[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.

[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.