Genociding Ward Churchill for over a 20th of a century

CNews 30May06

The University of Colorado's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct will meet Monday to begin discussing what action, if any, should be taken against professor Ward Churchill.

The 12-member committee could forward a recommendation to interim Provost Susan Avery and arts and sciences Dean Todd Gleeson by the end of next week, CU Spokesman Barrie Hartman said.

Avery and Gleeson will then make individual recommendations to interim chancellor Phil DiStefano, who will have the final decision.

That decision could come sometime in June, Hartman said.

CNews 28May06

Finally!
A CU academic steps up on the Ward Churchill circus (via NoodleFood) 

Excerpt (emphasis ours):

Since the investigative report released earlier this month on the Churchill affair, little has been heard from University of Colorado faculty. This is understandable, since the whole affair is such a quagmire, but still the silence is unfortunate, since no one is so well placed to judge the matter. I hope these remarks will provide some helpful context.

[...]

The fact that this disparate group of highly distinguished scholars could reach its verdict with complete unanimity — save for the final, delicate question of what sanction to impose — should give one a great deal of confidence in their verdict. No such confidence can be taken from Churchill's own statement (available on the Camera's Web site). A careful reading of the original report, next to his response, shows him to have misstated and ignored the committee's findings at every stage. Indeed, one might almost laugh at the way his slipshod responses re-enact the very sorts of intellectual failings that the report originally highlighted.

read it all . . .

. . . and speaking of careful readings, we seem to recall doing something very much like that just a few days ago . . .

Meanwhile, ACLU of Colorado attorney Ty Gee checks in from Bizarro World
Excerpt:

In the accompanying editorial ("Churchill unmasked"), the Camera proves that its enthusiasm for its point of view is so great it's willing to deceive itself. In the editorial, the Camera says "those who still cling to the fiction that Churchill is the victim of a political witch hunt should look at the evidence," and "the issue isn't free speech. It's academic dishonesty."

The mental gymnastics needed to believe this cannot be performed even by agile journalists. There is fiction here, but the Camera's doing all the writing. Try as one may, it is impossible to divorce Churchill's 9/11 essay from the university's investigation: as the Churchill committee suggested, the "evidence" is that without the 9/11 essay, there would be no investigation.

CNews 27May06

The Daily Camera prints CU Ethnic Studies chair Al Ramirez's entire letter to CU administrators

Today's Daily Camera guest editorial: 'Firing profs isn't that hard'
Excerpt:

How hard and how expensive is it to fire a tenured professor?

The surprising answer, based on my almost 50 years at the University of Colorado, is that it is neither hard nor expensive to fire a tenured professor. I should know, since I have been recently fired. Well, it was pretty expensive for me, but not the university, since it has a team of lawyers in house.

The previous CU president, Betsy Hoffman, numerous times stated that it would cost CU some $3 million to fire Professor Ward Churchill. Was she just blowing smoke? Perhaps. It might cost $3 million to fire a football coach, but a mere professor, never. CU did not fire Professor Churchill because it simply did not "want" to.

(AP) BOULDER, Colo. Suspended University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill is getting support from the head of his ethnic studies department.

Albert Ramirez has written a letter to university administrators saying they denied Churchill due process. He also says they have refused to support his department despite its excellent record.

Did Somebody Bet Churchill He Couldn't Singlehandedly Destroy Ethnic Studies?

Having some idle time, we googled for citations of the five articles Ward Churchill admits to having ghost-written in the 1992 book The State of Native America

We found:

• fifteen citations of the federal Indian identification article "by" M. Annette Jaimes
• fifteen citations of the American Indian women article "by" M. Annette Jaimes with Theresa Halsey (very popular among feminist writers)
• three citations of the Demography of Native America article "by" Lenore A. Stiffarm and Phil Lane, Jr. (two of which are Churchill citing himself)
• two citations of the self-determination and subordination article "by" Rebecca L. Robbins (one of which is Churchill citing himself)
• eight citations of the American Indian education article "by" Jorge Noriega

...but wait! There's more!
The above cites are from books. Here's what we found when we searched "scholarly papers":

• sixty-six citations of the federal Indian identification article "by" M. Annette Jaimes
• twenty-five citations of the American Indian women article "by" M. Annette Jaimes with Theresa Halsey
•  twenty-seven citations of the Demography of Native America article "by" Lenore A. Stiffarm and Phil Lane, Jr.
•  forty-five citations of the self-determination and subordination article "by" Rebecca L. Robbins
•  eleven citations of the American Indian education article "by" Jorge Noriega

...And that's just from ten minutes of Googling. We'd imagine that an actual physical check of the Ethnic Studies oeuvre would turn up many, many more scholars who've based at least part of their work (and more importantly, at least some of their conclusions) on the house of cards Churchill has built.

If Ethnic Studies actually harbored real scholars, we'd think that by now some angry denunciations would have been issued. Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?

Update: We couldn't resist checking our copy of The State of Native America to see how many times Churchill cited himself in his "ghostwritten" chapters:

• one self-citation in the federal Indian identification article "by" M. Annette Jaimes
• six self-citations in the American Indian women article "by" M. Annette Jaimes with Theresa Halsey
• one self-citation in the Demography of Native America article "by" Lenore A. Stiffarm and Phil Lane, Jr.
• five self-citations in the self-determination and subordination article "by" Rebecca L. Robbins
• seven self-citations in the American Indian education article "by" Jorge Noriega

Why are we reminded of Robert A. Heinlein's classic "All You Zombies"?

CNews 26May06

'Gentlemen! We've got to do something to save our phony-baloney jobs!'
Churchill's boss: Motive for inquiry should be considered
Excerpt:

The chairman of the University of Colorado department where Ward Churchill works sent a letter to CU officials today, urging them to take a long, hard look at their motives for investigating the ethnic studies professor, and warning any action against him could have a negative effect on other faculty.

Albert Ramirez, chairman of CU's ethnic studies department, also called on administrators to publicly defend the merits and scholarship of his department, which has taken a beating since the Churchill controversy began.

At Inside Higher Education, Anne D. Neal eats John K. Wilson's lunch
Excerpt:

Far from calling for censorship or the banning of classes [as Wilson claims], ACTA urges transparency about what professors teach; far from trying to silence politically engaged professors [as Wilson claims], ACTA defends academic freedom while at the same time noting that 1) academic freedom does not mean freedom from criticism or freedom from accountability; and 2) students have academic freedom too. Also worth noting: When the Ward Churchill scandal broke in 2005, ACTA defended Churchill from those who sought to fire him for his speech.

Wilson mistrusts definitions of research misconduct that include egregiously misleading citations — and no wonder. His own argument about ACTA depends on the willful manipulation of sources.

Perhaps Churchill shouldn’t be surprised at the scrutiny he’s received either. Every academic field has research standards, and we are always reviewing and evaluating one another’s résumés. That’s how we find the flaws in our arguments, and how we uncover the occasional fraud. I’m sure that the University of Colorado, like my own institution, wants faculty members to explain their work to the public. Sometimes that public doesn’t like what it hears. When I write about language and literacy in the press, topics that would seem to be pretty tame, I occasionally get angry letters, even threats. But now a select university investigative committee reminds professors: If you stray from the library, you’re fair game not just for the anonymous crazoids, but for the governor and yes, for your colleagues as well.

...okay, one more time: as far as we're concerned, an academic can say whatever the hell he wants to say (on his own dime), but if he's been lying in his allegedly "scholarly works," as Churchill has clearly been doing, he should expect no quarter. Academic freedom is not freedom to lie.

BTW: the very first comment to Baron's claptrap give one hope for academia:

You’re right: Honesty and facts mean nothing in the contemporary academy anymore. We have long since known this, but some of the public may yet not have grasped this basic fact. Let’s be very forthright about it and celebrate Churchill. He stands for everything the colleges and unversities in this country have made themselves over the last few decades. Make him president of the university and be done with it.

Let everyone know just how absolutely degraded the universities have become: Fashionable lies, theft, and wholesale facribation suffice to guarantee hiring and tenure, and no questions may ever be asked about them, not ever. Let no one be confused about what goes on in university classrooms, and about why scholars and teachers have been replaced by open and celebrated frauds. The purge of responsible scholars and dedicated teachers in favor of ideological frauds is almost complete: Congratulations on the damage done to what was once an honored profession.

-JBM

If Professor Porath's contention that Churchill is hardly the lone weed in the garden is correct, as we know it surely is, then perhaps a periodic top-to-bottom scrutiny of our administration and faculty at CU isn't inappropriate at all. Perhaps long overdue.

Start with the padded resumes. Fire the liars, as well as the ones responsible for vetting them, and inquire of their peers how such inferior product goes on under their noses, unremarked upon? There are certainly world-class scholars in the history of the American West at CU whose silence has been deafening. And really annoying.

[...]Wilson, an expert on academic malpractice, provides a different analysis of the investigative committee's findings. Wilson concludes while Professor Churchill's alleged violations may have been sloppy, they hardly constitute "serious" malpractice or plagiarism. Wilson writes:

By stretching the meaning of "research misconduct" far beyond its true definition, and by supporting the suspension and even dismissal of a tenured professor for his use of footnotes, the Colorado committee is opening the door to a vast new right-wing witch hunt on college campuses that conservatives could easily exploit across the country.

CNews 25May06

Naturally, the AP's wire story (the one every newspaper in America seems to be picking up) about Churchill's response to the investigating committee's report is a complete Churchillian slob-job, starting with the headline: "Colo. professor denies report allegations"
Note to the AP: allegations were what the committee was investigating. The committee's report is of its findings. Don't they have dictionaries over at the Associated Press? If so, you might also want to look up "slant", "bias", "propaganda", and while you're at it, "slob-job".

via Drunkablog: the Daily Camera reports Churchill investigation cost $152,000. And, as Drunkablog notes, "Grumble all you want, it'd be cheap at twice the price."

The Denver media sleep-walks through reports on Ward Churchill's mendacious "Summary of Fallacies." Not since our days of rewriting forestry service press releases have we seen such flaccid reporting. Oh, the headlines promise—

• Rocky Mountain News: "Churchill fires back at CU"
• Denver Post: "Churchill issues stinging rebuttal"
• Daily Camera: "Embattled professor fires back"
• Colorado Daily (page six): "Churchill files response to charges" (well, at least the Colorado Daily headline promises nothing, which the squib attached proceeds to deliver)

—but the articles themselves merely echo Churchill's claims, with nary an indication that those claims might be as bogus as his scholarship.

Footnotes and Fallacies

We've taken the liberty of comparing some of Ward Churchill's claims in his "Summary of Fallacies" response to CU's investigation committee's report actually said. You can find our comparison here, but if you're in a hurry, suffice it to say Churchill's "Summary" shows an almost pathological aversion to the truth.

CNews 24May06

The May 9, 2006 Report of the University of Colorado (CU) Investigative Committee is but the latest step in CU’s ongoing attempt to fire me for political speech and, more fundamentally, for scholarship which challenges the orthodox “canon” of historical truth.

The investigative committee abandoned all semblance of due process and equal protection mandated by both the Constitution and the University’s own rules, in the process betraying the most basic principles of academic freedom.

Rather than assessing my work in terms of the methods and procedures of my discipline, the committee – which included no one with expertise in American Indian Studies – chose to determine for itself the “historical truth” about disputed matters.  Unable to condemn my substantive conclusions, it engaged in a detailed post hoc critique of my citations.

The committee’s recommendation of harsh sanctions appears to have been driven primarily by my “attitude,” not by the specific conduct at issue.  I was presented with the “Catch-22” option of apologizing for things I did not do or being condemned for being insufficiently contrite.

In this process, the investigative committee abandoned its mandate to serve as a nonadversarial information-seeking body, instead taking upon itself the role of both prosecutor and judge.  It then did exactly what it accuses me of doing: it tailored its report to fit its conclusions.  As a result, the document contains numerous false statements, misrepresentations of fact, and internal contradictions; it suppresses evidence and employs faulty logic to conclude that I engaged in research misconduct.

CNews 23May06

It needs to be said straight up that conducting this investigation has done far greater harm, and constitutes a far greater danger, than any evidence of research misconduct this committee may have discovered. Whether bludgeoned or suckered into carrying out this investigation, the members of this committee have allowed themselves to be used in service of a concerted effort to shut down the universities as one of the few remaining spaces where critical thinking in pursuit of the truth has still been able to be carried out without being subordinated to governmental authority or political or religious indoctrination.

“The ninth amendment, summarized, states that all the rights vested in the people, which aren’t written in the Bill of Rights, are vested here,” Churchill said. “That means dignity and food are obligations of the federal government of the United States.”

Churchill compared Washington D.C. to the Roman Empire, highlighting the overwhelming poverty at the capital’s outskirts.

Churchill said the wealth of industrialized nations throughout the world is a result of the poverty and work of others, mostly indigenous races in places such as South America and Africa.

That [Ward Churchill] can sink to such depths should be a cautionary tale for all of us who have chosen the academic life.

Publishers are responsible to all the communities who offer their life energy in exchange for the fruits of our labor. Had I published The State of Native America I'd be sending out press releases, blogging about how betrayed I feel, discussing what it all means both for activists and the study of history and I'd be working my lefty feminist ass off to stop publishing that version of the book. And I'd probably hunt down Churchill and Jaimes and chew them both out.

Instead, South End Press [publisher of The State of Native America, in which a number of essays, bylined and ghost-written by Ward Churchill, appear] appears to be doing nothing. The longer they remain silent the more ridiculous they appear, willing to condone lying and cheating. Willing to destroy the trust of their readers and lose money doing it.

...worth reading it all, if for no other reason than the righteous outrage.

The Daily Camera continues to impress: "Ward's phony 'discipline'"
Excerpt:

This is a lot less complex than the professor and his dittoheads would have you believe. Sources cited by a scholar should confirm — not contradict — the scholar. Factual assertions should be tethered to actual, verifiable facts. Prose should be the scholar's own, or credited to its rightful owner.

Churchill argues that such basic integrity is somehow irrelevant to the "rudimentary procedures employed in American Indian Studies." All who value ethnic studies should be angered by Churchill's suggestion and indignant by the ignominy he's brought to the field.

Most certainly, if the entire faculty and staff of the University were subjected to the same scrutiny that has befallen Ward Churchill, no end of padded resumes, shoddy research and bizarre thought processes could be brought to light. The simple truth is that Churchill is being hounded for what he has said and written, not for the integrity of his scholarship.

CNews 22May06

Currently, there are photos of a plane flying into the Pentagon, but it doesn't look like a commercial jet airliner, as the government suggests. And building 7, 41 stories high and was far away from the Twin Towers, fell straight down, though no plane hit it. There are ongoing investigations about this.

My point? The investigation of Ward Churchill doesn't even include a Gallup poll. Why not? Could it be because there are far more important things to investigate? I hope so. Our president gets 34-percent approval rating at best. What has he done that's worse than Ward Churchill? Plenty!

[...] Ward Churchill is one of the leading post-colonial authors on the planet. It would serve us all well to pay attention to what he writes, particularly given this period of history. Ignorance may be bliss, but the University of Colorado is making a grievous error in persecuting this rare and important intellectual.

CNews 21May06

The Denver Post tries to attribute the outcome of the Churchill investigation to the "competitive world of academic inquiry"

Excerpt:

"The reaction that people should have is that despite all the hoopla, the system works pretty well," [Martin] Snyder said. "The people in the profession have the guts and the intelligence and the systems in place to deal with it."

...Yup. the system works exceedingly well, provided politicians, talk radio, bloogers bloggers, and voters hold the academy's feet to the fire.

From our 'Ya Think?' department: 'Churchill Effect' may chill field

We've recieved an email from Ernesto Vigil, one of the complaintants in the Ward Churchill investigation:

Mr. Paine:

You are free to use this communication to you in whatever way you feel is appropriate.

I have NO idea about the contents of the CU letter sent to Ward Churchill about the complaint I submitted to CU about Churchill's distortions and fabrications [or ineptitude] found in particular writings of Churchill noted in my complaint.

I do, however, have the letter they sent me to let me know that they will move forward on the matters raised in my complaint.

NO WHERE in the letter sent me is there ANY mention about machine guns, the number of machine guns, or M60 machine guns.

MOREOVER, no where in my complaint to CU did I raise any concern about the machine guns mentioned in David Lane's letter to CU; my complaint was NOT concerned about machine guns, M60 or otherwise, or about the number of such machine guns.

Maybe Wart Churchill wrote that part of the letter for Mr. Lane, which - of course - would explain the distortion, error, fabrication, deceit and irrelevance in that portion of Lane's letter.

Gee, while we are mentioning Mr. Lane, who is obviously a vigorous and talented lawyer, perhaps Mr. Lane can tell us more about another one of Mr. Lane's very interesting clients: Walter Leon Hill, aka W. Lee Hill, aka Lee Hill.

Gee, I wonder if the Boulder print media reportedly accurately that Mr. Hill was a member of "Colorado AIM"?

Gee, I wonder if Mr. Lee Hill was really with the Office of Naval Intelligence in the early- and mid-1980s?

Gee, I wonder if Mr. Lee Hill was really recruited by the "Autonomous Confederation of AIMsters" by Churchill's buddy, Bobby Castillo?

Gee, I wonder if it is true that Mr. Hill was really a federal prosecutor in San Diego in the late-1980s?

Gee, I wonder if it was really true that Mr. Hill started - or was part of - some murky security group called Verloc Group, Inc., or if that is a mere Internet hoax?

If such a group once existed, I wonder if it true that it was composed of veteran and retired agents of the FBI, DEA, CIA, ONI, etc.?

Heck, since Ward Churchill is such an "expert" on COINTELPRO, etc., I imagine that old Ward Churchill could really spin some yarns about Walter Leon Hill, especially since Ward and his cronies claim to have recruited Mr. Hill to be a member of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee [LPDC] in the mid-1990s, right around the time that Ward Churchill was forced to resign from the LPDC.

Gee, I wonder if Ward would like to come clean about why he was ejected from the LPDC in the mid-1990s?

But, of course, Mr. Walter Leon Hill probably played as important and similar a role on the LPDC as did old Ward.

Heck, I only have one interesting picture of Mr. Hill in Boulder. Ward Churchill is not in the line-up, but his good buddy, mentor, and fellow "Colorado AIM" luminary is right there next to Mr. Hill at a 1999 press conference, none other than Mr. Russell Means.

Since Hill moved to Boulder from Southern California in the mid-1990s, I assume that Hill and Ward must've had some interesting chats telling war stories about their, uh, military service.

Gee, I wonder if Hill, who like Ward claimed to be Indian [was it "Choctaw" Mr. Moredock?] has now cutr his long pony-tail after fleeing all them Boulder felony charges? The ones related to his weapons collection?

Gee, I wonder if Walter Leon Hill gave Ward Churchill the autographed photo that Hill used to keep on his wall the letter from Robert Brown, owner and editor of Soldier of Fortune ragazine?

Gee, maybe Ward has his own photo of Mr. Robert Brown from the good old days when Ward Churchill worked for Soldier of Fortune in late-1976, early-1977. Did I write that Ward "worked for" SoF?

Heck, I meant to write that Ward "infiltrated" SoF. Yeah. Sure. Really.

Gee, I wonder why old Ward never responded to the November 11, 2005, "open letter" to Ward Churchill that I distributed at Ward's last Denver book signing at Tattered Cover book store?

Maybe Mr. Moredock can answer for Ward. Or maybe "Mr. X" can take off his ski mask and speak for Ward Churchill, as well.

Truth has been stranger than fiction...

Ernesto B. Vigil

Denver, Colorado

CNews 20May06

While the Rocky Mountain News' Dave Kopel gives PB a nod for breaking the Saito resignation story, this has actually been a week of missed stories for us (we blame the lack of sleep inherent to foaling season). For example, this report, released May 12th, from The American Council of Trustees and Alumni: "How Many Ward Churchills?"

Excerpt:

[...W]e do not mean to suggest that issues of alleged plagiarism, dubious claims of ethnicity, or inadequate credentials—problems specific to Ward Churchill—apply broadly to all academics. What we do mean to suggest is that the extremist rhetoric and tendentious opinion for which Churchill is infamous can be found on campuses across America. In published course descriptions and online course materials, professors are openly and unapologetically declaring that they use their positions to push political agendas in the name of teaching students to think critically.

Given this state of affairs, some will argue—indeed many have already—that Ward Churchill and others like him should be fired. But as we contend in the following pages, the solution is not to fire professors who express extreme views, but to expose them, to compel them to defend their positions, invite them to debate ideas, and, above all, to insist that they do their job of teaching students well and empowering them to make up their own minds.

To know know know him...

“The bulk of his research, his work and his lifelong effort has been indigenous struggles and ethnic studies,” [Korey] Harvey said. “And a lot of that which has been very valuable and important has been pushed aside because of one sentence and one essay that he openly acknowledges was not intended for publication.”

[...]

Harvey said the investigation was flawed because the committee members didn’t have sufficient expertise on American Indian studies, which hindered the members’ knowledge on key research information about American Indians.

The committee also didn’t give Churchill adequate opportunities to defend himself in front of the panel before it released the report, Harvey said.

I just got back from hearing Ward Churchill (who’s a registered Republican) speak. He was amazing. The lecture wasn’t really on anything in particular — he went all over the place. He doesn’t use notes, powerpoint, any of that, but you can really feel the passion in him. He shakes, cries, laughs, everything.

[...]

Churchill is going to be speaking again tomorrow morning on a panel. If I wake up early enough (doubtful), I’ll go.

Oh, and he’s even larger in person

CNews 19May06

The University of Colorado committee investigating Ward Churchill has found him guilty, guilty, guilty. And on some level, they’re right: Churchill is guilty of occasionally shoddy scholarship and the dubious practice of ghostwriting, and perhaps even more. But we should be alarmed by the investigative committee’s report, and not merely because the committee exists only because of a concerted effort to fire Churchill for his obnoxious and idiotic comments about 9/11 victims.

By stretching the meaning of “research misconduct” far beyond its true definition, and by supporting the suspension and even dismissal of a tenured professor for his use of footnotes, the Colorado committee is opening the door to a vast new right-wing witch hunt on college campuses that conservatives could easily exploit across the country.

[...]Churchill was on campus in support of the victims of the ongoing Green Scare, the Feds’ latest attempt to squash environmental activism. His appearance was timely, as UO nursing student Jeff Hogg was jailed earlier in the day for refusing to answer questions before a grand jury here in Eugene. Jeff could potentially remain behind bars for the duration of the grand jury, which is set to last until September but it could be extended indefinitely.

He’s just the latest victim in the fight against eco-terrorism. (’Eco-terrorism,’ as Churchill pointed out, is doing things like tearing the tops off mountains in Appalachia, or forcing people to live in an automobile culture. Or, I would add, clear-cutting forests, especially those that sustain vital watersheds.)

Cox & Forum has reposted a prescient cartoon they did of the Churchill debacle over a year ago

Confidential to Drunkablog: Yes, Michelle and PB are like this. Suffah!

CNews 18May06

The Eugene, Oregon media wakes up to Churchill's appearance there tonight
 

The Denver Post has the scoop: Churchill may sue CU if he is fired. We wonder what could have tipped off the Post to this breaking news... Could it be the fact that Churchill and his legal sock-puppet have been threatening exactly that non-stop for the past 15 months?
Naw.

...Meanwhile, the Daily Camera has some real news: Churchill is refusing to respond formally to CU's charges of misconduct

University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill will not respond formally to a panel's findings that he plagiarized and fabricated research because administrators have predetermined they will fire him, his attorney said Wednesday.

CU has given Churchill two weeks to respond to the panel's stinging report, which found a pattern of blatant academic misconduct in his written work. Four of the panel members said CU should suspend the tenured professor without pay, and the other member said he should be fired.

Attorney David Lane said administrators have not said directly they will fire his client, but he said the report clearly indicates a looming dismissal for Churchill.

The five-member investigative panel "already knows our response," Lane said.

Tony Affigne will keep recommending that his students read University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill's writings as part of a class on race and politics in the Americas.

Affigne, chairman of the political science department at Providence College in Rhode Island, said Wednesday that he won't abandon Churchill's texts as supplemental reading unless he finds that the specific books or chapters he uses in class "have been identified as intellectually spurious."

He doubted that other professors would, either.

"The fallout among people who study indigenous politics will be minimal," he said.

CNews 17May06

It's déjà vu all over again: Opinion Journal's Best of the Web (fourth item) notes that the way CU is ridding itself of Ward Churchill is reminiscent of nailing Al Capone for tax evasion. We recall saying the same thing nearly a year ago (sixteenth comment).
 

Inside Higher Education has an excellent overview of the investigating committee's report; the lede says it all: "In the end, the faculty panel assigned to look into the Ward Churchill mess at the University of Colorado found plenty of guilt to go around."

Churchill responds

"A Travesty of an 'investigation'"

Excerpt:

I have received the report of the Investigative Committee of the University of Colorado and consider it a travesty. This "investigation" has all along been a pretext to punish me for engaging constitutionally-protected speech and, more generally, to discredit the sorts of alternative historical perspective I represent.

There is blatant conflict of interest involved. Interim Chancellor DiStefano, who has consistently and publicly declared his bias against me, has served from the outset as both "complainant" and judge.

Despite my repeated requests for an investigation conducted by unbiased experts, the committee was composed primarily of CU insiders. Although both were available and willing to serve, the investigative panel included neither American Indian scholars nor persons competent in American Indian Studies.

[...]

The upshot is that the committee's report is often self-contradictory. It frequently misrepresents or conflicts with the evidence presented. In many respects, it is patently false.

As things stand, the entire procedure appears to be little more than a carefully-orchestrated effort to cast an aura of legitimacy over an entirely illegitimate set of predetermined outcomes.

It follows that I reject and will vigorously contest each and every finding of misconduct.

Churchill Misconduct Investigation Report Released

While we are unanimous in finding that Professor Churchill’s research misconduct is serious and that we should express the degree of that seriousness through a recommendation about sanctions, our discussions have not led to unanimity about what particular sanctions are warranted. What follows, then, is the only portion of our report that presents multiple views.

• Two members of the Committee conclude and recommend that Professor Churchill should not be dismissed. They reach this conclusion because they do not think his conduct so serious as to satisfy the criteria for revocation of tenure and dismissal set forth in section 5.C.1 of the Law of the Regents, because they are troubled by the circumstances under which these allegations have been made, and because they believe that his dismissal would have an adverse effect on other scholars’ ability to conduct their research with due freedom. These two members agree and recommend that the most appropriate sanction, following any required additional procedures as specified by the University’s rules, is a suspension from University employment without pay for a term of two years.
• Three members of the Committee believe that Professor Churchill’s research misconduct is so serious that it satisfies the criteria for revocation of tenure and dismissal specified in section 5.C.1 of the Laws of the Regents, and hence that revocation of tenure and dismissal, after completion of all appropriate procedures, is not an improper sanction. One of these members believes and recommends that dismissal is the most appropriate sanction; the other two believe and recommend that the most appropriate sanction is suspension from University employment without pay for a term of five years.

Finally, the Committee had the following comments about its report: The Committee notes that the Laws of the Regents of the University of Colorado define “academic freedom” as “the freedom to inquire, discover, publish and teach truth as the faculty member sees it, subject to no control or authority save the control and authority of the rational methods by which truth is established.”

We understand and were careful to distinguish “misconduct in research,” which is addressed by the University of Colorado’s Administrative Policy Statement on Misconduct in Research and Authorship, from the issue of “truth” addressed by the Regents’ Laws’ definition of academic freedom. The Committee observes also that the allegations we were asked to investigate were initiated in the wake of the public outcry concerning some highly controversial essays by Professor Churchill dealing with, among other things, the 9/11 tragedy. While not endorsing either the tone or the contents of those essays, the Committee reaffirms, as the University has already acknowledged, that Professor Churchill’s right to publish his views was protected by both the First and Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of free speech. Although those essays played no part in our deliberations, the Committee expresses its concern regarding the timing and perhaps the motives for the University's decision to forward charges made in that context. We point out finally that when Professor Churchill was hired as an Associate Professor with tenure in 1991 and promoted to (full) Professor in 1997, the University knew that he did not have a Ph.D. or law degree, as commonly expected for faculty at this institution, and was aware that he was a controversial public intellectual.

CNews 16May06

9News (Denver) is reporting that the majority of the investigating subcommittee has recommended Churchill be fired

This just in from CU's press relations department (10:23MT):

MEDIA ADVISORY

May 16, 2006

Report on Professor Ward Churchill Presented to Media

The findings of a University of Colorado at Boulder investigative committee charged with reviewing allegations of research misconduct against ethnic studies Professor Ward Churchill will be presented today in a news conference.

The news conference will be at 2:30 p.m. in the Coors Events/Conference Center, Room 4, on the CU-Boulder campus.  The report will be posted on the News Center Web site beginning at noon MDT at http://www.colorado.edu/news/reports/churchill/.  Copies of the report also will be available to media at the news conference.  Between 4-5 p.m. MDT an MP3 audio recording of the news conference will be posted on the same Web page as the report.

Law Professor Mimi Wesson, chair of the investigative committee, will explain the research misconduct process and the next steps in the process as well as answer questions.

The investigative committee report, which was forwarded to the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct May 9, covers allegations of plagiarism and misrepresentation of factual information.  The seven allegations referred for review included "alleged instances of plagiarism, misuse of others' work, falsification and fabrication of authority."

The Standing Committee has accepted the investigative committee findings.  The report was delivered this morning to both Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano and Professor Churchill.  The Standing Committee will make recommendations to the Arts and Sciences Dean and the Provost.

The investigative committee was formed last fall after the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct announced in September that seven of the nine allegations filed against Professor Churchill warranted a full investigation.  The investigative committee began meeting Jan. 11.

Parking for TV live trucks is available in the parking lot on the north side of the Coors Events/Conference Center.  For additional background go to the Web site at http://www.colorado.edu/news/reports/churchill/. For more information call (303) 492-3114.

The photograph of a child's grave in University of Colorado ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill's 2004 book about Indian boarding schools jumped out at Brenda Child.

That's because Child, a member of the Red Lake Ojibwa tribe, took the picture and published it in 1998 in her own award-winning book on the same subject.

"I was surprised that was there because he's never sought my permission to use it and it appeared without my knowing that it would be in his book," said Child, a University of Minnesota faculty member in American studies.

Worse, from Child's standpoint, is the caption Churchill appended to the photograph. It said that half the children at the nation's Indian boarding schools suffered the same fate as the child whose grave is pictured in the photograph.

That figure is a "tremendous exaggeration," Child said. "That is just beyond belief."

CNews 15May06

[...] I hope like hell I'm not late to the Ward Churchill blogfront when the double super-secret findings of CU's Faculty Committee on Research Misconduct are made public. Pirate Ballerina, strangely, had all the facts and figures last week. It's not clear when the report will be released--supposedly this week, but the university's spokesperson said perhaps May 23 or later.

Just for the heck of it, here's my guess: The Mandan will rise from their graves to nail Churchill, helped by the plucky anthropologist from Dalhousie. Churchill will be fired, sue (probably not in that order) and lose.

I may be wrong about all that, of course, but not about this: the university will not "find that the allegations were not warranted and that the university should take steps to repair Churchill's reputation," as the Rocky put it the other day.

But nobody cares what I think, including me. So I know! Let's ask Jim Paine! Do you dare, sir, to predict the results of the Churchill inquiry? How about your commenters? What are their guesses? I'd love to hear.

In response to Drunkablog, we have to admit that we look at university administrators the same way we do horses or two-year-old children: Attempting to use reason to determine the outcome of their decision-making processes is a fool's errand.

We're sure, however, that our readers have some thoughts on the subject. To facilitate your predictions, here's a list of allegations before the investigation subcommittee:

• Allotment Act misrepresentation
• Arts and Crafts Act misrepresentation
• Mandan smallpox historical fabrication
• Cohen plagiarism
• Water Plot plagiarism
• Jaimes plagiarism
• Robbins plagiarism

CNews 11May06

According to this site, Ward Churchill will be speaking on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene Thursday, May 18. The site says the event will be "a fundraiser for the accused eco-prisoners and projects supporting their human liberties."

CNews 10May06

CNews 9May06

Here's the first news of the report submitted to CU's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct, but if you've been keeping up with PB, you won't learn anything new.

Excerpt:

BOULDER, Colo. —A panel investigating allegations of plagiarism against University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill submitted its report to a faculty committee on Tuesday, but the findings won't be made public until next week, a spokesman said.

The Standing Committee on Research Misconduct could release the report on May 23 or later, university spokesman Barrie Hartman said. The standing committee will recommend to the chancellor whether Churchill should be cleared or dismissed or face some other discipline.

CNews 7May06

Daily Camera: Another week of waiting (first item)

CNews 6May06

No news is, well, no news
Expecting a denouement Tuesday? Not so fast, grasshopper (right column, news briefs).

CNews 5May06

CNews 4May06

Why not subsidize the oil companies, which provide a product essential to allowing 300 million Americans to live, and put a cap on the price of college, which seems designed to turn out more liberal parasites on the productive?

CNews 3May06

This post has been deleted (18May06).

CNews 2May06

CNews 1May06

We wonder if the Ward Churchills might be house-hunting in Atlanta the past few weekends, since it appears that Mrs. Churchill (aka Natsu Taylor Saito) has scheduled herself to teach Fall classes in both Atlanta and Boulder (not readily accessible; go to this CU page, click on the SEARCH tab, select Ethnic Studies, look for ETHN 3010, then click the "info" link) during conflicting time periods (Thursdays), and Ward's Fall schedule at Boulder seems nonexistent (his American Indian in Film has no assigned instructor). Makes you say "hmmmmmm."