Posted on 02/28/2005 11:31:52 AM PST by Pendragon_6
"Who is defending Ward Churchill, may I ask?" That was the question posed by John Holbo, a philosophy professor and contributor to the leftwing academic blog Crooked Timber, when news broke that the University of Colorado was harboring a leftist extremist in its midst. The gist of Holbo’s question was that no respectable person on the Left could come to the defense of someone so demonstrably in leave of his senses as the former Weatherman accomplice, academic fraud, and faux-Indian.
One can only hope that the professor’s academic acumen is better than his news judgment. In fact, no sooner had the media picked up on Churchill’s now-notorious essay than his leftwing enablers rushed to rescue his reputation.
Carrying the flag of the pro-Churchill campaign was the academic community. Colorado University President Elizabeth Hoffman, before revising her views in the face of broad public condemnation, initially condoned Churchill’s likening of the victims of September 11 to Nazi apparatchiks, insisting that “Prof. Churchill's comments have precipitated a discussion we ought to have.”
Continued
The right to free speach protects us from punishment by the government for something we have said. There are limits. Some of Churchill's statements advocating violence push those limits. But he is not being arrested, so the first amendment doesn't apply.
Getting fired is a wholely different thing. Acedemic freedom would apply, if he were speaking as an academic about his field of expertise. He was not. Tenure is not imunity from moral turpitude. Let a tenured professor advocate the rape and dismemberment of coeds, and see how long he is employed.
If proven, yes. Neither is a free speech issue.
Theft is not protected speech.
What if his speech is a manifest lie?
Then it should be disproved academically and his reputation suffers accordingly. Otherwise it's just opinion, and opinion is protected speech.
What if he has lied about who he is on his job application and about other things.
That's a question for the university to decide on.
No.
BTW: The best way to say it would be, "He was grandstanding, and was needlessly offensive". I don't think that "grandstood" is a word. :)
I wouldn't take away his job for what he said about the 911 victims either.
But if it attracts people's attention and they find he is guilty of other unethical or illegal behavior, I have no problem at all with him getting canned for that.
What I said was that I didn't want him to have his tenure revoked or for him to lose his job for holding an unpopular opinion.
Meh, we'll see. Professors have been writing on contreversial topics outside of their fields for years. Alfred Kinsey was an entomologist before he started his sex surveys. And Noam Chomsky is, by occupation, a lingusit, (hell of a linguist, actually) but he's best known for his social commentary.
Now, to be fair, Churchill isn't anywhere near as brilliant as those two examples, but he is a tenured professor. Historically, tenure would protect Churchill in this situation and I don't think that things will be any different this time.
You and I have a very different view of the meaning and scope of the First Amendment.
Yeah, right, your just defending his freedom of speech?
So what else do you defend; pedophiles? Nazis? Terrorists?
The Founding Fathers never intended for freedom of speech to include speech that is inciteful of violence or panic or is generally harmful to the public good. That is why a good majority of them supported the Sedition Act.
Why dont you just admit that you hate this nation and want to protect anyone who undermines it?
Or are you just too naive to realize that people like Churchill are only 'good' when they are room temperature?
Yes.
It's "you're" not "your" btw.
So what else do you defend; pedophiles? Nazis? Terrorists?
If you're talking about defending their Constitutional rights, then yes.
The Founding Fathers never intended for freedom of speech to include speech that is inciteful of violence or panic or is generally harmful to the public good. That is why a good majority of them supported the Sedition Act.
Churchill's essay was an opinion piece, not a death threat.
Why dont you just admit that you hate this nation and want to protect anyone who undermines it?
Because I don't.
Or are you just too naive to realize that people like Churchill are only 'good' when they are room temperature?
No, I'm just wise enough to understand that defending his rights and defending mine are one and the same. Also, despite my color-blindness, I've come to realize that the world has more shades than black and white. Those who don't realize that are the real threat to America, not the Ward Churchills.
Was Kinsey a professor? I thought he had his own research institute. No matter, I'd have fired his butt for moral turpitude. Chomsky is another matter. He's a jerk, but what he has said (while smug, self-satisfied, and wrong)is within the bounds of civil discourse.
His research methods were questionable (a discussion that I don't want to start again) but he did manage to dispel most of the myths about human sexuality that had been floating around the public conscious.
FrankR and I have the same interpretation. Where did we go wrong.
Another question - if someone has the "right" to advocate violence, why doesn't his boss have the freedom of speach to say, "You're fired"?
well, the whole thing is a matter for the university to decide upon, so your opinion and mine are irrelevant.
Have you ever had a job or do you just show up to make sanctimonius speeches or forums?
The government may not put him in jail for his speech. But everyone who ever had a job knows that if you say or do certain things that draw attention to your employer to his detriment, your are history.
And do tell,do yousupport the restrictions on free speech visited on students in the name of not having "hate speech". This speech was classical hate speech. And are you aware he took a loyalty oath to get his job, I think his speech makes it clear he has violated that oath. And if what he published is a lie, a fraud, then he ought to be fired for that.
You will leave that to the college?
Who in hell do you think you are? The college is supported in its entirety by the state and the parents of kids and the federal govt via grants.
Do you think that this college, with its 200 profs already on record wanting a halt to this inquiry, is capable of judgiing its own.
I think you are an academic wetting your pants. You know tenure can be given and taken away and this case will make the latter more likely. I have seen tenure and its ills, it protects people who never do anything but loaf after getting it, who use a university as a podium and who are not scholars. Real scholars are rarely in need to tenure.
Again, your hubris is amazing. And your sanctimony.
Ah. I was thinking of the artwork fraud, but yes. That's fraud, too.
"losing their job for holding an unpopular opinion."
Opinion is one thing, but this man has went far past opinion.
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