Colorado U Law Prof on Ward Churchill
Colorado U “ethnic studies prof” Ward Churchill’s comments about 9/11 have brought him the attention he craved –in spades. Quick review: Churchill was scheduled to pick up a nice $3500 check from Hamilton College in New York. Then someone discovered Churchill’s comments about 9/11 victims as being “little Eichmanns” (ie, Nazis) who deserved to die. Of course Churchill has subsequently pled “context” and “free speech.” CU law professor Paul Campos supplies the real Churchill context in a superb Rocky Mountain News column (February 5, 2005). I hope this link holds up because Campos’ essay is a keeper.
Here’s a critical comment, appearing near the end of his essay:
Anyone who reads widely in the collected works of professor Churchill, and especially anyone who listens to his speeches, will, if they are not blinded by certain ideological commitments, recognize the essentially fascist tendency of his work. If a white American were to speak of any foreign people or nation in anything like the way Churchill discusses America and Americans, the fascist character of his work would be obvious to everyone.
As Instapundit says, “Read the whole thing. Liberal academia rarely polices itself, at least publicly; call it the “silence of the one-party state” that exists there, particularly in the humanities. (That’s a subject for another post or essay.) Campos’ essay is as refreshing as it is honest.
I dropped Professor Campos an email of thanks and added this: “You put Ward Churchill in context. Take a step back, and your column is describing the decadent Left in American. Churchill is symptomatic.”
UPDATE: Looks like Ward Churchill may be a “pseudo-ethnic.” Churchill claims to be an Indian (Native American). But the Cherokee sincerely doubt it.
UPDATE 2: Roger Kimball at New Criterion’s weblog argues for genuine academic freedom. (Kimball wrote “The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America.”) Kimball quotes Edwards Shils:
…Academic freedom is not the freedom of academic individuals to do just anything, to follow any impulse or desire, or to say anything that occurs to them. It is the freedom to do academic things: to teach the truth as they see it on the basis of prolonged and intensive study, to discuss their ideas freely with their colleagues, to publish the truth as they have arrived at it by systematic methodical research and assiduous research.
Kimball says this is the key issue in the Churchill contretemps: “The central issue, from which Hamilton administrators have managed to deflect attention, is the politicization of higher education.”
No kidding.
A commenter (ZF) over at The Belmont Club adds this important historical note:
Before we dismiss Ward Churchill as entirely a buffoon and a poseur we should take a moment to appreciate how astonishingly successful his career has been. The relevant document is the Port Huron Statement. Issued by the Students for a Democratic Society in 1962 and often seen as the manifesto of the 1960’s student radicals, the document appears under five section headings, of which the first four are analytical and the fifth sets forth the action program:
We believe that the universities are an overlooked seat of influence… It’s educational function makes it indispensable and automatically makes it a crucial institution in the formation of social attitudes… it is the central institution for organizing, evaluating and transmitting knowledge… the university is the only mainstream institution that is open to participation by individuals of nearly any viewpoint…Social relevance, the accessibility to knowledge, and internal openness–these together make the university a potential base and agency in a movement of social change…To turn these mythic possibilities into realities will involve national efforts at university reform by an alliance of students and faculty. They must wrest control of the educational process from the administrative bureaucracy.The Port Huron Statement’s practical objective was quite simply taking over American universities and using their commitment to academic freedom of speech divert their activities toward leftist political activism. While American society beyond the university received a lot of attention in the Statement’s first four sections not devoted to action, in the fifth section such references are few and vague.
Looks like War Churchill may be a “pseudo-ethnic.” Churchill claims to be an Indian (Native American). But the Cherokee sincerely doubt it. Ward Churchill, self-hating white guy fascist, who hates white people and advocates their murder, seems to me to be comparable to a Jew, who pretended to be an Aryan, supported the Nazis and advocated the holocaust. Someone tell me where I’m wrong.
Comment by Jabba the Tutt — 2/6/2005 @ 9:14 am
The rationale for firing WC is not particularly in the intolerant hate-speech; after all, that’s been a staple of American universities for decades. Falsifying credentials has caught many of an academic–and subsequently, inevitably led to termination. He’s not an Indian, never was, yet he willfully, flagrently presented false credentials. Worse–in no way can Colorado be blameless for this fiasco. What no one seems to notice in either the blogosphere or the MSM is that WC’s degrees (beyond the community college Associate’s degree) are from a now defunct, notoriously deficient diploma mill: Sagamon State. (The kind of sterling institution that proudly advertised on matchbooks.) No reseach university anywhere, or any reputable junior college for that matter, would hire a faculty member from such a place. His terminal degree is an MA from Sagamon, yet Colorado still hired him–apparently believing that WC had been a victim of insidious, institutional discrimination at real colleges he might have attended alternatively, had he not been such a brave native warrior. A Phd, of course, is required for other Colorado faculty, yet somehow he not only was hired, but was promoted to full professor and give a chairmanship. Shame on Colorado. WC pandered to their guilt and they pimped him out as their poster boy. Still, his resume padding and his falsification of his ethnic background are in fact legitimate reasons to fire him, tenure or not.
Comment by JRK — 2/6/2005 @ 9:23 am
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Pingback by UrbanGrounds » Blog Archive » Ward Churchill – Fake Indian, Real Scum — 2/10/2005 @ 2:57 pm
As a supplement, please note the following. Introduction: In a Pittsburgh federal court a well connected corporate crony has suggested a novice “free speech” argument and the legal question is waddling without any legal precedent in need of an activist court. Creating the free speech crisis is a “red herring” to draw attention away from the plain and clear evidence of the Pittsburgh Federal Court proceeding (best example of the corruption). Ward Churchill was a relatively unknown professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, until Bill O’Reilly reported a piece about him and requested his audience to make a fuss. His provacative essay was written more than three years ago. The connection: Ms. ElizaBETH Hoffman is the President of Colorado University. Go to http://www.hss.caltech.edu/Photos/Alumni/HoffmanElizabeth.jpg and/or http://www.colorado.edu/Carillon/volume47/images/1.jpg to view her picture. Ms. BETH (Rue) Kotcella Buchanan is the U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania. Go to http://www.pittsburghlive.com/photos/2002-02-26/PH_2002-02-26_iattorney-b.jpg to view her picture. Background: I attended undergraduate school with Ms. Buchanan. At the Pennsylvania University I succesfully re-established (and served as president) the pre-law society and graduated in 1983. Here Ms. Buchanan would become interested in the law. She graduated after me in 1984. In addition, I was listed in Who’s Who Among American Colleges and Universities, and given the 1983 Progressive Leadership Award, and 1983 Distinguished Honor Award. Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 1988 Ms. Buchanan secured a clerkship with U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill, Jr. Judge Cohill is the Western District Judge responsible for enforcing a consent decree governing United States of America v. Port Authority of Allegheny County, Docket No. 91-CV-1694. However, he turned a blind eye to my case Docket No. 95-CV-00339. I had organized (secure a union) a political sub-division. During that same year members of the state judiciary were charged and convicted for violating my civil rights (fixing cases against me in retaliation of Docket No. 95-CV-00339). In a case related to Docket No. 95-CV-00339, an alleged EEOC investigative file was prematurely purged and the U.S. Department of Labor refused delivery of its copy despite a subpoena, FOIA Request and Motion to Compel. See Docket No. 98-CV-230. That is, the Department of Labor closed its investigation based on the alleged EEOC decision. But, I had proffered to the court EEOC writings that demonstrated no investigation was conducted. Discussion: At issue is the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The Bush administration is attempting to change the 50 percent rule. That is, financial aid is available for postsecondary education provided at a college or university that has at least 50 percent of its students campus-based. Corporations have paid Senators and Congress men and women well, attempting to change the 50 percent rule. The rule is necessary to prevent fraud (absentee students and/or diploma mills). It appears at least three corporations have abused the administration’s Distance Education Demonstration that wavied the 50 percent rule. The Career Education Corporation of Hoffman Estates, Ill., has faced lawsuits, from shareholders and students, contending that, among other things, its colleges have inflated enrollment numbers. In addition, F.B.I. agents raided 10 campuses run by ITT Educational Services of Carmel, Ind., looking for similar problems. Nonetheless, the S.E.C. and FBI investigation is just spin to make it appear the administration is doing its job. The Pittsburgh case involves Kaplan, Inc., which is wholly own by the Washington Post Company. For-profit postsecondary education has turned the company around. Individuals far more powerful than Martha Steward have made millions. Thus the current unexplained campaign against free speech appears to be little more than another Madison Avenue scheme to control any discussion.
Comment by kstreetfriend — 2/12/2005 @ 2:24 pm