Posted on 02/26/2005 9:27:29 AM PST by freespirited
Nearly 200 University of Colorado faculty members have bought a full-page newspaper ad demanding that school officials halt their investigation of Ward Churchill's work.
The ad is scheduled to run in Monday's Daily Camera.
It calls for an end to the 30-day review of the American Indian studies professor that school officials expect to complete by mid-March. The investigation was a response to political pressure and not based on "any prior formal complaint of specific professional or academic misconduct on his part," it said.
The statement defends Churchill's "right to speak what he believes to be the truth" based on academic freedom rules designed to prevent faculty members from being fired for unpopular views.
In a 2001 essay, Churchill appeared to sympathize with the Sept. 11 hijackers and wrote that many of the victims were not innocent because of their role in driving U.S. foreign policy. In its most controversial part, the essay compared some World Trade Center victims to a notorious Nazi.
Outrage over the essay prompted an internal review of Churchill's work.
Lawmakers who have called for Churchill's dismissal have said they're happy CU is conducting the investigation. State Sen. Tom Wiens, R-Castle Rock, said earlier this month that the examination shows CU is "taking a hold of the issues."
CU's Arts & Sciences Council passed a resolution Feb. 10 protesting the investigation. The ad is another step to "pressure the administration to be aware that the faculty is serious about this," said Margaret LeCompte, an education professor.
"It is going to be extremely difficult, if academic freedom is on the block, for us to hire and keep good faculty members," she said.
The petitioners paid a total of nearly $1,600 of their own money to place the ad.
LeCompte and Andrew Cowell, an associate professor of French, Italian and linguistics, said some faculty members who don't have the job security of tenure didn't feel comfortable signing the newspaper statement because of the political climate.
They said some are also avoiding controversial topics in their classrooms.
"We're all thinking twice about what we're saying," LeCompte said, comparing the climate to the McCarthy era when professors were fired for alleged communist ties.
Contact Camera Staff Writer Elizabeth Mattern Clark at (303) 473-1351 or clarke@dailycamera.com.
The governor and legislature need to step in - fire the regents and the faculty. Start CU over again witout these bastards.
Send us your sons and daughters.
Why is it that everyone understands the concept of accountability except university professors?
Not just professors - all elitists - lawyers, judges, reporters, politicians, celebrities, etc...
Selfishness. And perhaps shared ideology. They would rather share their creditials with an obvious fraud than risk that their own tenure be jeopardized.
It may be that many of them share his ideology. After all they were probably hired and reviewed over time by the same people.
I agree. There should be an oversight committee. If they dont like what they hear-pull funding.
Here's the flaw in that logic -- Churchill, in the act of stepping into the public square and speaking his mind, has triggered people to ask who he is and how he got to his position.
That inquiry has exposed many secrets about Churchill's lack of qualifications, which in turn raises the question as to whether he lied to get his position.
His right to free speech doesn't act as a blanket sufficient to cover his culpability for lying/misrepresenting himself. If firing would be a "normal" standard consequence from someone caught in such behavior, CU has the right to apply the same penalty to Churchill. His First Amendment rights don't protect him.
On the other hand, if a mere repremand was the 'normal' penalty, firing him would be viewed as a proxy attempt to chill his First Amendment rights.
So -- it's a factual question as to what CU's pre-existing policies are with respect to misrepresentation and fraud. Let's hope the prescribed penalty is that it is a firing offence.
Here's the flaw in that logic -- Churchill, in the act of stepping into the public square and speaking his mind, has triggered people to ask who he is and how he got to his position.
That inquiry has exposed many secrets about Churchill's lack of qualifications, which in turn raises the question as to whether he lied to get his position.
His right to free speech doesn't act as a blanket sufficient to cover his culpability for lying/misrepresenting himself. If firing would be a "normal" standard consequence from someone caught in such behavior, CU has the right to apply the same penalty to Churchill. His First Amendment rights don't protect him.
On the other hand, if a mere repremand was the 'normal' penalty, firing him would be viewed as a proxy attempt to chill his First Amendment rights.
So -- it's a factual question as to what CU's pre-existing policies are with respect to misrepresentation and fraud. Let's hope the prescribed penalty is that it is a firing offence.
Less than ten bucks each. LOL!
Liberals: big spenders of our money, penny-pinchers when it’s their money.
I love the internet.
Faculty Directory
Margaret D. LeCompte, PhD
Contact
Teaching
Research
Service
Curriculum Vitae
Margaret D. LeCompte, PhD
Professor of Education
School of Education, Room 240
University of Colorado at Boulder
249 UCB
Boulder CO 80309
Phone: 303-492-7951
Fax: 303-492-7090
Email: margaret.lecompte@colorado.edu
Margaret D. LeCompte is professor of education and sociology. She is internationally known as one of the leading proponents of qualitative and ethnographic research and evaluation in education. In addition to numerous articles and book chapters on research methods in education and the social sciences, her research also includes studies of school reform and school organization, and of at-risk, ethnically diverse, gifted, artistically creative, and language minority students. A critical theorist trained in action research and the interactionist tradition, her fieldwork includes a five-year study of school reform and culture on the Navajo Nation in the United States, a longitudinal study of programs for urban American Indian children in the Southwest, and an ongoing study of identity construction among middle school children in an arts enrichment public school. She has won the University Press of America award for Outstanding Research Article in 1994 and the American Educational Studies Association (AESA) award for Outstanding Book in 1986.
Dr. LeCompte is a member of numerous professional organizations in education and anthropology and was president of the Council on Anthropology and Education of the American Anthropology Association. She serves on several editorial boards as well as committees for the American Educational Research Association. She is the current editor of the journal, Review of Educational Research.
Education:
PhD Education and the Social Order, University of Chicago, 1974
MA Education and the Social Order, University of Chicago, 1969
BA Political Science, Northwestern University, 1964
The only way to clean out this rats nest is for the goveroner and state atourney general to investigate -- to allow the univeristy to oversee this investigation is equal to the UN investigating its oil for food scandal
Interesting. I thought it wasn't kosher to advance degrees from the same place?
Isn't "diversity" of schools the way to go, otherwise you're stuck in the same thought process?
The answer is that university professors understand accountability very well and it scares the heck out of them. I think they picked a poor example this time, however.
Holy Cr*p. If the whole truth were known about Churchill BEFORE he was hired, he could not get a job as a toilet attendant at the Denver bus station.
The legislature of Colorado is thinking entirely too small in its idea of docking the University $100,000 in its budget, to indicate its abhorrence of Professor Churchill. This is not one bad apple in a barrel of good ones. It is a barrel that is rotten from top to bottom.
The legislature should consider closing the University and firing all the staff. Then rehiring faculty and staff under a new and competent President. The criteria should be that no one gets hired without evidence that each can think his/her way out of a wet paper bag, without physical harm to himself or others.
Congressman Billybob
This is really what it comes down to. They're not talken about proven facts, or trial results, or accepted theories after extensive academic review. They're talking about "what he believes to be true" simply because it's a professor who believes it.
-PJ
Why? Afraid you might have to actually look at more mainstream people?
My son was accepted at CU and wanted to attend, but was steered elsewhere. Turns out to have been a VERY good decision.
No, it won't be difficult at all. First, none of these professors will resign, and second, if one does resign there will be fifty applicants, just as well or better qualified, lined up to take their overpaid, elitist positions.
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