Posted on 06/09/2007 3:22:32 PM PDT by UnklGene
A footnote on Ward Churchill -
Who can forget Ward “little Eichmanns” Churchill, the “ethnic studies” professor at the University of Colorado whose odious remark comparing the victims of 9/11 to Nazi bureaucrats sparked a firestorm of eminently deserved criticism?
The closer one looked into the case of Ward Churchill, the worse it got. This tenured radical had been battening on the public purse for decades—and for what? A congeries of radical political diatribes masquerading as scholarship in a bogus discipline.
Much of what Churchill published was simply fabricated. Much else turned out to have been plagiarized. A university committee went to work to investigate it all and to recommend disciplinary action.
On May 16, the Associated Press reported on the committee’s findings. Yes, Churchill “committed multiple acts of plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification” and his work was “below minimum standards of professional integrity.”
Nevertheless, the committee recommended that he be suspended for a year, not fired. Why? Because although his case “shows misbehavior,” it does not show “the worst possible misbehavior.”
Yes, that’s right: you can be mad, bad, and dangerous to know—you can lie, fabricate research, plagiarize, and turn your college classroom into a center for anti-American propaganda: all that’s just fine. So long as you are not the worst, your tenure at the University of Colorado is inviolable. Or so the committee’s report suggests.
But wait: what would count as “the worst”? According to the AP story, the report mentions fabricating data for grant money or endangering people’s lives by not following appropriate research protocols. But surely that betrays a stunning lack of imagination. What about arson, mass murder, or widespread mayhem? Most people would agree such activities are worse than fabricating data to get a grant, which by definition means that such fabrication is not the worst possible behavior. Sancta simplissima! Has it come to this at the University of Colorado?
By the time you read this, Hank Brown, the university’s president, will have decide whether to accept the committee’s recommendations.
He might decide to fire Churchill anyway. He might decided to do nothing. If he recommends any punishment, Churchill’s lawyer has warned, Churchill will file a civil rights lawsuit.
Our advice? Fire Ward Churchill and let him sue. So what if he wins? You will have done the right thing.
SWEET Ann Coulter takes another look at the Ward Churchill controversy:
Tenure was supposed to create an atmosphere of open debate and inquiry, but instead has created havens for talentless cowards who want to be insulated from life. Rather than fostering a climate of open inquiry, college campuses have become fascist colonies of anti-American hate speech, hypersensitivity, speech codes, banned words and prohibited scientific inquiry.
Even leftists don’t try to defend Churchill on grounds that he is Galileo pursuing an abstract search for the truth. They simply invoke “free speech,” like a deus ex machina to end all discussion. Like the words “diverse” and “tolerance,” “free speech” means nothing but: “Shut up, we win.”
How did the filthy dogs get and keep the power in the first place? Do away with tenure and the agendas will be up front as there will be a continuing dog fight about teaching positions. Schools will separate according to ideology, as they probably should, and let the market decide.
Thank you, I agree.
Not that it's likely to ever happen.
Colleges and universities are working overtime to make themselves irrelevant on their own though - even if it does take decades, change is taking place.
Who in the hell sits on this committee? If this is not enough to get him fired what is needed,murder?
yeah,
the feminist that got up and walked out feeling sick because of president lawrence summers speech
should have been administered smelling salts.
Ward has a clever lawyer who may drag this thru the courts for years yet.
Ward is still getting his salary ( about $100,000 per year ) and benefits while on this multi year ‘vacation.’
Privilege and Tenure Committee Members 2006-2007
http://www.colorado.edu/FacultyCouncil/committees/pt/ptmems.html
Remember this :
Colorado high school geography teacher Jay Bennish plans to bring suit in federal court in order to be re-instated in the classroom after he was suspended for comments he made during a class lecture. Bennish is being represented by attorney David Lane, who also represented Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who received national notoriety when he compared Americans killed on 9/11 to Nazis.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4595
The minute you start looking at professors...and evaluating them...you are opening a can of worms. Out of a 250-professor campus...you will have at least six who are absolute alcoholics, another six who are using drugs to some extreme, and probably ten are mentally unbalanced. If we count in the guys who are having relations with students...there is another 25 there. We aren’t even up to the group who are faking reports, data collection and publishing false reports. Years ago, I was told by a guy who attended a pretty significant university in Oregon of a project he assisted in. He and eight students went with some professor on a two month data collection effort (grant money paid the whole thing)....to Alaska. As he said...they drank heavily for the entire two months....made up lots of false data and the professor sat drunk back at the main site for most of the trip. The guy published the report later and was a major 4-star episode at the university that year.
You can’t run around and start firing the bad apples....because they make up 30 percent of the university, and that would screw up the whole system.
Agreed. Totally. For some time now I have maintained all these issues are political. Race? The environment? Class envy? Even immigration. All of them are political issues and not the issue itself. Ann Coulter is completely correct, IMHO.
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton could care less about helping blacks gain equality or parity. They are race-hustlers who are in it for the money and power. This same attitude applies to people like Ward Churchill and others who abuse “the system” for their own gain. Tenure is just another abuse of power and money by the left, who don’t want to compete on an equal basis because they cannot win that way.
Who knows, it might lead to a second chance, after all, if he could play in Peoria, . . .
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