Genociding Ward Churchill for over a 20th of a century

CNews 28April06

Caplis & Silverman have a pic of the CU investigating subcommittee's letter sent to Ward Churchill accuser Ernesto Vigil listing the additional academic misconduct charges the subcommittee has chosen to investigate

Among Vigil's charges the subcommittee will look into are Churchill's several conflations of original cited texts' "peasants, villagers and civilians" into "Indians"—a conflation apparently intended by Churchill to artificially strengthen his genocide argument.

CNews 26April06

For [Churchill] to make the claim that there’s no such truth but politics is utter nonsense. Its incredibly immature and unthoughtful.

DiStefano has presided over the campus through much of the controversy over embattled professor Ward Churchill, who is under investigation by a university committee on allegations of research misconduct.

Churchill, who has also been criticized for an essay he wrote comparing some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi, has denied wrongdoing. A committee is expected to make a recommendation on his future next month.

If the process leads to a recommendation that Churchill be fired, the chancellor would have to approve. It was not immediately clear how DiStefano's decision would affect the process.

CNews 25April06

Rocky: Tenure Trouble Found
Post: CU recommendations not groundbreaking, experts say
Rocky: Churchill case not examined
Post: CU tenure review calls for "sweeping changes"

CNews 24April06

• http://web5.streamhoster.com/grantastic/depaul/Blewitt-2006_03_01.mp3
• http://web5.streamhoster.com/grantastic/depaul/Conservative_Alliance_2006_03_10.mp3
• http://web5.streamhoster.com/grantastic/depaul/Hahn-2006_04_10.mp3

In a letter to Ernesto Vigil, a concerned citizen of Denver, committee chairman Joseph Rosse outlined the two new allegations against Churchill.

The first "involves alleged misrepresentation of genocide in El Salvador" in Churchill's 1997 book, "A Little Matter of Genocide," according to the letter. The second pertains to inaccuracies in Churchill's 1988 book, "Agents of Repression," Rosse said in the letter.

Update: Courtesy of reader Keziah, who alerts us to a priceless scholarly exchange between Churchill and his audience:

Brandishing a letter from CU's investigating committee, Churchill belittled the allegations, saying they were yet another attempt to persecute him for his controversial opinions.

But the man whose research led to the new investigation was in attendance and confronted Churchill before the audience of approximately 60 people.

The exchange quickly became heated and included Churchill yelling: "Yo. Shut up and I'll answer."

CNews 21April06

But even then, the case could be far from over.

Once the committee finishes its investigation, it will submit a report to the university’s Standing Committee on Research Misconduct, which is made up of 12 CU faculty members.

Churchill and his attorney, David Lane, will get the chance to respond to investigators’ findings.

Churchill and Lane have called the investigation politically motivated and the charges baseless.

"They will be easily disproven," Churchill said last year.

CNews 20April06

From our That's Mighty White of Them Department: Guess that librarian isn't going to face sexual harrassment charges from Ohio State University for recommending conservative books for a reading list

CNews 19April06

I do think that historians must always be careful that their history writing doesn't become infected by their politics. The minute you start with a political idea and try to find a version of history that affirms it, you're a bad historian. A good propagandist, maybe, but a lousy historian.
—Professor Sean Wilentz

CNews 18April06

CNews 17April06

Scott Savage, who serves as a reference librarian for the university, suggested four best-selling conservative books for freshman reading in his role as a member of OSU Mansfield’s First Year Reading Experience Committee. The four books he suggested were The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian, The Professors by David Horowitz, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye’or, and It Takes a Family by Senator Rick Santorum. Savage made the recommendations after other committee members had suggested a series of books with a left-wing perspective, by authors such as Jimmy Carter and Maria Shriver.

Savage was put under “investigation” by OSU’s Office of Human Resources after three professors filed a complaint of discrimination and harassment against him, saying that the book suggestions made them feel “unsafe.” The complaint came after the OSU Mansfield faculty voted without dissent to file charges against Savage. The faculty later voted to allow the individual professors to file charges.

University administrators who granted Churchill tenure may be surprised to learn that each mention of my name [in The COINTEL Papers] is in reference to complete fabrications.

In one of the more zany episodes, I assume the identity of an infiltrating postal inspector during the Wounded Knee crisis. In another, I am given responsibility for the death of a village occupier, at a time when I was hundreds of miles away. What I did do, as the chief FBI official on the scene, was to order the erection of manned roadblocks to cordon off the violence. Would-be historians have since contended that armed militants who opened fire on these roadblocks were not trying to harm anyone. The assertion is both inaccurate and absurd.

CNews 16April06

We must be slipping—we missed this excellent letter to the editor last week in the Daily Camera:

While it is likely to have been taken out of context, Ward Churchill's claim that there is "no consensus, no truth" is a despicable position for a college professor to espouse — its inevitable outcome is propaganda rather than understanding. (I recommend Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit for a more complete analysis of this disease.)

As I understand it (naive, I know), arriving at an objective, dispassionate and accurate analysis is the goal, however difficult, of a scholar — but perhaps scholarship, and academic rigor, are not central to the role of activists (particularly those comfortably sucking at the public teat).

MICHAEL W. KLYMKOWSKY
Boulder

CNews 14April06

Courtesy of Grant Crowell, a complete transcription of Ward Churchill's DePaul University speech (MS Word doc format) last October.

...and for those who want to try their hand at figuring out all the [?] words in the transcript, Grant provides us with the complete audio (tip: turn your volume w-a-y up).

Excerpts (bear in mind that this transcript was taken from an audience-located recording device, and the sound quality is less than, um, professional. It's entirely possible that some quotes may not be accurate):

Churchill, on the definition of 'ignorance':

These are ignorant people. But ignorance, you understand, is not to not know. To not know is to be uninformed. To be ignorant is to have the information and ignore it because it’s not in your immediate self interest, or in the interest of the group you have signified your identity with. You’re dealing with identity now.

Churchill, on illegal immigration:

[It b]egan in 1607. If you’re going to talk about it at all, let’s talk about it from then. Yeah. People who came, or the descendants of people, and people who signified their identity with a culture, a society, and results that arise from showing up [?] reservation, promptly slaughtering the people who provided it, and seeking to expand to continental proportions in such a fashion, and with such policies, and articulations of [?] philosophy, that you end up being the template emulated by Adolph Hitler, and he said so. Well, really bad immigration policy on our part and a really, really illegal bunch of people; thugs and scum are how you’d call it if people were functioning anywhere else. Call your own tradition by its right name. You might come up with a tradition you can actually be proud of. Better than having to falsified history. Falsified by stating things that are untrue, falsified by refusing to acknowledge things that are true. If you gotta invent your history, you’re inventing your identity. You’re inventing the matrix of value. You’re living an illusion. And it’s a lethal one for everyone around you and ultimately for yourself. So, that’s what I say with regard to the immigrant thing. Ok, people not carrying that mind set? The more the merrier. The more the merrier. Hell, people who signify identity with the system that needs to be preserved for all this National Security, truncation of rights, and liberties, and all the rest of it are, why? Exporting jobs? Exporting manufacturing facilities? Exporting the revenue derivative there from? Exportin’…How ‘bout they export themselves? They’re exporting the entire continent to other places so they can maximize profit. Why don’t you just go over there and live, too? And then we won’t have all these concerns about immigrant problems. Because the bad group of immigrants will be gone, and the ones that don’t care, those twisted and demented values, won’t be coming in. And personally, since I live here, I’d vastly prefer that than the status quo. Wouldn’t you?

Good God, you got global warming, whether George Bush has funded intelligent design for it or not, it’s simply a fact. And even he’s having a real hard time with the repetition force 5 hurricanes coming up out of the gulf. I mean that didn’t used to happen just a few years back. And the melting ice cap, alright? That’s caused by the burning of fossil fuels. That’s a consensus position whether he wants to recognize it or not. About 5 million miles of territory’s been opened up by the melting of the icecap. What do they say to do with it? Drill for oil. Ok? “We created this problem, let’s use it to create a bigger problem.” Same thing. More of the same.

Churchill, on outsourcing:

Man if they develop any more jobs in those countries, and improve their lot any more, there won’t be any of them left alive. Sweat shop labor, is not preferable to not being employed, if you actually have control of your resources. The only reason those jobs are necessary is expropriation of the resources. Siphoning off of the wealth to the very corporations and that will go back and offer them a way out of the destitution by virtue of working 12 hours a day, locked into a degraded facility at 14 years of age. What a way fuckin’ out. Give me a break. By that definition, you’re getting’ really close to sayin’ Auschwitz was a career trajectory for those who weren’t going directly to the gas chambers. Make it all worse, have steady jobs working in a [?]Puma factory manufacturing rubber. Yeah. That’s not so much wrong, as it is obscene. Turn people into virtual cattle and then talk about doing them a favor and giving them an opportunity. Hmm. I’ll stop there.

Churchill, on Christianity:

Western Christendom comes into being, what we call Roman Catholicism, as a counterpoint to eastern orthodoxy, has to define itself [?] theologically, and make a distinction to the orthodoxy of the east, in some fashion. And they needed to do it in a relative hurry. And it hasn’t got the best minds in the church to deploy. How did it do that? By incorporating, and denying the fact of incorporation, Islamic interpretation of the same scripture, was coming through that period, ok? We got a 2 or 3 century long process [?]. We got a different, particularly different interpretation of scripture, which marks and defines what is Christendom.

CNews 13April06

Ward Churchill and his defenders have claimed that he was not attributing "blood quantum" to the 1887 Dawes Act (aka General Allotment Act) itself, but rather to the general prejudices that informed the legislative and judiciary decisions of the time.

So he must have forgotten that he said—writing, admittedly, under his then-wife M. Annette Jaimes' name—in 1992:

"[Under the Act] [e]ach Indian, identified as being those documentably of one-half or more Indian blood, was entitled to receive title in fee of such parcel; all others were simply disenfranchised altogether."
—pp. 126, "Federal Indian Identification Policy," The State of Native America

"The 1887 'standard' was 'one-half or more degree of Indian blood.'"
—pp. 62, footnote 97 (related to his first mention in this book to the 1887 General Allotment Act), "Bringing the Law Home," Indians Are Us?

"Under provision of this statute, effected in 1887, a formal eugenics code was utilized to define who was (and who was not) 'Indian' by U.S. 'standards.' Those who could, and were willing to, prove to federal satisfaction that they were 'of one-half or more degree of Indian blood',' and to accept U.S. citizenship into the bargain, received a deed to an individual land parcel, typically of 160 acres or less."
—pp. 31, Since Predator Came

CNews 12April06

CNews 10April06

Consider Churchill’s position: In his opening statement, Churchill argued that politics should not because it cannot be removed from education. His position rests upon his clearly stated belief that there is no truth, that all supposed knowledge is really opinion, and opinions are nothing but reflections of various political ideologies. By equating ideology and politics (both having no foundation in rational, objective truth), Churchill is consistent in arguing that politics cannot be removed from the classroom, because knowledge or opinion cannot be removed from ideology. All that Churchill asks is that professors should be open and honest about their politics—he calls for truth in advertising—while arguing that it is precisely the purpose of a professor to “profess,” which means professing one’s political ideology, whatever it happens to be.

The only way for Horowitz to beat Churchill is to deny and refute Churchill's basic premise, namely that there is no truth, that all opinion is irrational ideology and politics, and, conversely, that all politics is irrational opinion. As I listened to the debate, however, Horowitz never challenged Churchill's premise. On the contrary, Horowitz seems to agree with Churchill. Like Churchill, Horowitz reduces all political views to "ideologies," something akin to irrational prejudices or what Marx would call “false consciousness.” Horowitz does not oppose liberalism because it is wrong (he says he opposes all ideologies, whether left or right, being brought into the classroom). It seems he is angry because liberalism is the only "ideology" on our campuses and therefore he wants students to be exposed to other "ideologies" as well. But why? If all ideologies are equally irrational and untrue, why does it matter if students hear one irrational view or a thousand irrational views? Zero rationality multiplied by a hundred or a thousand still equals zero! And how can it be “educational” to impart irrational prejudices to students?

CNews 9April06

CNews 7April06

Miss the Horowitz-Churchill debate? Or just want to relive the glory? RighTalk.com has the debate preserved for posterity here (mp3 format, audio, 36.47Mbytes)

...and here's a partial transcript of the Hannity & Colmes post-debate interview with Horowitz and Churchill

Here's the Rocky Mountain News' report on the debate
...and the Denver Post's report on the debate
...and Inside Higher Education asks "Why?"

...And then, everybody talked at once...

"I dont know if he has been discussed here but I gotta say, I love the guy."

—DVDBurner, commenting on Ward Churchill

"Entry Denied: Ward Churchill"
You will never believe this. I just had about an hour conversation with Ward Churchill in a hotel bar here in DC and I'm about to go see him debate David Horowitz... he wrote the above passage in my copy of Horowitz's book, "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America."
Honestly, I didn't think he was that "dangerous" - but he didn't have an official entry on him, which is why he wrote that in my book.

—fgonzales78, on an hour-long converation he had with Churchill at a bar prior to the debate

Churchill speaks in the language of the theater of the absurd. Employing disjointed, repetitious, and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and sentences that lack realistic or logical development.

—Atlas Shrugs

Ward is a sniveling little putz. Can’t answer a direct question without obfuscation. Feh.

—rightymouse, in a comment on Gulf Coast Pundit

The entire affair was predictably worthless. Why? Because both Churchill and Horwitz are as intellectually shallow and uninspiring as they are famous. I don't think Mr. Churchill has anything remotely resembling an original idea: basically warmed-over Marxist postmodernism, dressed up with just enough current events flavor to get him time on The O'Reilly Factor. As for Horwitz--I caught part of his act during a taped lecture on C-SPAN recently, and I was struck by the utter lack of nuance in his words and behavior: table-thumping anger, but not much else. If "liberal bias" is a problem in higher education, this man doesn't have the capacity for solving it.

—BRDIRCK, in "A Plague On Both Their Houses" on the A. Lincoln Blog

Some post-mortem of our first live weblog:
We are not fast enough typists to keep up with what is said. We need either faster or more typists to cover the next debate.
Our blog software is not as user-friendly as lgf's (for example) for the near-conversation quality one wants to achieve for live webblogging.

...and on the debate itself:
Our predictions for the debate were all too accurate.
Churchill does not perform well when not in front of his usual audience of sychophants and while discussing unfamiliar topics.
Horowitz was not much better, though he did improve with time.
Had this been a scored college debate, Churchill would have lost for his continuing reliance on various logical fallacies to advance his argument. This was not a scored college debate.
Had this been a scored college debate, Horowitz would have lost for his inability to formulate a simple declarative sentence. This was not a scored college debate.

...and on the media reports of the debate:
Both the Rocky and the Post credit both Horowitz and Churchill with using "big words" whereas only Churchill waxed pedantic.

Horowitz-Churchill Debate

***Update: We have a growing round-up of after-debate commentary from the blogosphere here
***Update: And links to audio, video, and transcripts here


Rightalk.com has now put up a link to the live feed for the webcast. You will need appropriate software to hear it (Windows Media Player)

Our comments section is now open, so feel free to, um, comment!

8:03pm ET: Right now there's just background crowd chatter. Doesn't appear that the debate is going to happen for a few minutes, at least (perhaps Hannity & Colmes had inside info that led them to announce a 9pm ET "live' broadcast of an 8pm ET debate). Before we forget, our heartfelt thanks to RighTalk.com for doing making this live webcast possible.

8:08 pm ET: Our feed is blanking out, but it may be due to our satellite connection. Anyone else experiencing momentary blanks?

8:09pm ET: Prefatory remarks by an unnamed announcer are taking place.

8:11pm ET: Gary Lavacary (sp?) has been introduced.

8:13pm ET: Alan Nathan, moderator, introduced. He asks: "Are you ready to rock?"

8:15pm ET: David Horowitz and Ward Churchill introduced.

Horowitz answers the topic question first (can politics be taken out of the classrom, and should it?). He says yes it can and it should.... You don't get a life-time job by expressing an opinion.
***Is it me, or does Horowitz sound hoarse? BTW: Fox is still running the O'Reilly Factor.
Horowitz says the function of education in a democracy is to open minds, that there are plenty of other places to indoctrinate people.
Horowitz says in the last 30 years, whole fields of study have opened on college campuses that are actually political parties.
Horowitz goes on the attack vis Churchill by using his "little eichmanns" essay as an example of anti-American education.
***I certainly hope a recorded podcast of this will be available shortly after the debate.

To Churchill, same question.

Churchill says They cannot. To examine any phenomena of the political reality... the curriculum in these domains is inherently political. The political stance of the professor should be owned; there should be truth in advertising, the professor should be up front with his political bias. There is no truth.
***Churchill is taking the pure Foucauldian view, as he always has, ie, there is no truth, but many "truths."
Churchill says that since no one has encyclopaedic knowledge, there will be different opinions. He notes the model for the university was the German model, ie, based on science, and he further says the model was misapplied.
***Seems Churchill is trying the ole "baffle 'em with bullshit" strategy. He does, however, seem more focussed than Horowitz did.
Churchill says that government's participation in education nullifies it. He says that the "utilitarian" view of education needs to be clhallenged.

Horowitz' 5-minute rebuttal begins
Horowitz says Churchill has an either-or approach. How about teaching "about"? You can teach about a controvery and the professor can present both sides of the argument, but should leave the conclusion up to the students themselves.
Horowitz says social work education is now about social justice.
Horowitz notes the numerous teachers teaching subjects they are unqualified to teach.

Churchill rebuts

Churchill brings out his awards for some reason. He says that the withholding of funding to CU is a curtailment of his freedom of speech and academic freedom.
Churchill says my classes are the appropriate forum [for these issues].

Nathan has questions for each

***sorry, I missed the first question to Horowitz, but it pertained to when it would be approriate to dicuss politics in a classroom.

Churchill's rebuttal

The question is are you requiring the class to arrive at the same conclusions you arrive at. The purpose of a professor is to profess. You are to have arrived at conclusions....

Nathan question to Churchill: How do you respond to critics who say your opinions are espoused to a captive audience?
There are withdrawal periods. The only problem with that is if you actually decieved your students as to your stand. Once they make the choice to stay in your class, you're obligated to profess your conclusions.

Horowitz' rebuttal

Horowitz says anybody can profess. Why do professors get lifetime jobs if they're just in the classrom to give their opinions? Turn in your tenure. There are penalties for students who drop courses.

Nathan's Question to Horowitz: if we really support academic freedom, fredom of speech is integral. How can you draw the distinction without endangering academic freedom?

***Sorry, missed Horowitz' answer.

Churchill's rebuttal

I don't know that I'm competent to teach social work, but I suspect you lack those qualifications as well. He sees no reason to exclude a study of Zinn's history book from a social work class.

Nathan: If a teacher's lecture is ever dominated by his ideology, is there a potential for marginalizing the subject matter because of the ideology put in its place.

Churchill says there's always going to be points of view in a classroom. It's possible for subject matter to get distorted. He says the government should not be

Horowitz's counterpoint:

Horowitz says that Churchill has shifted the ground. Horowitz says that his example was of a speicifc Social Work class where Zinn's history book was taught (rather than Social Work). Horowitz says his Academic Bill of Rights is meant to get the attention of academics. Nobody's enforcing current academic support for rights.

Nathan's question to Horowitz: Would allowing teachers some latitude interfere with their teaching of politics?

***Again, I missed Horowitz' response. What is it with me?

Churchill's rebuttal
Churchill says the CIA has financed the publication of 1000s of scholarly texts. Standards only become a concern when you question the status quo.

Horowitz agrees that the CIA financing scholarship was wrong, but he doesn't see how that changes the argument at all. "You want to attack that, but you want to establish the same thing from the Left."

Last question to Churchill: Concerning Jay Bennish. While you may be comfortable with college level politics, what about high school politics?
There should be some differences. He digresses about why should it be particularly stunning when Buch & Cheney compare other world leaders to Hitler.

Horowitz rebuttal:
I heard the tape, which was a 20-minute rant at the top of his voice. It was a sad day for education when he was re-instated.

Questions from the audience

to Churchill: If one of the goals of the educational system is that we learn to develop a scholarly apporach, how does extreme politics enable us to develop that approach?
Churchill says you can't leave the political issues as abstractions.

Question to Churchill: In light of the controversy over the "little eichmanns' essay, was that in the context of the university, or outside the university.
Churchill says it was outside, that he was on leave when it was written.
Horowitz counters that by protecting professsionalism and scholarly discourse, you insulate the academy from this criticism.

END OF DEBATE

Our initial opinion on the debate:

Horowitz started out disjointed, which may have lost him some points, while Churchill's pedantic style certainly lost him some. We would say that Horowitz "won" the debate simply because he did not indulge in the various logical fallacies Churchill uses (and used often during the debate), e.g., the tu quoque strategy (hey, the CIA was doing it!) and his rather pathetic trotting out of his student-voted "best teacher" awards.

Our thanks to all the commenters who listened with us and voiced their opinions. We'll do this again (but hopefully, with faster typing fingers) when the next debate is scheduled. We'll also post a link to the recorded podcast of the debate as soon as RighTalk makes it available (and thanks again to the folks at RighTalk for the live webcast!).

postscripts:

Despite claims that it was carrying the debate live, FNN's Hannity & Colmes carried only an after-debate interview with Horowitz and Churchill. Expose The Left, has the video of that interview.

None of the media are mentioning it, but Alan Nathan did an excellent job moderating the debate. His questions were clear and comprehensive, and he kept the debaters to their allotted time limits. We hope he'll return for the second debate, which we've heard will take place sometime in the fall, and probably be located in Colorado.

Horowitz-Churchill Debate Info

This post will go live this evening at 8pm ET to provide commentary on the David Horowitz-Ward Churchill debate. In the meantime, newcomers to PB can get hep with our "Guide to PirateBallerina Churchilliana."

Debate: Tonight, Thursday, April 6, at 8pm ET
Location: Jack Morton Auditorium, George Washington University, Washington, DC.
Moderator: Alan Nathan
Debaters: David Horowitz and Ward Churchill
Topic: "Can Politics Be Taken Out of The Classroom, and Should It Be?"
Live webcast: RighTalk.com (note: the live feed appears that it will require Windows Media Player, which you can download here)
Allegedly live TV coverage: FNN's Hannity & Colmes

Our (admittedly easy-to-make) predictions for the debate:

• Horowitz and Churchill will agree that politics cannot be removed completely from the classroom
• Horowitz will insist the remedy is balance
• Churchill will claim that politics is inseparable from his field of study
• Both will stumble far more often than one would expect; neither will appear particularly polished
• The most interesting part of the debate will be the audience Q&A period (if it occurs)
• The debate will not be the rout of leftist academia too many rightwing bloggers think it will be
• The debate will not be the crushing blow to the evil right too many leftist bloggers think it will be
• Barring a public display of apoplexy from either (or both) Horowitz or Churchill, the debate will be a draw
• Horowitz will nevertheless gain status with his constituency
• Churchill will nevertheless gain status with his constituency
• Within moments of the end of the debate, pundits for both sides will claim victory
  

CNews 6April06

• Grant Crowell, Documentarian
• Ian Van Buskirk, president, CU College Republicans
• Bob Giusto, member, Sons of Italy
• Dan Caplis, talk show co-host, Caplis & Silverman, KHOW

• a well-known television host
• a state Senator

CNews 5April06

Very excellent, January 16, 2005

Reviewer:

okiguessso "okiguessso" (woodstock nation) - See all my reviews

A very excellent book exposing how the U.S. has ALWAYS stood for racism, genocide and oppression. People around the world increasingly understand that the main obstacle to peace, justice and freedom on this planet is the "evil empire," the U.S.A. With the coming inauguration of the Fourth Reich--the Christian Fascist second term of Fuehrer Bush, a venal and evil leader a 100 times worse than Hitler, the growing resistance around the world will heighten, as it inevitably will here at home.
One of the most excellent books ever written by a heroic voice for freedom and justice, and brave leader in the struggle to expose the U.S., the Nazi Germany of today. Buy ten copies of this book to support the author, give them to friends, family, and school libraries and students. Together, one day we will be free of this rotten system which imposes tyranny and death on the people of the world at the point of a gun.

CNews 4April06

Dershowitz: Nobody would ever have heard of Ward Churchill but for the fact that he made these idiotic statements. He’s not an academic who is otherwise well known or well thought of, who has made controversial statements. Unlike, for example, Noam Chomsky, who would be famous even if he hadn’t made some of the absurd statements he’s made about America, Israel and the world community. Churchill is known only for his ridiculous statements. Had he not made them he’d be an obscure, failed academic.

...and the rest is equally entertaining.
Full Video here
Full Audio here
Transcript here

...Whichever medium you prefer, you'll find that Dershowitz' indictment of Ward Churchill is compelling. This is an interview you should not miss.

Reports of a UT scientist's plan for mass extermination of the human race got our attention Monday.

News 36 tried to get to the bottom of a controversial theory that is spawning death threats on campus and controversy across the country.

Some are accusing a UT scientist of advocating genocide to control the world's population.

Does it sound crazy?

The professor whose ideas are under scrutiny says it's not just crazy, it's not true.

UT Ecology Professor Dr. Eric Pianka does not want everyone on Earth dead.

"I don't bear any ill will towards anybody," Pianka said.

But many bear ill will towards this soft spoken University of Texas ecologist.

"I got a really great death threat," Pianka said.

He's getting death threats such as threatening the slaughter of his family after recent speeches pushing for population control.

"If we don't control our population, microbes will. Why do we have these lethal microbes that kill us in the first place? The answer is, there's too many of us," Pianka said.

Pianka says he would never advocate genocide or extermination like some suggest he does.

"I've got two granddaughters, man. I'm putting money in a college fund for my granddaughters. I'm worried about them," Pianka said.

CNews 3April06

Grant: Do you think that the problem in American society is that people need to have [freedom of speech] explained…
Chomsky: Evidently so.
Grant: …I would say in this case about Ward Churchill. And why I bring that up is because it can be argued Ward Churchill himself has a very poor record on the issue of standing up for free speech and First Amendment Rights.
Chomsky: Then criticize him for it. What does it have to do with anything?
Grant: It probably might have to do with somebody who claimed to support him say that “I do not agree with what he says, or I might have questions of what he says, but I definitely support him not just for his free speech rights but for…”
Chomsky: Nobody’s supporting him, some people may be supporting what he said.  Fine, they have the right to do that. It’s a free society. Just like he has a right to express himself, they have a right to express support for him. But there’s a very natural move, an improper move, from supporting someone’s right to express his views, to supporting the person. Those are radically different. Now in a free society where people, civilized society, where people understood the concepts of freedom of speech that go back to the Enlightenment, you would stop there. But in an uncivilized society, where people don’t understand freedom of speech, unfortunately it’s like the three year old that goes into the street. You have to explain to them that supporting a person’s rights to free speech does not mean supporting the person’s views, or even knowing what they are, which is irrelevant.
Grant: Do you think, though, that for the American public for a time, is going to need further reminders?
Chomsky: It’s not so much the public as the intellectual community, which are the worst offenders in this case.
Grant: I could probably give examples that I’ve seen in my travels into the intellectual community. One very good example recently is DePaul University. And it happened to be one of the areas Ward Churchill stopped by. At the same time Ward Churchill stopped by one of the professors, a gentleman by the name of Thomas Klocek was being removed because he got into an argument with several Muslim groups. And basically that’s what that was. There was not a hearing, his position, he was suspended without pay, and he was told he had to issue a public apology and accept a remedial role. Are incidents like this…
Chomsky: I can’t comment on it because I know nothing about it.
Grant: Sure. I was going to say…
Chomsky: I mean if a professor, for example let’s say, in relation to his student said things that were insulting and offensive…
Grant: He was told strictly on the basis of speech because…
Chomsky: Depends what the context was. For example if it’s a classroom it’s one thing. If it’s in halls it’s another thing, if it’s a relation of dominance, like he’s in a position to do something to them, that’s another thing. All of these factors have to be taken into consideration, and since I don’t know the case, I can’t talk about it.

Following an extensive period of review and restructuring, the Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture has been officially renamed the Diversity and Social Justice Project (DSJP), and is back up and running. President Stewart placed the Kirkland Project under review in early spring of last year in the wake of the controversy surrounding bringing Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, to speak on campus.
[...]
The Diversity and Social Justice Project is set to be unveiled to the campus community by its new director, Professor of Biology Jinnie Garrett at the Faculty Meeting this coming Tuesday, April 4, at 4:10 p.m. in the Events Barn. The meeting is open to the public, and she will be discussing the results of the review, changes that have been made to the Project and programming scheduled for the remainder of the semester.

CNews 2April06

A spokesman for rightalk.com informs us that while unfinalized details have precluded posting information on their website, rightalk.com will, in fact, be webcasting the Horowitz-Churchill debate live this Thursday, and will provide a podcast of it shortly thereafter. We expect information to be posted on their website as early as tomorrow.

Someone finally gets around to commenting on Ward Churchill's appearance in the Bay area

Excerpt:

I never got around to typing out my critique of Churchill's style at the annual anarchist book fair last weekend. The jist of it is that he could benefit by [sic] getting an out-of-work agreeable San Francisco real estate agent or Gap or Footlocker salesman [to] present his argument.

CNews 1April06