Campos: Buy off high plains grifter (Ward Churchill)

Rocky Mountain News column ^ | March 15th, 2005 | Paul Campos

[Grampa Dave]

Actually, a lot of us hope that CU keeps the Faux Indian Churchill as a Faux professor and Churchill keeps spreading his vile bs around. That will end up exposing thousands of Ward Churchills in universities all over America. Then those universities will have to deal with the chickens coming home to roost in their universities.

[Captal de Buch]

True.. If he gets canned for academic fraud he may not get hired by any state supported University.. But.. if they just buy him out..... he'd be "free agent" in left wing academia

[Captal de Buch]

Actually.. that would be best for us.. let's keep him around and use him as a label... "Our Universities are riddled with Ward Churchill Democrats"..

[Nam Vet]

“Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.”

Response to French foreign minister Talleyrand's demand for a bribe to open peace negotiations. I believe it was for 50,00 pounds. Quote is by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney I believe.

Nam Vet

[Bahbah]

succumb to extortion and pay someone off because it's cheaper in the long run.

Only if you measure things solely in dollars.

[Grampa Dave]

"that would be best for us.. let's keep him around and use him as a label... "Our Universities are riddled with Ward Churchill Democrats"..

Also, I have sent some of the cartoons and articles about Churchhill to the presidents of a couple of local colleges and universities with some mini Churchhills. One got back at me that I was pushing for censorship. I replied, "Just the opposite, I want this anti American Clymer screaming his anti America mantras on and off campus 24/7. Soon you will be out of a job and alumni donations will be history!"

[cake_crumb]

Well, CU has two choices : buy him off and throw themselves into establishing credibility in their university or file suit against Churchill for defrauding the university. 'Course, they can't file suit, because the question would become one of "did the fact that he lied about his ethnicity affect the quality of the way he did his job", at which time CU would be back under the political equivalent of an electron microscope, causing irreparable damage.

It is therefore in the best interests of the those who desperately need to cover their derrieres that focus remains on Ward's scam, rather than turn it toward the CONTENT of his "teaching". They can't afford the questions.

They'll quietly pay him off just to get rid of the embarrassment.

[Bar-Face]

"CU needs a football coach...""
They had a great one and chased him off. He was too religious

[mountainlyons]

Churchill has two regits in his pocket that can't go against him without losing their jobs and multiple law suits against them. Firing Churchill would rip more brick from the from the crumbling CU.

[hillary's_fat_a**]

1. A local law firm of excellent standing has offered to represent the university and the state pro-bono - not sure if the state can legally accept that, though.

2. Give the fake Injun' some of his own medicine - the state has tremendous resources and the fake Injun' will cave with mounting legal bills - so just keep on dragging this out!

3. The principle is important here - the state should fight and not cave with a buyout. Not one friggin' cent!

[Irene Adler]

"If Churchill gets fired for cause that includes academic fraud he will not ever be hired by any reputable college or university anywhere in America. Plagairism and stealing another's artwork crosses the line even for those arguing freedom of speech and/or academic freedom. Ward Churchill doesn't meet any known minumum standard for becoming a tenured professor. No one will want this albatross, IMHO."

I have taught on the university level for 23 years. You are correct. Universities will typically not knowingly hire controversy (yes, there have been exceptions). Usually, however, their desire to avoid guaranteed future trouble somewhat outweighs their love of leftism.

[Ruth A.]

No buyout. Discredit him, fire him,others begin lawsuits against him for his plagiarism the court throws out Ward's frivolous lawsuit. Ward has to realize that he'll have many lucrative speaking engagements with left and won't be hurting for money. That he will still make money is rankling.

[rolling_stone]

appeasement with sociopaths never works..fire him let him go to court, an Indian jury will scalp him...

[ken21]

ping.

[apackof2]

'Dept. of Conservative Studies' at CU

Bump that!

[AnAmericanMother]

Tell you a true story --

I used to represent fire insurers in court against claims - arson and insurance fraud. (Interesting work).

We had one client who wrote small ($10-15K) contents policies on rental property - trailers, apartments, and so forth.

This company's policy was to fight ALL arson-for-profit claims. Despite the fact that with a small contents policy, you often wound up spending more on defending the case than you would have if you had settled for the policy limits.

After awhile, the word got out and the arson-for-profit guys quit getting policies with the company. The company actually wound up ahead, because they had honest policyholders who just had a normal expected frequency of loss (which is what you calculate the premium on).

For us it was a bit of a disappointment that their policy worked so well, because we had a ton of fun with those cases -- since the perps never expected anything but a quick settlement. Imagine being a plaintiff who's had a terrible run of luck - 9 houses burning in 6 years, imagine that! - and having to face a jury.

Sometimes you just have to take a stand. Surprising how easy it is once you try and quit being afraid of shadows in the corners . . .

[AnAmericanMother]

"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!"

See post 36 for an example.

[ajolympian2004]

Yeah, that's what Dan Caplis comes back to everyday on his radio show here in Denver on KHOW 630am. He says that not firing Churchill sets a precedent where future professors will just have to meet the minimum 'Churchill standard' to avoid losing their job. Based on what we are hearing here in Denver it appears that Churchill will be fired eventually after due process. It's well worth it IMHO.

[dennisw]

Excellent story and a fine illustration of how spending for lawyers can work in the long run. You discourage the frivolous greed head lawsuits. Rub their lawyer's nose in the dirt plus in some states can demand payment of your lawyer's fees from the plaintiff

[Drango]

Yeah but Doris Kearns Goodwin makes the pundit circle like nothing happened.