Ward Churchill
I doubt he ever left college.
Posted on 02/05/2005 3:16:12 PM PST by churchillbuff
Ward Churchill, a professor at the University of Colorado, has applauded the slaughter of those murdered in the World Trade Center attacks: He called them "little Eichmanns," and suggested that their deaths were a fitting penalty for their supposed complicity in America's supposed crimes. This is a morally depraved view, and deserves the harshest condemnation from all decent people.
Nonetheless, Churchill ought not be fired from his tenured professorship for this view. Justice Hugo Black was right to say that First Amendment rights "must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish." And the same is true of broader academic freedom principles, which flow from not just from the First Amendment rights of public university employees, but also from their tenure contracts and from professional standards of academic freedom.
If the Ward Churchills of the world are fired for their speech, disgusting as it is, that would be a perfect precedent for broader speech suppression in the future. Left-wing faculties and university administrations would find it much easier to fire right-wing professors for far less offensive statements, for instance for serious and valuable (even if sometimes misguided) challenges to the orthodox views on sexual orientation, sex or race. Given the political complexion of universities these days, this will end up happening to conservative professors more often than to liberals.
At the same time, other faculties and administrations - perhaps with the prodding of overzealous legislators - could use the precedent to fire even decent, serious critics of American foreign policy. In a legal and political system built on analogy and precedent, narrow restrictions on free speech do lead to larger ones. It's better to tolerate occasional fools and supporters of evil than to license universities to impose their orthodoxies on all their faculty members.
Nonetheless, while the Churchills of the world ought not be fired from their professorships, the university would have had no duty to keep him as chair of his department, if he hadn't resigned the post himself. A professor's job is to publish his own work and his own views, and to teach students, often in challenging and provocative ways. (There might be some boundaries on what can be taught in the classroom, but to my knowledge none of Churchill's offensive statements were made in class.)
But a chair's or a dean's job is to promote the academic mission of the university, among other things by fostering good relations with colleagues, students and the public. If the university concludes that keeping a Ward Churchill as the administrative face of the department will cast the school into disrepute, it can properly remove him as chair, though he would keep his right to say whatever incendiary things he likes as professor. And of course I'd say the same about department chairs who said controversial things I liked: A university should have fairly broad authority to strip them of their chairmanships, though not of their faculty positions.
More important, there have been claims raised that Churchill has deliberately misrepresented himself as a member of certain American Indian tribes, presumably to build credibility as a scholar and public intellectual speaking on behalf of the American Indian community. If this is so - and this is a big "if" - then he may well be properly disciplined or fired for such deliberate falsehoods, though not for his viewpoints.
For one recent example of such discipline, consider the case of Joseph Ellis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and professor at Mount Holyoke College. Ellis apparently claimed to his students that he had served in Vietnam, which turned out not be so; he also supposedly overstated his role in various political movements. This led him to be suspended for a year from his teaching post.
Ellis' falsehoods weren't in his scholarship, and I doubt that they led students to be misinformed about important historical questions. Still, the university rightly concluded that such dishonesty merited punishment. Ellis wasn't fired, but he's a Pulitzer Prize winner and, as I understand, a historian of substantial quality. Had he done less good work, he might well have lost his job.
Deliberate falsehoods are generally not protected by the First Amendment. Nor do I think there's great danger to academic freedom in enforcing basic requirements of honesty in professors' public statements, particularly ones about their own life histories. There is some risk of error in adjudicating such controversies, but much less than the risk involved in deciding which viewpoints are so heinous as to be intolerable. Again, I stress that this is relevant only if he indeed made certain explicit and unambiguous factual claims about his being Indian or a member of some tribe, and those claims were indeed false.
Naturally, whoever fires or disciplines Churchill for such falsehoods, or supports such a firing, must be prepared to apply the same standard regardless of the professor's viewpoints. But I certainly would be prepared to apply such a standard across the board: Dishonesty by academics is culpable whether it's done by people with evil political ideologies or good ones.
So we need to protect faculty members' right to express even reprehensible viewpoints: That's the First Amendment deal that protects the ideas we cherish - or at least ones that we think need to be discussed and considered - by also protecting the ideas we hate. But universities need not be blind to a person's moral qualities or stature in the community when deciding whether to retain an administrator. And they need not keep scholars who deliberately misrepresent their own biographies.
Eugene Volokh is a professor at UCLA Law School. A version of this article appeared on his Web log, The Volokh Conspiracy (http://volokh.com/).
"Naturally, whoever fires or disciplines Churchill for such falsehoods, or supports such a firing, must be prepared to apply the same standard regardless of the professor's viewpoints."
Why is being a professor a lifetime appointment? We impeach judges for malfeasance. Why not impeach jerk professors for stupidity?
Impeach = fire. Why doesn't the tax paying community have a say in the matter?
Watch them start firing conservative professors (the few there are) for their views -- if your approach is adopted.
I agree. He should be put on probation, with the option of his tenure being revoked. It would be a heads-up to others who want to spout nonsense on both sides of the fence.
Right. After all, part of his rant is bashing the United States military and the war.
And that's YOUR thing.
Don't fire him, just assign him about 15 Freshman Composition courses a semester to teach. He deserves a punishment that exposes him to ideas as vapid as his own. Oh, and find out what type of "Native American" he is or isn't.
What I wanta know is why churchhill gets to have a first admendment right to say whatever depraved, obnoxious thing he wants to say and then some student calls a girl a "walrus" and is kicked out of school.
Why does this kind of speech get protected and anything a conservative might say, or a man might say, or a white person might say get subjected to the rules of political correctness.
One of you guys call a person a "girl" and you will be out of your job in a new york minute.
So what if a tenured professor said that the only thing wrong with the Holocaust is that the Nazis didn't get the job done? Or that the US should immediately round up all blacks and return them to slavery? Or that aliens are controlling his actions through the fillings in his teeth?
I mean, is there a limit to "academic freedom"?
Me, too! LOL.
He says he's part Keewootah Indian, and the Keewootah's say he doesn't have drop of Indian blood in him.
He's a liar.
It seems to me that retaining a racist bigot in a teaching position ought to violate university policy about employing only qualified professors to teach their students.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
They'd have to find one first.
There should be a minimum standard for ethical behaviour - in his outrageous portrayal of the victims of 9/11, Ward Churchill has crossed that line. It's as simple as that.
Regards, Ivan
As would a bullet.
Wanta bet this poseur's vitae is full of lies? I would be a thousand bucks it has at least 3. They could fire him for that. But hey, I think he ought to be prosecuted for "hate speech"
The future is here, use the "n" word and see how long you hold your job? Say that women are genetically less able then men to enter the sciences and see how long you hold your job. Say a prayer in front of your classroom and see how quickly you loose your job.
We all want to be able to challenge our government when it is not doing the right thing. Which is why we elect them, and can un-elect them, duh!
Tenure is CRAP anyhow. WHY do college professors need to be
pampered anyhow? I say if some LIAR -do not believe he is
any more Indian than I am --don't believe he is any more
war heroe than any of Kerry's Winter Soldiers.and do not
believe I would ever subject myself-or pay for any one
else to sit through his indoctrinations. He should go to
some other country like Iran.
Whoa, big guy.
It wouldn't really scare me much. What scares me more is, well, roaches. I do feel scared they will get out of control and come in my house. Firing Ward would kind of amuse me if you want to know the truth.
"but the answer to his stupidity isn't to set a precedent that allows professors to be fired for saying controversial things -"
BullSh&t. The man is a lying bastard, and the artificial, non-constitutional notion of academic freedom does not cover lies.
This A-hole is a fraud, get it? The first amendment doesn't protect criminal activity. Nor does it require the community to commit cultural suicide.
Writing this off to "stupidity" is to miss the entire point of the problem..
Ward Churchill
I doubt he ever left college.
He's a lying scumbucket.
Wonder if it would be a frightening precedent to dismiss a professor who suggested that Matthew Shephard was responsible for his own murder because he was openly gay.
What Churchill said was as bad, if not worse, than that.
The 1st Amendment protects any idiot from governmental persecution, but not from an ass whipping from an irate patriot!
Yeah -- "THE FEW THERE ARE" indeed.
Then again, find just ONE conservative professor who is willing to justify the slaughter of American lives by terrorists...
Take your time.
He's also about as authentically Native American as the Duchess of York.
Regards, Ivan
As for his apparent lying: fire his a$$. There's no coherent argument to support allowing people who lie - to further their position or esteem in their place of employment - to continue to hold their jobs. Most private sector employers would fire you....there's no reason a college should be any different.
Mr. Churchill may be insulting them....
The same reason you can't fire govt. workers. The left has completely taken them over for their purposes.
Yes, he has freedom of speech---however he should not be paid to espouse his subversive notions on our tax dollar. He shouldn't be in a position to be a role model and pervert youth on our tax dollars. Let him do it on his own time at his own expense. Get a license and preach it on the street corners.
vaudine
Justice always amuses me.
If there was true diversity on the campus, Churchill would have made his comment, and had someone refute him into the idiocy that he has become, and the issue would have died.
OK by me. Liars should be fired no matter who they are.
FMCDH(BITS)
He looks a bit prissy to me with that long hair. I suspect he is a loathesome psychopath.
I wonder how long this guy would have lasted on the faculty if he had advocated the death penalty for abortionist doctors and the women who agree to have their unborn children killed. How long would he have lasted if he had advocated some disgusting racial policy, like lynchings? What if he had supported the raping of women, as a sexual release for men.
There are some things that go over the top, for the left. Don't kid yourself. This guy would be removed if he touched on some of the rabid left's sacred cows. They'd do it in a heartbeat.
Churchill had a right to say what he did. I don't think it's out of the question for people to assess whether he should be in a position to teach others after those comments. He is clearly unfit to do so in my opinion. The man is clearly deranged.
Reminds me of the Hollywood elite bashing Bush, then complaining after people boycotted their movies.
Is the University of Colorado required to retain this jerkoff if alumni start calling in and refuse to donate? When enrollment starts to decline?
I don't think so.
That precedent is being set in Philadelphia. Not only is their freedom of speech being prosecuted as "hate" speech but their freedom of religion is being thrown on the trash heap of history. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
He is a Native American but there is serious doubt that he is an American Indian.
Of course every tribe sets their own rules about who does and does not qualify. The Cherokee are among the most liberal.(1/32 proven allows you to get on the tribal rolls IIRC)
Quote from Indian Country Today.
At various times, according to press reports, Churchill has described himself as Cherokee, Keetoowah Cherokee, Muskogee, Creek and most recently Meti. In a note in the online magazine Socialism and Democracy he wrote, ''Although I'm best known by my colonial name, Ward Churchill, the name I prefer is Kenis, an Ojibwe name bestowed by my wife's uncle.'' In biographical blurbs, he is identified as an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees. But a senior member of the band with access to tribal enrollment records told Indian Country Today that Churchill is not listed. George Mauldin, tribal clerk in Tahlequah, Okla., told the Rocky Mountain News, ''He's not in the data base at all.''
Link http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410295
They are plenty ticked that this guy is associating himself with them.
It seems to me that they did that years ago. Then they screened candidates out who were conservative. That is why the Universities have so few conservatives in History, Literature, Anthropology....
IMO, he should have been fired immediately. Free Speech is what he has on a street corner. Paid hatred of America with tax dollars in suicidal for a society.
Very good point.
If it were not for academia, he'd be lingering on the streets of Haight Ashbury, with a sign reading, "Will Work for Dope".
Just as Orwell was right in saying there were ideas so stupid that only an intellectual would believe them, only intellectuals would be stupid enough to claim a malignant idiot as one of their own.
Regards, Ivan
Ivan! I haven't seen you in ages. How did Condi get received over there in jolly old England?
People taking his class will know just what they're getting, as will parents sending their kids there. He will be Exhibit A any time the left pull that "We're not anti-American" crap.
And whenever someone calls for the resignation of any teacher, or the expulsion of any student, for any rightwing "hatespeech", Churchill will be the one to point to as evidence that you can't fire someone for any kind of "hatespeech".
Firing him and making him a martyr solves nothing.
Extremely well:
The day-tripper quickly makes her presence felt (CONDI IN THE UK)
Regards, Ivan
If Churchill had said "they deserved to die because they were "gay/black/women/pick any minority or special interest group" he'd be out on his ass three years ago. But because he targeted and slimed middle/upper class businesspeople, he gets off scot free.
Slimeball was on Paula Zahn yesterday, credit to her for going after him aggressively and not buying his crap.
Amen to that.
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