LUCY PEMONI / STAR-BULLETIN Protesters made their opinions known last night outside the entrance of the auditorium where University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill delivered his speech on the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus. Posted on 02/23/2005 1:28:51 PM PST by leaning_libertarian
Starbulletin.com
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
"I never wanted to be a poster boy for academic freedom. You can't give an inch. If you let this one down, you've lost it all."
Ward Churchill Visiting University of Colorado professor
LUCY PEMONI / STAR-BULLETIN Protesters made their opinions known last night outside the entrance of the auditorium where University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill delivered his speech on the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus.
Churchill attacks essay’s critics University of Colorado president calls for calm
By Craig Gima cgima@starbulletin.com
Ward Churchill, the outspoken Colorado professor who created a national uproar by comparing 9/11 victims to Nazis, told an overflow crowd at the University of Hawaii last night that he is the target of a right-wing strategy to attack academia.
"I was targeted because they thought I would be an easy target," Churchill told the crowd of about 800. "That was a mistake.
"It's not just an attempt to purge me," he said. "It's a purge of the academy."
The crowd was mostly sympathetic to Churchill, a University of Colorado ethnic studies professor. He was applauded more than a dozen times and was greeted at least three times with standing ovations.
Before the speech began, about a dozen members of a UH college Republican group protested.
"I never wanted to be a poster boy for academic freedom," Churchill said. "You can't give an inch. If you let this one down, you've lost it all."
Much of Churchill's speech was devoted to explaining and expanding on his essay written on Sept. 11, 2001, that called 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns."
LUCY PEMONI / STAR-BULLETIN University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill drew about 800 people to his speech at UH-Manoa last night -- plus a dozen protesters like these.
He said the theme of his essay and a later book was that the United States has been involved in violating international law and killing innocents and should not be surprised that some people would want to kill Americans -- the "chickens coming home to roost," as his essay is titled.
He argued that the World Trade Center could be considered a legitimate target because it is a symbol of the financial power that allows the United States to flex its military might.
He said if you read his essay, he called the "technicians" in the World Trade Center "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who actually did not kill any Jews but made it possible for the trains to run on time and for the Holocaust to take place.
It's obvious, Churchill said, that he did not mean to say children, janitors, firefighters and innocent bystanders were part of that group. Instead, he said, he was referring to investment bankers and others who make the killing of innocents by the U.S. military and U.S. policy possible.
Churchill did address the issue of his ethnicity, admitting that he is not Native American.
"Is he an Indian? Do we really care?" he said, quoting those he called his "white Republican" critics.
"Let's cut to the chase; I am not," he said.
His pedigree is "not important," Churchill said: "The issue is the substance of what is said."
He went on to explain that the issue of whether he is Native American has been blown up by sloppy reporting and reporters quoting other reporters.
His speech drew mostly positive reaction from those who attended. But Tyrone Hogenauer said he was disappointed.
"I thought he was going to talk on free speech," Hogenauer said.
Instead, Churchill talked about himself and attacked his critics the way they are attacking him, Hogenauer said: "It's a sad thing."
UH student Kirsten Chong said her professors assigned her to listen to the speech.
"He was humorous and he certainly didn't pull any punches," she said, adding that because she is native Hawaiian, she agrees with much of what he said.
University of Hawaii www.hawaii.edu BACK TO TOP | University leader urges calm in professor decision By Steven K. Paulson Associated Press
DENVER » University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman warned lawmakers yesterday against rushing to punish a professor who likened some Sept. 11, 2001, victims to Nazis, saying a misstep could land the university in court and make the embattled teacher "a very wealthy man at our expense."
Furious lawmakers threatened to take state funding away from the university over an essay by Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, who wrote that some "technocrats" killed in the World Trade Center were like Adolf Eichman, who orchestrated the Nazi holocaust.
Gov. Bill Owens has said Churchill should be fired, but Hoffman told a caucus of Republican legislators that the professor's future has to be handled the right way.
"If we approach this issue wrong, not only will every regent be sued personally, but every administrator will be sued personally and professor Churchill will win his lawsuit with triple damages and be back on the faculty, a very wealthy man at our expense," Hoffman said.
The university has launched a review of Churchill's writings and speeches to see if he overstepped academic freedom and should be dismissed. But Hoffman said public debate about firing him only clouds the issue.
"The more talk there is about the need to fire him, the more difficult it becomes for us to do that, if that's what we decide to do," she said.
Republican Sen. Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs, who introduced a resolution last week urging the university to fire Churchill, did not return a message.
Lamborn said he had been meeting with regents to discuss the resolution because he wanted to avoid any "unintended consequences."
Hoffman said the law protects public employees' right to free speech, "no matter how odious it might be."
Some members of the Board of Regents have suggested reviewing the university's policy of granting tenure, essentially a lifelong appointment. Owens has said lawmakers might want to consider setting statewide standards for when tenure is granted, instead of leaving it to universities.
Hoffman told lawmakers that tampering with tenure would be a mistake that could drive away other faculty members and make it difficult to hire new ones.
"They need to know we have not engaged in a witch hunt," Hoffman said. "We're taking a careful and measured approach."
University of Colorado www.colorado.edu/
That's the problem. This man is a total liar and fraud and con artist. That is not free speech, it is evil. His false claim of Indian ancestry, for example, led to his being appointed at Colorado over two actual Indian applicants. Read the AIM website to see how evil he has been to the actual Indians and their cause. Fraud is evil, just as with the "Reverend" Al Sharpton, though it may be beloved by the MSM. Lying is evil, as Christ pointed out when he spoke of it in connection with the devil. Ward Churchill is evil, though, like the council that dealt with the blind man healed by Christ at the pool of Bethsaida, our council of the MSM will not see it, nor will they see the good that comes from the message of Christ. They will see neither good nor evil, nor will you, but for our nation, our ability to discern good from evil and act for the good and against evil is a paramount concern, now that we have the ability to do something about it. When Ward Churchill stole copyrighted art and sold it in a con as his "original" Indian Art, was that not evil? His advocacy and support of violence against Americans and our nation, is that not evil?
Since it's been shown that Churchill is not a Heap Big Injun Chief, that he makes up stuff and writes about it, that he plagiarizes, that he copies other people's art and sells it as his own, and that he doesn't even have a PhD......
..... how are we attacking academia? Cuz Churchill sure ain't no academic.
No, we're attacking leftist puke frauds and wannabees.
1) Follow the money.
2) Men are horny.
3) People who are not spiritual always want more.
4) People who are genuinely spiritual are pretty nice.
That about sums up humanity.
Leftists don't like it when they are protested. Anti leftists have the right to free speech as well.
Evil? Sorry - start throwing the word evil around and it's game over.
I wish.
Atta Boy!
I thouoght so. It is difficult how anyone who has been alive very long could still be in denial about evil in the world. There is no sin and there is no satan as far as you are concerned, right? All is relative, right?
You are not the friggin Pope to be able to throw a charge of "evil" in an academic discussion. What theological authority do you have? What is theology doing in a discussion of a secular nature? Sorry - you just ended any conversation on the subject.
Scripture is the authority, as Christ plainly said, but then anti-Christian bigots have no understanding of matters of faith. Obviously you are among those who have the delusion that people should never have a judgment about anything, usually misquoting scripture to the purpose. You keep saying that the discussion is ending but you don't shut up.
I never brought up scripture in a secular discussion on politics and academia and free speech.
That's the point. Truth does not need you or anyone else to bring it up. As President Bush has pointed out, it is a guide for those who believe. When God created the world and sent his only son to save us, he did not give an order that politics and academia would be exempt. In fact, ironically, most of our leading universities, apart from land grant public universities, were founded by believers who wanted His Word spread in the world. Now we see the silly notion that there is a separate parallel world where He does not exist. God is in this whether you acknowledge it or not, and for those who believe, Scripure's condemnation of lying as being of the devil means it's wrong for a compulsive con artist and liar like Ward Churchill to be in a position of authority over the young in particular.
President Bush is not a holy man either.
He is a believer. No one claims that he is any holier than anyone else, least of all himself. Your own inability to understand these matters is without limit. Never having had any experience with faith, your pronouncements upon it are like a virgin opining about sexual experience. You haven't a clue.
You make my point. Religion is in everything and you have no control over it being so.
Religion has no place in this discussion.
He whose heart is darkened cannot understand. Those who think that God is not in it: thinking themselves wise, they become fools. The wrath of God is revealed toward those who suppress the truth. His outworkings are not always known to us, but, in a nation inspired at its founding by an overwhelming desire to protect against the fallibility of man and secure the blessings of Divine Providence, there is no right to suppress the truth at taxpayer's expense, much less to outright lie and cheat.
Wrath of God? So we had 9/11 comming to us ? Is that waht you are arguing now?
Not at all, but in your ignorance and arrogance you would see it that way. You really are like a virgin opining about sex. Try and read the first chapters of Paul's letter to the Romans. There it is explained how we cannot judge except in accordance with God's will and ways. For those who believe there is no separate criteria apart from God's will and Christ's admonitions to us in accordance with his will. But, hey, keep on with the mindless sophistry. It continues to expose the inconsistency of your assertions and accusations. Nothing justifies the evil of those who perpetrated 9/11's horror but it would be a mistake to think that these events have no purpose or meaning and it is the heighth of ignorance to think that the attacks of Al Qaeda and Ward Churchill's praise of those attacks and justifications of them are not of the same source and evil.
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