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Victor Davis Hanson: ‘Teachable Moments’ - But who will teach the teachers?
National Review ^ | March 14, 2005 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 03/09/2005 9:22:48 PM PST by quidnunc

It recently came to light that University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill had slandered some of the 9/11 victims as “Little Eichmanns,” who may well have deserved punishment for their participation in what went on “in the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers.”

That led to cursory public examination of earlier, similarly insane tirades, and prompted calls for Churchill’s resignation. The usual fiery counter-support — protests and news conferences — ensued, to the effect that the professor’s right of expression and academic freedom were being imperiled. But like so many academic scandals these days, the original “little Eichmanns” comment — that innocent victims murdered at work by fascistic killers were comparable to a Nazi mastermind of the Holocaust — was just the torn scab revealing a festering sore beneath.

Churchill, it turns out, has no Ph.D., although it is the terminal degree required under normal circumstances at all such major research universities. Few, other than poets, novelists, and artists, are ever hired for tenure-track positions without it. Churchill probably also lied in claiming American Indian ancestry, thereby gaining entrée to favorable hiring and tenure considerations.

The disturbing story went on for days, as accounts of former Weather Underground ties, a past trip to Libya to cultivate dictator Muammar Qaddafi, and several prior arrests surfaced about Churchill. The public further learned that the $114,032-a-year Churchill may have distorted his Vietnam-era military service, and routinely misrepresented scholarly texts to fit his own particular revisionism.

-snip-

(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: academia; vdh; victordavishanson; wardchurchill
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1 posted on 03/09/2005 9:22:49 PM PST by quidnunc
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To: Tolik

FYI


2 posted on 03/09/2005 9:23:13 PM PST by quidnunc (Omnis Gaul delenda est)
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Comment #3 Removed by Moderator

To: quidnunc

Save.


4 posted on 03/09/2005 9:52:13 PM PST by Eagles6 (Dig deeper, more ammo.)
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To: quidnunc

Jeez, Churchill is making $114k (straight salary before any speaking fees, PD funds, et cetera). I would have thought only maybe 80 or 90. Pretty good job there in Boulder.


5 posted on 03/09/2005 9:53:44 PM PST by TheMole
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To: quidnunc

Bump.


6 posted on 03/09/2005 9:55:50 PM PST by T. Buzzard Trueblood ("He's uptight and occasionally contrived." Mike Wallace on Dan Rather)
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To: Yehuda

In a proper world someone would have pulled the flush lever on Churchill rather than rewarding him.


7 posted on 03/09/2005 9:56:21 PM PST by TASMANIANRED (Certified cause of Post Traumatic Redhead Syndrome)
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To: quidnunc

Only in America's institutions of higher learning and the US film industry could nitwits with no talent other than being frauds make a living so easily and with such rich rewards. I speak of course of Michael Moore and this Churchill clown. Churchill is a piker compared to Moore, but they've both found a rich vein to mine, which is the boundless credulity of the Left.


8 posted on 03/09/2005 10:01:02 PM PST by elhombrelibre (Liberalism is proof that intelligent people can ignore as much as the ignorant.)
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To: quidnunc

Hanson is one of the most clear-headed and provocative thinkers/historians we have, essential reading no matter WHAT the subject. I'm glad you posted this, and I'm also glad so much of Mark Steyn is posted. Now we have to start posting Robert D. Kaplan's pieces. But they tend to be forbiddingly long.


9 posted on 03/09/2005 10:19:28 PM PST by willyboyishere
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To: quidnunc; neverdem; Lando Lincoln; .cnI redruM; yonif; SJackson; dennisw; monkeyshine; Alouette; ...


    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out

10 posted on 03/10/2005 4:45:01 AM PST by Tolik
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To: quidnunc
Even before Chancellor Denton arrived at her new $275,000 job, she had negotiated a special university position as well for her girlfriend, Gretchen Kalonji, described as her partner of seven years, for the princely annual sum of $192,000 — a billet that was specially created, unadvertised, and closed to all other job applicants.

But Hillary! tells us that women are less corrupt than men when corruption is, in fact, an equal opportunity vice.

11 posted on 03/10/2005 4:55:44 AM PST by Bahbah
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To: Yehuda

And for that $114,032, one FReeper could find only one class last semester at which Churchill actually taught. One class, let's say 3 hours a week, nine months a year. That's a princely sum of $950/hr to spew skewed rhetoric at tuition-paying heads full of mush. Of course his lucrative speaking career (as a champion of the moonbats) dwarfs that number.


12 posted on 03/10/2005 4:56:04 AM PST by shezza
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To: Bahbah

The final tally for the lesbian lovers on staff at UCSC was about $500,000, to which the taxpayers of CA thoughtfully added $120,000 for moving expenses. Did all the really stupid people find their way to the Golden State?


13 posted on 03/10/2005 5:00:24 AM PST by kittymyrib
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To: quidnunc
And this:

A certain Dr. Denice Denton attacked Summers, but also insisted that his peccadillo might be profitably exploited as a “teachable moment.” But it turns out that Denton, the newly appointed chancellor of the University of California at Santa Cruz, had had her own “teachable moment” — though one that was as quickly forgotten by the media as Summers’s was lasting. Again, in the bizarre world of academia, the chance tearing of a scab reveals quite interesting things underneath. Even before Chancellor Denton arrived at her new $275,000 job, she had negotiated a special university position as well for her girlfriend, Gretchen Kalonji, described as her partner of seven years, for the princely annual sum of $192,000 — a billet that was specially created, unadvertised, and closed to all other job applicants. This novel variant of spousal accommodation was precisely the sort of old-boy networking in public hiring that transparent affirmative-action protocols were supposedly designed to stop. In contemporary university parlance: Was there not a worthy Latina or African-American woman who could have at least been interviewed for the job?

The Denton-Kalonji household will have a combined income of at least $467,000 — plus up to another $50,000 granted to Kalonji for the expenses incurred in her “transition” in moving to the area. This supplement comes on top of a previous $68,750 granted to Chancellor Denton to move to the rent-free, service-provided University President’s House.

The rot rampant throughout academia is stupefying.

14 posted on 03/10/2005 5:01:11 AM PST by Rummyfan
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To: Tolik

thanks for the ping. VHD shows us the clotting after the 'scabs have been picked'...


15 posted on 03/10/2005 5:07:06 AM PST by bitt ("Conservatism is the dominant political creed in America,")
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To: TheMole

it's not called the Peoples Republic of Boulder for nothing :-)

Regards

alfa6 ;>}


16 posted on 03/10/2005 5:18:27 AM PST by alfa6 (Glen Alderton snaps a mean photo...www.warbirdz.net)
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To: writer33

see this 'Master'....


17 posted on 03/10/2005 5:24:04 AM PST by bitt ("Conservatism is the dominant political creed in America,")
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To: Rummyfan
The rot rampant throughout academia is stupefying.

It will slow way down when employers band together and announce that liberal arts degrees from schools like UCSC "do not meet the standards required for employment with our firms". The credentials must be seen as worthless in the real world (which they are, but too few believe it) before the universities will have any incentive to reform.

18 posted on 03/10/2005 5:32:16 AM PST by Mr. Jeeves
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To: Yehuda

$114,032-a-year


I'm in the wrong line of work!


19 posted on 03/10/2005 6:16:48 AM PST by Valin (DARE to be average!)
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To: quidnunc

Great article. Thanks.


20 posted on 03/10/2005 6:28:00 AM PST by PGalt
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