The Genocide That Wasn’t: Ward Churchill’s Research Fraud

Lamar University Sociology Dept ^ | Thomas Brown

[Interesting Times]

Bump.

Maybe we can't get Churchill fired, but we can certainly make sure he's discredited as the fraud that he is...

[untenured]

Good post. This whole smallpox-blankets charge has taken on a life of its own in recent decades. As the article notes, there is only one remotely documented episode, at the hands of a British officer during the French & Indian War. There were rumors of British attempts to spread smallpox during the Revolutionary siege of Boston and in the runup to Yorktown, but they are undocumented.

The treatment of the aboriginals by the government of the U.S. was a fairly straightforward military conquest, full of atrocities (the Nez Perce, the Cherokee, Sand Creek, etc.) and leaving us little of which to be proud. But it did not include biological warfare, nor was it an organized attept to wipe out American Indians. It is important not to ignore it, but it is also important not to simply make stuff up.

[murdoog]

This is gold.

I have heard the smallpox blankets story many times and I'm ashamed to say I believed it. It's quite a revelation to learn the source.

[Bon mots]

Has anyone ever verified that he ever served in the Army Rangers as he claims? Is he really a Vietnam vet? We know that he doesn't have a Ph.D. - the usual standard for a "professor". Who hired this bum?

He also came from Sangamon State University, a Marxist school set up by anti-War protesters from the Vietnam era and Woodstock leftovers. Sangamon didn't have a grading system nor traditional curricula. What's also strange is that they didn't appear to have a Bachelor's degree program at the time that Ward Churchill claims to have gotten his... details, details...

THIS HAS BEEN SHAMELESSY LIFTED FROM ANOTHER SITE:

In 1970 Sangamon State University, the smallest of Illinois' 12 state universities, was a different kind of place. Many students were not graded, for example, but received individualized evaluations instead. There were no large classes. No deans or department chairs--in fact, no departments. Interdisciplinary courses were the norm. Faculty were hired for their interest in teaching--without teaching assistants--and had no publish-or-perish requirement. SSU was designated "the public affairs university of Illinois" at a time when public affairs, for many of the faculty at least, meant opposing the war in Vietnam and devising alternatives to mainstream institutions. It was an upper-division institution designed for older students transferring in from community colleges and traditional four-year institutions less suited to their needs; the average age of undergraduates was over 30. Faculty and students who were around at the time describe those days with obvious affection.

In the interests of truth in advertising, though, SSU might more accurately have been deemed a university with at best radical potential and at worst radical pretensions. In hindsight, its initial design was flawed. From the very beginning it was vulnerable both to the external pressures of the market and to reactionary local elites and political conservatives in the state legislature and the governor's office. The radical interpretation that some of the new faculty and students had given to the "public affairs mandate" they had authorized came as a surprise. Within two years of the school's founding, SSU's administrators began to purge policies and personnel that stood in the way of normalization, beginning more than two decades of struggle between competing visions of what kind of university Sangamon was to be. Inevitable faculty debate over educational policy has almost always allowed administrators to selectively claim they were merely responding to those faculty desires most in keeping with their agenda, such as the conversion to a four year university. With the recent transition from SSU to UIS putting the administration and its faculty supporters firmly in control, the initial radical potential has now been almost totally gutted.

Source for above quote

[Wonder Warthog]

Is Churchill's middle name "Bellesiles"??? Their scholarly veracity seems quite similar.

[Bernard Marx]

Thank you for posting this, and thanks to Thomas Brown. If this holds up under scrutiny I think the academic authorities now have all the ammunition they need to fire a tenured professor.

While I despise tenure sometimes I also believe in the First Amendment and in academic freedom. No professor should ever be fired for expressing an unpopular thought; that's the essence of the First Amendment and academic inquiry. But propagating demonstrable lies is counter to every principle of the Academy. If liars are allowed to fluourish under the protection of tenure the institution will collapse. I now believe Ward Churchill is toast. It's time to go after more of these academic frauds, and there are some who have very high profiles.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Churchill's fraudulent scholarship alone is reason enough to fire him from the university.

Yes. Academic freedom protects his rather stupid political ideas, but not fraudulent scholarship. It's rare to get someone for fraud, but it does occur. Thomas Brown's article is a good start.

[AnAmericanMother]

Lord Amherst (in 1763, under British colonial rule) is guilty -- but the U.S. Army in 1837 is innocent.

Interestingly enough, the well known painter George Catlin visited with and memorialized the Mandans just before they were almost wiped out by the smallpox epidemic. They are one of the best documented Indian groups. Besides, his paintings are gorgeous. We saw an extensive collection in D.C. year before last.

Medicine man Mah-to-he-ha in his ceremonial regalia.

[twigs]

Also, Americans were very interested in the Mandans. It was widely believed that they were descendents of Welsh who sailed to North American in the 11/12th century. Supposedly some had fairer hair and gray eyes.

I've read pros and cons about Amherst's guilt, but the letters I read seemed to indicate that he was guilty.

[bvw]

Your story correlates well to Thomas Brown's observation: "Anti-white racism within AIM is largely perpetrated by people—such as Churchill—who are insecure in their own Indian identity."

[bvw]

"1/23rd"? Wild.

[knittnmom]

Thanks. I just sent the link to the article to UW-Whitewater's chancellor, Jack Miller, (millerjw@uww.edu) with a polite note to please consider its contents when making his decision.

[LauraleeBraswell]

The spread of disease among Native American peoples was completely intentioned

European settlers carried with them diseases that they themselves were Immune to. Native Americans had never come into contact with foreigners did not have these natural immunities to European Disease.


I was actually thinking about the smallpox blanket myth the other day (when I didn't know it was a myth) and I wondered how it was possible for the US army to know that diseases spread this way. Pre modern medicine The 1830s. If you think about how many people died from infection and disease - and Doctors knew little about Sterilization.

[AnAmericanMother]

Yeah, George Catlin thought they were descended from Prince Madoc of Wales.

They don't look Welsh to me, but what do I know? My grandmother was part Welsh, but still . . .

[Cricket24]

The more I read about this guy, the more I believe he's mentally unstable.


Agreed

[AnAmericanMother]

It was known as early as the 1600s that pus and scabs from smallpox victims would infect others.

In other words, they knew . . . they just didn't know WHY.

[bvw]

Academic tenure has nothing at all to do with the First Amendment. Note I called "tenure" what you called "freedom". Why? Because a fired professor is FREE to start his own Academy. Such a professor, fired for expressing ideas then disagreeable to the institution whose honor is pegged next to his own name in published papers, CV's etc, has the right pre-existant and supra to the Constitution -- a common law right -- to start his own institution and to advertise and market it to students, to donors, to whomever.

In so doing he has the right to express whatever views he wishes -- short of treason, libel, fraud, perjury and the most extreme and direct provocation to riot or insurrection (that is before a crowd already primed to act with violence). Moreover -- and this is where the 1st comes in -- the GOVERNMENT IS FORBIDDEN EXPRESSLY to infringe upon that common law right. You see, the Constitution is a charter upon the Government's activities, not a charter constraining or permitting any action of the People's. That is so except for two specific clauses that do restrain the People, by their assent of ratification of the Charter. One such clause is the allowance for grant of copyright and patent. The other is treason.

Where does government get the authority to restrain the free actions of the People -- through the common law.

[Lazamataz]

[GarySpFc]

You will find this interesting.

[Lorianne]

Thanks for posting this.