of professional standards. On Feb. 1, the Boulder Faculty Assembly executive committee released a statement urging the regents to defend academic freedom. Yet as the statement also acknowledged, "academic freedom is not absolute. It comes with limits and must be exercised conscientiously."
We think academic freedom covers just about everything except historical fabrication, plagiarism and repeated, unrepentant exhortations to violence - violence that very well could end up targeting Churchill's colleagues, just as the Unabomber targeted a geneticist and a computer scientist during his spree. If the Di- Stefano committee disagrees, so be it, but it at least needs to tell the public why.
Allegation 1 is the only one without merit- a person can say or think any stupid thing they want. If the university didnt know he was stupid before they gave him tenure it is their fault.
but 2-5 are worth firing him if true
How about this question: how would the CU administration distinguish between the views of Ward Churchill and those of the 'UNABOMBER' Ted Kaczinski?
(there appears to be remarkably little difference - the UNABOMBER was merely (sarcasm) implementing a view remarkably similar to that of Churchill, killing and maiming people he considered to be technocrats in the service of the American Empire - is Ward Churchill anything other than another propagandist for people like the 9/11 terrorists and the UNABOMBER?????)
and these:
Is there any kind of advocacy of terrorism and unlawful violence that CU will prohibit for its faculty and staff?
What levels must fraud, plagiarism, and deceit rise to in order to be unacceptable to the CU faculty and administration?
They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Whichever way they come down will cause them a lot of trouble. Probably they will do what they think is politically expedient--or in more euphemistic terms, what is best for the university.
As a rule, judges do not second guess such academic decisions as long as the proper process is followed. So if Churchill is fired and takes it to court, he might win a year or two of salary, but unless the judge is a real activist--always possible these days, of course--he will not force the university to rehire Churchill.
I absolutely agree with you on this. The University has the most 'splainin' to do here.
Since no one will do genealogical research, I may stop encouraging my kids to leave ethnicity questions on forms blank, and instead say to mark Native American. Hey. It pays off! No one seems in the least concerned that Churchill has ripped off genuine Natives by denying them the scholarships or consideration for position that he got in their name.
The tension BUILDS...
Excellent point
I always mark "native American". When challenged, I tell the name and address of the hospital where I was born. I usually get eye rolls and then we move on...
This and today's earlier posted article about the Harvard faculty's academic lynching of Larry Summers show the complete mess the Marxists (AKA liberals) have made of academia and their total hypocrisy, where they claim free speech and academic freedom for themselves while denying it to their mildest critics.
Churchill is and has always been an academic fraud. He falsified his ethnicity to get an AA position, lacked the essential, minimum academic credentials, published his articles in advocacy journals instead of peer reviewed academic journals, and has been persuasively accused of plagiarizing his material and faking some of his research. All of the foregoing defects in his background and scholarship would have been obvious to anyone who gave him a thorough and fair vetting. Nevertheless, he was given tenure in one year, rather than the usual six, because UC, driven by PC pressures, desperately wanted a radical, American Indian "scholar" on its faculty. Now it's learned that he slandered the 9/11 victims as "little Eichmanns" without any evidence and his supporters stridently defend him on "free speech" and "academic freedom" grounds.
However, Larry Summers, a man with a brilliant background, genuine credentials for his position, and a full-fledged member of the liberal establishment, makes one speculative remark, in an professional academic context, about why women as a group do not do as well in hard sciences as men, is subjected to a full, hysterical, screeching attack and is forced to do Maoist self-criticism. Few professors, particularly at Harvard, are making any effort to defend Summers' academic freedom, although that is exactly what he was responsibly exercising in a forum specifically designed for its exercise.
Only an institution rotten to the core with Marxism could elevate and lionize an unqualified, malicious crackpot who defecates on the memory of the 9/11 victims, while simultaneously pillorying a highly qualified, responsible academic leader who maturely and thoughtfully addresses a serious academic personnel issue in a professional forum designed to deal with that issue.
These two cases show Marxist academia is rotten to the core and totally hypocritical.
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