Churchill fires back

Tonight, embattled University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill issued a statement defending his scholarship and threatening the school for attempting to fire him.

CU announced on Monday a decision to terminate Churchill, who began to be investigated for academic misconduct after an essay he wrote compared victims of the September 11th terrorist attack to an infamous Nazi.

Statement released Tuesday by University of Colorado-Boulder professor Ward Churchill:

It was quite predictable that Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano would recommend that I be fired from my tenured professorship at the University of Colorado/Boulder. After all, he was effectively ordered to find some "legally defensible" basis for doing so by Colorado Governor Bill Owens.

In pursuit of this purely political objective, the interim chancellor has at this point expended more than a year and upwards of $250,000 in taxpayer monies.

Certain facts about my case simply cannot be denied: 1. Interim Chancellor DiStefano joined Governor Owens and several Colorado legislators in publicly and repeatedly denouncing me on explicitly ideological grounds, thereby making his personal biases abundantly clear.

2. In direct violation of the Laws of the Regents of the University of Colorado concerning Academic Freedom, the interim chancellor took the unprecedented step of creating and chairing a special committee devoted to investigating the political content of my scholarship.

3. He and/or his surrogates on this special committee actively solicited allegations of "research misconduct" against me, contriving to cast the impression through the media that these allegations were independently and voluntarily submitted by the scholars involved.

4. Since this produced a "shot-gun load" of allegations but no actual complainants, Interim Chancellor DiStefano named himself complainant without, by his own admission, even bothering to read much of what he was supposedly alleging.

5. Throughout this process the interim chancellor routinely violated the confidentiality rules concerning personnel matters in the CU system, issuing numerous press releases designed to sustain the media "feeding frenzy," subjecting me to "trial by news media," and denying my rights to privacy and due process.

6. Having thus virtually guaranteed that faculty members at the University of Colorado could not be neutral, the interim chancellor/complainant then used his administrative influence to ensure that my request for an investigative panel composed exclusively of persons external to CU was denied. Consequently 3 of 5 panel members, including its chair, were drawn from the Boulder faculty. As predicted, serious questions concerning the impartiality of 2 of these internal panelists have come to light, and more can be expected.

7. Similarly, my repeated requests that the investigative panel include acknowledged experts in the relevant subject areas were ignored. Ultimately, 4 of the 5 panelists professed no specific knowledge whatsoever concerning either the procedures employed within my discipline or the topics under discussion. So much for the pretense that the merits of my work have been assessed by my peers.

The investigative report produced by the panel, while voluminous, misses the mark entirely.

The panelists were required by the rules to restrict their inquiry to whether I actually committed fraud and plagiarism.

Instead, they indulged in a repetition of the "Scopes Monkey Trial," presuming to assert the "truth" of the various historical and legal questions involved, in a manner comfortable to themselves and to those they seemingly perceive as comprising the "American mainstream." Such enforcement of orthodoxy was plainly not within the panels legitimate mandate.

Indeed, as regards the allegations of fraud raised by Interim Chancellor DiStefano, whether what I wrote is true or false is irrelevant. The ONLY relevant consideration is whether I had reason to believe it was true.

On this score, I did, and still do, and the panel proved nothing to the contrary. This is amply reflected in the evidence the panel left largely unaddressed in its report. Much the same pertains to my having supposedly "invented" historical incidents, and the alleged implications of my ghostwriting.

As to the panels findings that by a "preponderance of the evidence" I twice engaged in plagiarism, a simple question presents itself: What, exactly, is a "preponderance" of no evidence at all? Of course, the report produced by the investigative panel is designed to make the opposite of all this seem true. In fact, it seems reasonable to suggest that the very length of the document was meant to obscure its lack of substance.

Two observations support this conclusion: 1. In order to conclude that I engaged in research misconduct, the panelists, collectively, severely distort certain of their sources, omit mention of material inconvenient to their conclusions, cite themselves as the sole authority confirming many of their points, and occasionally engage in outright fabrication.

In fact, each kind of academic misconduct the interim chancellors carefully-selected panel claims I committed is engaged in by the panel itself in the writing of its report. (One of the panelists even takes credit for authoring a work unquestionably written by another scholar.) In the face of all this, it becomes apparent that the panelists arrived at their conclusions before the fact, the orchestrated their data accordingly. In other words, to borrow the panels own term, their report was clearly "thesis-driven." Paraphrasing them again, it means they "dont understand the difference between scholarship and polemic," and have produced a report consisting of "propaganda rather than scholarship." 2. Even if the allegations at issue were true and they certainly are not they do not constitute offenses for which faculty members can, under any ordinary circumstances, be terminated. The panel, the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct (SCRM) which endorsed its report, and the interim chancellor all thus resorted to the argument that I could/should be fired, not for what I did, but because I have refused to recant. In other words, it is my "attitude" which justifies the severity of the recommended sanctions.

This, then, is the backdrop against which Interim Chancellor DiStefanos "news flash" that I should be fired must be understood.

From start to finish, the interim chancellors blatant conflicts of interest not to mention the political nature of his biases have been obvious to anyone who cared to view the matter honestly. So, too, the ways in which he has manipulated the process at every step in order to guarantee the outcome he announced on Monday, June 26.

The interim vice chancellors strikingly duplicitous comportment over the past 16 months will not go unchallenged. I will file an appeal of the whole charade with the Faculty Senates Committee on Privilege and Tenure (P&T) within the next 10 days.

Far from putting the "final touches to the Churchill story," as fantasized on Denver editorial pages, the interim chancellors elaborate subterfuge has merely set the stage for the taxpayers to waste another quarter-million dollars while I go through the P&T process.

Hopefully, the members of P&T who review my case will display the sort of integrity conspicuously lacking in their predecessors on the investigative panel and the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct.

That would do much to constrain the magnitude of damage sustained by the University - and consequently the taxpayers - when my case goes to court, as it ultimately will.

"...Ward Churchill would do himself some good to express a profound apology to people he has offended and misled.

He should also come clean about his appropriated American Indian identity. "

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410293

"The comments he made were very very damaging and very hurtful," Giuliani told a crowd of about 2,000 at the Coors Events Center.
"I think the remarks were extremely cruel," he told reporters "He inflicted a tremendous amount of pain on these families."
Giuliani compared Churchill being on CU's faculty to having a geography teacher who believed the world is flat.

"He's entitled to that opinion, but you don't want him to be teaching geography, do you," Giuliani said.

The University of Colorado's report on the investigation of Ward Churchill's alleged scholarly misconduct has just been released.

Churchill was found guilty of deliberate false assertions, misrepresentation of sources, and plagiarism.

Among other things, Churchill was found guilty of passing off others' work as his own (plagiarism), but also of passing off his own work as others'.

This "permits the author to create the false appearance that his claims are supported by other scholars when, in fact, he is the only source for such claims"...

http://www.homofactuspress.com/2006/05/south_end_press_needs_damage_c.htm

In pursuit of this purely political objective, the interim chancellor has at this point expended more than a year and upwards of $250,000 in taxpayer monies.

I don’t recall Chief Humbug squawking about taxpayer wampum showered on him.

It's sort of like someone on trial for a crime, and when faced with the prosecution's evidence, prattling on and on about the short-comings of the prosecutors and witnesses, without actually bothering to explain an alternate reason for his fingerprints on the smoking gun found at the crime scene.

Kind of like saying it's just about sex? Or that the investigation costs 40 million? The creepy German/Swiss(?) fraud is a liberal in the great traditions of petty lying democrats...

If Churchill is let go by Colorado, he may have an offer from the U. of Hawaii. He was over here not too long ago and had a standing room only crowd and standing ovations on every lie he told. I'm sure they could find a position for him. Cindy Sheehan also pulled a big crowd at the University of Hawaii and they just loved her. I live in a sick state. I am an American Indian (a real one) and if that SOB comes here I may have to scalp him.

"When one of his students, a Mandan-Hidatsa Indian, wrote a piece raising doubts about his claimed biography, he dropped her grade from an A to a C-minus."
Now isn't this typical of leftists? Sure it is. Since their very body of beliefs are based on lies, the lies must be upheld! So what if a student must pay? They have no shame, no credibility and no depths they would not stoop--it's the agenda! that's important to them... hope he finds work away from teaching his junk at a college so he can learn what really is... the cretin.

What about the students rights ?

Of course, Ward does not care about his students, truth, accuracy, nor real academic scholarship.

Unfortunately, Ward will have a book deal and then hit the lecture circuit raising big money for his lies.

That would do much to constrain the magnitude of damage sustained by the University - and consequently the taxpayers - when my case goes to court, as it ultimately will.

That's the key paragraph. This statement is merely the publicity build-up for a long and drawn-out lawsuit financed by the American Association of University Professors, the ACLU or other like-minded groups.

The AAUP already has a healthy legal docket as can be seen here. The Churchill matter is made to order for these zealots who will see this case as a major threat (true!) to their right to indoctrinate students with whatever they like, from homosexuality and bestiality to Stalinism.

Mr. K said: "A claim that cannot be substantiated because the original artist is dead, but his son claims he would never have given such permission."

If I understand correctly, Churchill was selling prints using that artwork, was he not? It wouldn't be reasonable for Churchill to have permission to use the artwork commercially without a written agreement and without giving credit to the original artist.

The family of the artist may need to defend any copyright they have or they risk losing it. It would be fitting if Churchill was forced to give up any severance payment from the university to pay for copyright infringement.

That was a Seinfeld episode. It's not a lie if you believe it.

Oh, I read it, and I recommend that anyone else interested in this case do likewise.

They bent over backwards to help him and he still came out very, very bad.

Despite this, I don't think the university as a whole really wants to fire him. They were really looking for any excuse to keep him. And that's very interesting.

I think the Interim Chancellor's sole job is to get rid of him, which is also interesting. Didn't he say he wanted to do it before the permanent guy assumes office, so that he won't have what will be perceived as bloodstained hands?

D

Actually, in prolonging this case by going through the whole dismissal procedure, he's going to get at least four more months of salary. What did he make, something like $175k?

That's going to be about $58k he'll get for not raising a finger, since he's on administrative leave.

I strongly suspect his appeal is going to be equivalent to a full-time job for at least one person at his pay level, probably considerably more than one. That means at least another $58k.

So he's squandering more than $100k of the university's money to deal with this case, plus whatever it will cost to defend and settle his lawsuit.

We can laugh all we want about ethnic studies, but does anyone else think he looks like he wants to kill us?

http://www.colorado.edu/EthnicStudies/faculty/churchill.html

I doubt that I'd love the rest of the Ethnic Studies faculty either, but none of them have quite that hostile a look. You can check out their bios and photographs here:

http://www.colorado.edu/EthnicStudies/faculty.html

D

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