Genociding Ward Churchill for over a 20th of a century

CNews 31July06

TDS Update: This afternoon, seven new signatories showed up on the TDS "Unfire Ward Churchill" petition—and one disappeared. For some reason, the "signature" of Ilene Grabel, an Associate Professor of International Finance at the University of Denver, is gone from the list. We've emailed Professor Grabel asking for additional information; as always, we'll keep you posted.
Update (9:46am, 1Aug06): We received email confirmation from Professor Grabel that she did, in fact, have her name removed from the TDS petition, but she did not explain her motivation.

The University of Colorado is a Morrill-Land Grant college. It was founded by the Colorado State Legislature in 1876 using federal monies raised through the Morrill Land Grant law (1862). The land upon which the University rests is public. The physical assets of the University by and large have been paid through public monies. Any money granted to the University of Colorado (even with strings attached) becomes public monies. Tuition and fees paid to the University of Colorado, since it is part of the State of Colorado, are by definition user fees. This is a specific type of tax. (check any decent High School Government text book if you disagree, I would suggest MacGruder's since that was what I used when I taught American Government.) Thus they are public monies. In short the University of Colorado was built by the State of Colorado, for the people of Colorado (hence the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition rates or user-tax rates). All of this investment does not show up in the annual budget of the University since the vast majority of it is held in fixed assets and principle. How much money comes directly from the State of Colorado through annual broad-based state taxes rather than user fees, grant monies, or donations is irrelevant. All monies, past and present, and assets, liquid and fixed, at the University of Colorado are public monies and the State of Colorado is required under its fiduciary obligations to the tax-payers of Colorado to have oversight of CU. That includes employment.

[David] Horowitz’ model of appropriate pedagogy is hierarchical and elitist. It evokes an image of tweedy professors filling up empty-headed and easily indoctrinable students with what is presumed to be disinterested, value-free knowledge. Horowitz bases his ABOR campaign on governing documents of the AAUP, but like all historical documents even these carry epistemological and sociological baggage. Witness the 1915 AAUP academic freedom statement that instructed teachers to avoid expressing their opinions until a student has ‘sufficient knowledge and ripeness of judgment to be entitled to form any definitive opinion of his own’ (emphasis added [by Saitta]). Even first principles sometimes need refining in order to keep pace with progress in how we understand the world.

Of course, our one non-negotiable professional obligation is to establish a congenial classroom environment in which students can safely express and battle-test their own convictions and biases, no matter how ‘unripe’. As with any profession, some teachers are better at this than others.

CNews 29July06

From our Sociologists Must Travel In Packs department: Of today's 25 new signatories to the TDS "Unfire Ward Churchill" petition (current total: 379), at least 15 are professors of sociology.

And in an unrelated development (which we'll call our Are You F**king Kidding Me? department), there's a signature from the director of the University of Toronto's recently-formed (and no doubt sorely-needed) Caribbean Studies program. At long last, Canada can be known for something more than hockey and, well, we guess hockey is about it. In any case, we've updated the PB Usual Suspects links-galore page to reflect the latest additions.

CNews 28July06

"I think the outcome was appropriate. When the [CU] provost decided to adopt the recommendation of termination we [NAS] applauded that. So we feel that this was a question of academic integrity, that it was important, actually, to the protection of the rightful freedoms of the professoriate, that the notion of standards be upheld. And Churchill's work was found by a committee of his peers—who probably would have been very happy to find otherwise—to not only be seriously deficient but to be riddled with all sorts of misrepresentations."

Hear it all....

The Rime of the Academic Administrator

by Jim Paine


I'm considering signing the Teachers for a Democratic Society's "Unfire Ward Churchill" petition.

Seriously.

Ask yourself: Does CU really deserve to get rid of the remarkable Mr. Churchill so easily (if a process that so far has taken 18 months can be considered "easy")? The administration and faculty of CU have spent at least the last two decades engaging in what TDS co-founder Dean Saitta calls "a well-known track record of serial mismanagement of internal affairs" (Inside Higher Education, in the highly edifying comments section). What Professor Saitta doesn't say (perhaps because he doesn't believe it) is that the hiring of Churchill was one of those mismanaged internal affairs.

It's obvious from the several "why I signed" explanations found here and there on the web that at least some of the signers have no illusions about Churchill's guilt. And yet they sign. It seems to defy logic. There can be only one reason: The signers want to punish CU for its (here's Saitta's phrase again) serial mismanagement of internal affairs.

And I agree. The administration of CU (and of all the other institutions of "higher learning" that employ all those other "little churchills") should be punished, and quite severely, for squandering tax and tuition dollars on such vacuous frivolities as Native American Studies, Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, Queer Studies, Black Studies, Women's Studies, Chicano/a Studies, and, most recently, Islamic Studies.

Unfortunately, no formal process exists to discipline directly college administrators who fail in their duties in such a manner. I'm not sure one could be devised. But there is a more informal and fitting process.

The University of Colorado at Boulder should be required to employ Ward Churchill for the rest of his natural life; it should be required to wear the albatross of Churchill's rotting academic reputation around its neck until Churchill himself passes away in his sleep, preferably after celebrating his 101st birthday. CU's administrators should have to wake up every morning for the next few decades knowing just how miserably they failed.

And if I could convince myself that signing the TDS petition would ensure that outcome, I'd do it today. I'd do it twice.

CNews 27July06

CNews 26July06

The TDS petition got a big boost today—33 new signers (current total: 298), including what appears to be at least half the directors of SnowStar Institute of Religion, three new DePaul University academics, and Ward Churchill's wife, Professor Natsu Taylor Saito. We have, of course, updated our database and included the new additions here; informative links are still sparse, but every entry has at least a handy preformatted MSN Search link.

I signed the petition for following reasons:

1. I agree that Prof. Churchill should not have been fired. I have not read all the proof and disproof of his plagiarism, but, even if he committed plagiarism, firing is not an obligatory punishment for it. For instance, in a rather old but very prominent case, Prof. Marion Perlmutter was found guilty of fraud by Michigan court (she stole ideas of Dr. Carolin Phinney), however, the University did not fire her. I think there are also other, more recent such examples. Therefore, I believe that political reasons played a role. I read the letter of Churchill pointing to the obviously intentional tricks in the procedure that, as I know, academic judges employ to render wrong decisions. (I should add here that the law of colleges and universities allows academic judges to bypass some important requirements of court procedure, in supposition that a university is a competent and fair organization. We now know that such supposition is ridiculous.)

2. There should be different kinds of punishment for plagiarism with respect to what actually was plagiarized. If a published work was plagiarized (i.e. when the true author is known), the plagiarist can not cause a great damage to the true author; in any case, this plagiarism is easily discoverable. But, when, as in my case and in Phinney case, the authorship of the unpublished research is falsified, and falsified by a superior who, by definition, is more trusted, this is a criminal plagiarism. Therefore, although plagiarism is always the same act - falsification of authorship, the punishments could vary greatly. And I have not seen an argument that plagiarism of Churchill was of grave consequences to the true author(s).

3. In 1. and 2. above, I noted why I was not deterred from signing the petition. But, I believe that there is a campaign against Churchill. I believe it is very ugly and openly politically motivated and ended in ruining his life. I believe that political interests swayed the judgement. At this point it is immaterial for me that I might disagree with him politically on a number of points (I think some who signed the petition said this also). I actually don't stand on the Right or on the Left, merely because the good answers to the "issues" are intermixed with very wrong ones on both sides. I care about the Law, unmolested. I believe, and I know from my ordeal, that the Law is being thrown away in savage wars against my civilization. I am horrified at the thought that such wars will inevitably lead to the result that so-called "terrorism" will become the future of Justice on this planet. So, I signed it. And I will, when I can and for as long as I can, at 65 now, add my name and my case to the line where there is a call for returning to the Law as we knew it. This Law considered irrelevant things irrelevant and defended the right of people to live their lives and speak their mind. Last, I add that it is the universities where the most elaborate falsification of the Law is being worked on.

4. On the issue of academic freedom: A teacher must deliver the facts correctly. Then, he can make, as a person academically qualified, any theory or discussion of them. The choice of facts is his; the great advances were made by the interesting, original choice of facts. The requirement for "balanced", "objective", etc. choice of facts is fraud; it is, by the way, a claim of the corrupt, monopolised, corporate mass media. Any presentation is a private view, not a party line.

Of course, you may publish this my answer. (I prefer to see it complete and unchanged.)

Michael Pyshnov.

CNews 25July06

Speaking of Academic Freedom (and who isn't?), in "Required Reading for the Skeptic" David French over at Phi Beta Cons marvels at Professor Josh Gunn's essay "Why I Am Not Radical Enough"
Excerpt:

There are times when I talk about the radical leftist nature of higher education (and the general oddity of much of the instruction at our nation's universities), and I see the unmistakable signs of skepticism: The furrowed brow, the slight scowl. "Surely," they seem to be saying, "you exaggerate." They hear stories about Ward Churchill or read a few samples of incomprehensible deconstructionist writing and think, "They don't really teach that stuff in the classroom."

Well, I present to you Joshua Gunn and his essay, "Why I Am Not Radical Enough." This marvelous piece is almost beyond parody. Gunn, a teacher of rhetorical studies at the University of Texas, describes how he has moderated his teaching style now that "we live in an environment that no longer protects academic freedom." You must read it all.

CNews 24July06

Can one find research misconduct in the details of footnote use? Maybe it's my bias as an historian, trained in linking arguments to primary sources, but I have to say yes. There are two issues here, one of substance and a second of proportionality. As an historian, I should be insulted that someone calls a methodological interest in references "near-obsessive," but I simply find it sad. How else should we work? The second issue is one of proportionality—was there enough "misconduct" given the scope of Churchill's writings? I'm not sure if we read the same report—the scholars' description of errors went to the heart of Churchill's argument about the behavior of the U.S. military, among other things. Nor is this a matter of ordinary mistakes (which we all make) and which most of us are willing to acknowledge. When confronted with the errors, Churchill could have come clean and said, "I was terribly wrong in these instances." But that was not his response.

Incidentally, in another blog entry, Professor Dorn points to some contextual sleight-of-hand in "Spanking Stanley Fish."

With [Ward] Churchill's dismissal and [his wife and fellow CU professor Natsu Taylor] Saito's impending departure to Georgia State University, the American Indian Studies program at CU is effectively being dismantled. A small program cannot lose two senior scholars in a single year without devastating consequences.

How is this not a threat to academic freedom?

CNews 23July06

[I]n fact, academic freedom has nothing to do with content. It is not a subset of the general freedom of Americans to say anything they like (so long as it is not an incitement to violence or is treasonous or libelous). Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to study anything they like; the freedom, that is, to subject any body of material, however unpromising it might seem, to academic interrogation and analysis.

Academic freedom means that if I think that there may be an intellectual payoff to be had by turning an academic lens on material others consider trivial — golf tees, gourmet coffee, lingerie ads, convenience stores, street names, whatever — I should get a chance to try. If I manage to demonstrate to my peers and students that studying this material yields insights into matters of general intellectual interest, there is a new topic under the academic sun and a new subject for classroom discussion.

CNews 22July06

After two days, the TDS "Unfire Ward Churchill" petition has 191 signers, but still only 37 of David Horowitz' "Dangerous Professors" have joined the gang. It seems that with the exception of DU itself (24 signatories), the farther away from Denver a university is, the more likely its faculty are to sign up. What's at least as interesting is the conspicuous absence of some other notable Denver names on the list, names like George Tinker (Iliff School of Theology) and Glenn Morris (DUCU-Denver) and Emma Perez (CU), not to mention Churchill coprophage Tom Mayer (CU). We're sure they'll get around to it soon.

Jacqueline Lasky
currently in Colorado, orignially from Kailua, HI
I am writing my senior political science honors thesis on the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement. I need as much infor- mation as possible. My advisors are Glen Morris and Ward Churchill, both were involved in the People's Tribunal and are currently in Colorado. Please send me anything and everything that is relavent, both current and historical. I will be back in Hawaii in December/January and would be interested in interviewing people for my honors thesis. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you!

CNews 21July06

CNews 20July06

Professor Dean Saitta has commented on our posting of Saitta's email search for willing signatories to an "unfire ward churchill" statement; the comment bears better exposure here on our main page. We quote, in full:

Hi all—I'll do this only once and in the interest of full disclosure. The email accompanying the TDS Churchill statement was written by me for our faculty here at the University of Denver, for whom I serve as Faculty Senate president. It was assumed to be confidential, but shame on me for thinking that anything is confidential in the electronic world. The TDS statement is authored "by committee". It draws on numerous sources including the independent thoughts of the 101. No doubt there are convergences with thoughts expressed in other sources that were not consulted, since people at times do converge in their thinking. I'm prepared to have scorn heaped on both the statement and the prefatory email. If anyone wants to contact me personally for a civil and non-anonymous conversation about the issues at stake here, my email address is dsaitta@du.edu. My scholarship and teaching portfolio is available for full public scrutiny at the DU Portfolio Community, so that you can better evaluate my "dangerousness" and "postmodern-ness" if not my "aging hippiness". I am deeply conflicted about Ward Churchill’s work and style for many of the same reasons that others are. As an anthropologist who has worked and collaborated with "real" Indians, I'm particularly interested in "indigenous" philosophies of science and history—-the sorts of things that Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is interested in, some of whose work is featured on this website. Elizabeth's thoughts on the Churchill matter, in fact, partly inform the next to last sentence of the TDS statement--specifically, her statement that "Native studies has been badly served by much of what goes on in the academic world". This "bad service" includes not only the work of Ward Churchill, but also the work of the CU investigative committee. As noted, the issues here run very deep if you can get past the fatigues, sunglasses, bad attitude, and problematic scholarship of CU's most famous employee. Very best to all, Dean.

So yes, Mr. [Ken] Bonetti is correct that we must remain vigilant in maintaining academic freedom in our classrooms. To that end we must defeat the militant Neo-Con agenda that seeks to transform our colleges into the Neo-Con equivalent of Hamas training grounds. But Mr. Bonetti undermines his cause in coming to the defense of Ward Churchill. Bonetti frequently uses the pejorative “Churchill-haters” to demonize any and all that agree with the position that Ward should be terminated. Then Bonetti slyly suggests that Churchill is a victim of those that “detest free expression, and liberals.”

Uh, gee whiz, Ken; let's examine the doctrine of free expression. In the scholarly context, without any doubt this means that you are permitted to freely express views based upon valid and reproducible facts. Churchill never did that. He copied others' work and claimed it as his own. He made up false data and reported it as fact. He put forth hypothesis as proven theory while knowingly supporting the flawed theory with lies. In academic terms, Ward Churchill is what we would call a bastard. In a more general sense, he's a worthless bastard.

Uncle Ward is not a “dissident scholar,” he's a liar. Uncle Ward is not a victim of the radical-right; he's a victim of his own demise. Uncle Ward has not been skewered by “dubious logic,” he's been lynched by is own plagiarism. The firing of Uncle Ward was not a “foregone conclusion,” it was a long overdue result.

Sometimes, Ken, the Neo-Cons get it right even when their motives are suspect. Ward Churchill is neither a liberal nor a victim. He is a snake-oil salesman. While that might make him an attraction under the big-top, it doesn't come close to the standards required of a tenured professor.

For 10 years Churchill engaged in the most egregious academic behaviors, fabrication and research misconduct. What has been CU's response? Churchill, until his "little Eichmann essay" attracted public attention, had been consistently rewarded by CU with salary and status. Even now, CU leadership is attempting to cover up its lack of legitimate academic processes, saying "the suggestion that the university's ethnic studies department is in some way responsible for, or deficient, because of the investigation of research misconduct of one of its faculty members is ... unfounded. (From recommendation of the interim chancellor with regard to investigation of research misconduct, June 26, 2006.)

Unfounded? That is hard to swallow. The independent committee investigating Churchill's behavior concluded "there is very little about the present situation that is not foreshadowed by developments across the last 15 years. For us, the indignation now exhibited by some university actors about Professor Churchill's work appears disingenuous, as they and their predecessors are the ones who decided to hire him."

Not only hire him, but promote and reward him. Recall that until January 2005, Churchill was the chairman of the Ethic Studies Department.

What concerns me most for CU is not whether Churchill stays or goes, but whether genuine academic standards will replace the unprincipled pandering to the politics of the moment that have characterized this case from day one.

We have a simple question for the defenders of Ward Churchill: What do you think ? What's your personal view — as a scholar, an engaged citizen, or simply an individual human being — about the charges of research misconduct leveled against Churchill?

It's astonishing, after so many months, that Churchill's supporters remain almost completely silent on this question. They've renewed their counterattack in the past week, following Chancellor Phil DiStefano's recommended that Churchill be fired and the professor's appeal to the Privilege and Tenure Committee. And once again, they have almost nothing to say about the charges that Churchill fabricated information, plagiarized the work of other sources and committed other serious acts of research misconduct.

CNews 19July06

'The mentor became the tormentor': Rhonda Kelly talks to Grant Crowell about her sister's stormy marriage to Ward Churchill

excerpt:

Rhonda: [I]n 1996- that would have been a year, less than a year after their marriage, Leah came back to Winnipeg to attend some university courses and at that time she had revealed that she was contemplating leaving the marriage because of a marital affair that Ward had- I’m not sure how, exactly, she found out about it but she did, she had confirmed it with the other party.

Grant: That’s pretty early, that’s just a year after they were married?

Rhonda: Yeah.

'Teachers for a Democratic Society' call for CU to unfire Churchill

An anonymous source tells us an email is currently making the rounds among academics seeking signatories to a statement calling on CU to reverse its decision to fire Ward Churchill.

Here's the full text of the statement as reported to PB (careful readers will note that the statement is an almost word-for-word replication of Churchill's own response to CU's latest action) [update: a second academic source who also received the email informs us that the email had prefatory remarks by University of Denver professor Dean Saitta, which we've added as the italicized portion of the quote below. Saitta appears to have been the author and sender of the complete email]:

Dear Colleagues--

For several reasons I won't go into here I was among those maligned by David Horowitz in his book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. As a consequence of being listed in that book--and given other contemporary assaults on the professiorate by people much smarter than Horowitz-- the diverse and motley bunch that is the “101” have had lots of interesting email conversations about the state of academic freedom in America. This led to the creation of an organization and website called "Teachers for a Democratic Society" (but it could have been called any number of things along that line), and formation of a group to plan a conference on academic freedom to be held at City University of New York in 2007.

We've recently produced the statement about the Ward Churchill affair that I provide below. This statement is looking for signatories beyond the 101. It is starting to circulate within the academic professions. I've sent it to other faculty senate presidents in Colorado who are circulating it among their faculties. It will get sent to the CU administration and local and national newspapers that have been tracking the Churchill story. It will be posted along with signatories' names on the TDS website, and perhaps elsewhere.

I don't know what the sentiment about the Churchill decision is among us. The 101 is less concerned with the specifics of Churchill's scholarship, politics, and allegedly bad "attitude" (something he got hammered for in the CU investigative committee's report) than we are with the threat the decision to fire him poses to academic freedom and activist scholarship in America. Many of the 101 have read the investigative committee's report and found it deeply problematic. I myself have several substantive problems with it that go beyond what we identify in our statement. The statement captures only the main points of unanimity among the 101.

If you would like to sign on to this statement, please let me know and I'll add your name to the list of supporters. Hope everyone is having a good summer.

Many thanks,

Dean
[address information for Dean Saitta removed]

16 July 2006
To Whom It May Concern:

As members of academic professions committed to the principle of academic freedom, we deplore the procedures and recommendations of the University of Colorado in the case of Professor Ward Churchill. Responding to a public outcry against Professor Churchill's constitutionally-protected free speech, the administration of the University of Colorado appointed a special committee to investigate the character and quality of Churchill's scholarship. The committee recommended his dismissal, a recommendation that is supported by university administrators.

The case against Professor Churchill is flawed on multiple contextual, procedural, and substantive grounds. Some of these are recognized by the university's own investigative committee. The committee's final report communicates a profound "disquiet" about the political motivations for the inquiry. Similarly, it worries about the fairness and legitimacy of a process that has the university's interim Chancellor serving as formal complainant against Professor Churchill while he's also positioned as prosecutor and judge.
 
In addition to these misgivings about context and process, the report contains other substantive problems. These include (1) an unreasonably broad and elastic definition of "research misconduct"; (2) a near-obsessive interest in dissecting a small number of paragraphs and footnotes from an otherwise "impressive" and "unusually high volume" of academic work, an analysis that virtually guaranteed the discovery of errors, misrepresentations, and inconsistencies even as it affirmed the validity of several "general points" and a core of "historical truth"; and (3) a failure to fully appreciate the "scholar activist" and "public intellectual" roles-roles that, on balance, expand and enrich the academic and journalistic enterprises-that Professor Churchill was clearly expected to fill when hired by the University of Colorado.

The actions of the University of Colorado in this case constitute a serious threat to academic freedom. They indicate that public controversy is dangerous and potentially lethal to the careers of those who engage it. They suggest that professors-tenured and untenured alike-serve at the pleasure of politicians and pundits. They call into question standards of scholarship and peer review at Colorado's flagship institution. They endanger not only those scholars working in that area where historical inquiry, critical social commentary, and political activism intersect-an area that defines the true locus of academic freedom in an open and democratic society-but also those historically disenfranchised "others" who are struggling to have their perspectives and programs represented in, and legitimized by, the academic mainstream.

Thus, for a variety of reasons that go well beyond the scholarship and politics of a particular individual, we urge the University of Colorado to reverse its decision to fire Professor Ward Churchill.

Sincerely,

Teachers for a Democratic Society

CNews 13July06

What it all means to ethnic studies is fairly predictable, but what it means to Indian studies, always the ''orphan'' of academia as the late Vine Deloria Jr. named it, is much more frightening. For those Indian scholars who have spent the last 30 years developing what they call an ''empowerment model'' of education at U.S. universities across the land and particularly in the West, this Churchill matter has ushered in what might become a shameful period inherent in the predictable and necessary Churchill disgrace.

Masquerading as an Indian, professionally engaging in an ''enrollment'' fiasco with a Cherokee tribe, marching in the streets of Denver as a member in good standing of the American Indian Movement, using other scholars' work as his own and interpreting his own version of history from an unfettered imagination, professor Churchill has disgraced himself and the people he presumes to represent. The shame of this fiasco is that the alternative historical narrative of America, which Churchill has claimed as his own research domain, does not have to be exaggerated or falsified. It is there for anyone to see and recount in all its bloody reality.

Indeed, the awful historical experience of American Indians of the last 500 years is a verifiable history of genocide and disenfranchisement and bare survival. The crimes of identity theft and academic lying perpetuated by Churchill are not just a matter of disrespect for an emerging discipline, as the committee suggests. They are in danger of becoming institutionalized if the University of Colorado does not understand that American Indian studies as interpreted through the ideological filter of the colonial paradigm of ethnic studies provides the impetus for such crimes.

I would like to say that the Churchill matter will not affect Indian studies and that the substantial academic work that Native scholars have achieved in the past decades will continue. Yet that is for the future to behold. We in Indian studies have often worried that our autonomous academic disciplinary development over the past 30 years has not been taken seriously by related disciplines, and we therefore have often failed to embrace ethnic studies because of its colonial ambiguity and comparative approach.

CNews 10July06

Grant Crowell comes through again! Here he provides video (part one and part two) of Ward Churchill's keynote speech at the Mid-Atlantic Anarchist Bookfair. And for those who've seen enough of Professor Churchill, here's part one and part two audio only.

In part one, Churchill spends most of his rhetorical capital manipulating the "German university" model into something that resembles CU Boulder (i.e., an institution that employs frauds, liars, and plagiarizers to babysit the nation's older children).

CNews 8July06

We wanted to dislike this lady, perhaps even make fun of her, but for some reason we just can't. And besides, she has the only report (however brief) we can find of Ward Churchill's keynote speaking engagment at the Mid-Atlantic Anarchist Book Fair recently.

Excerpt (but make sure you read the entire blog entry):

Seeing Ward Churchill speak reminded me of hpw much a wingnut he can be, which of course reminded me of how much of a wingnut i am. Christian Parenti is pompous and i kind of liked it, and no one has ever given a workshop on the zapatistas i have walked away from feeling empowered or good. But oh well.

CNews 6July06

CNews 3July06

Universities experience enormous pressure to deliver a marketable product. But higher education is called to be more than a conduit for career-making. Our students are more than clients. Classically, education was meant for the whole person—for "full human flourishing." As University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum notes, U.S. higher education has been devoted particularly to the "cultivation of the whole human being for the functions of citizenship and life generally." At the core, universities are more than service providers with privileged clients. We are moral actors shaping the character and justice of society.