Genociding Ward Churchill for over a 20th of a century

CNews 31May09

We've come across three more affidavits (PDF) that were attached to CU's opposition to The Perfesser's Motion For Reinstatement, including:

University of Arizona American Studies Professor Emeritus Tom Holm:
Excerpt:

My reading of the problem today leads me to conclude that Churchill should not be returned to his position at the University of Colorado. I have never really considered Churchill to be a scholar or journalist, but have always seen him as a creative writer and essayist whose writings were provocative but not well-documented or particularly illuminating. Those of us who have been in the field have heard these arguments before. Churchill attempts to pass ideology off as theory. Ultimately, however, he should not be denied a return to his position simply because a group of professors believe that he's a bad scholar. His return should be denied because of the harm he has already done and the further harm his haphazard scholarship will do to American Indian academicians and students in the future.

During his tenure at the University of Colorado, Ward Churchill has irreparably damaged Indian Studies and the Indian community by teaching and publishing numerous books that lie or distort the truth. His published lies and distortions are then taught as fact to unsuspecting students across the country. If Ward Churchill is reinstated to his position at CU, his reinstatement will further damage the scholarship of Indian Studies. Repairing the damage Churchill has inflicted on Indian Studies and the Indian community will require hard work by many Native scholars and professionals in the future; Churchill's continuing presence at CU as a professor who harms Indian studies and the Native Community would serve only to undermine that work. I believe that Churchill would not have been able to publish his slanderous books, if he had not had his position, and the illusion of scholarship, at CU. Churchill should not be allowed to use the power and prestige of CU to further damage the academic world and the Indian community.

[...] I am convinced that the particular claims of "genocide" by Mr. Churchill, followed by his pseudo-academic summersaults [sic] to belatedly provide documentation by quoting himself and by quoting others who were quoting him, are particularly onerous because there are actual instances in Mvskoke (the proper spelling of our language and alphabet) history which, although mentioned in general histories, are not sufficiently studied in detail, nor studied by tribal members, and which some day require that an honest researcher make the claim of actual or attempted genocide, and that his claim of being Mvskoke (whether actual or self-identified) seems not to be real, either in his historical research subject matter nor in his cultural life where he sets an example for native students.

CNews 29May09

Doctor Professor Indian Ward Churchill's legal sock-puppets have filed their opposition brief to CU's motion to dismiss (which we talked about here); the opposition brief was actually filed May 18th, but no one in the Denver media appears to have noticed it for the past two weeks. In short, the brief claims (if we understand the legal argle-bargle) that the "quasi-judicial immunity" claimed by CU's motion to dismiss only protects persons being sued as individuals for acts performed in their official capacities. (ht Leah)
Excerpt:

Because the Defendant Board of Regents, a body corporate, and the University of Colorado are not individuals being sued in their individual capacities but are instead a politically immersed governmental entity, not acting in an appellate capacity but as politicians making a political decision, quasi-judicial immunity should be denied. Defendants’ motion for quasi-judicial immunity does not preclude this Court’s ability to grant equitable relief.

Technical Note

Because of DrunkaWhineyCryBaby, we've added BBCode parsing to our comments. This means that comments can now include:

hotlinked text

[url=http://thedrunkablog.blogspot.com/]DrunkaWhineyCryBaby[/url]

which results in: DrunkaWhineyCryBaby

strikeouts

[s]Professor[/s]

which results in: Professor

... and pretty much anything else you can do with HTML. Visit this BBCode page for a list of all available BBCodes.

CNews 27May09

John Aguilar over at the Daily Camera reports that Doctor Professor Ward Churchill will get his reinstatement hearing July 1.
Excerpt:

[Chief Denver District Court Judge Larry] Naves will decide whether Churchill, 61, gets his job back at CU or whether he should be paid a lump sum of money instead. The judge could also choose to award the former professor nothing.

From your keyboard to Naves' ear, John.

Churchill is eligible for Social Security right now. Even if the court gives him back his job, he is close enough to the end of his career to sum it up or at least consider summing it up. It’s at this stage when Indian people begin to be regarded as “elders,” in the sense of having lived a good life of contribution to the tribal community. Or not.

CNews 24May09

Among the affidavits accompanying CU's objection to Professor Doctor Ward Churchill's Motion For Reinstatement are (ht Leah):

statements from Suzan Shown Harjo
Excerpt:

Churchill has a public and classroom history of attacking Native nations and people, and passing off as his own the ideas, statements and histories of those he attacks. While I fear Churchill’s stepped up attacks against me and other Native peoples if he were to be reinstated, I also fear the fabrications, misrepresentations and twisted logic he would inflict on another generation.

I have known Ward Churchill for decades as a fraud, a disruptive influence in the community of scholars, a plagiarizer whose work has been published for the purpose of self interest.
[...]Professor Churchill’s research methodology is wrong. I have never used his work in the courses I teach in Native American Studies (law and society, contemporary Indian issues, literature, Federal Indian policy courses and history) because it is unreliable. While he claims to contest the colonial power that keeps natives as under-class citizens in America, he reinforces the stereotypes and the hold of colonial power through his use of distorted interpretations. He even has been known to write documents which support his point of view, publish them under another person’s name, then cite it in his separate bibliographies. This is an appalling abuse of his position.

The instances and patterns of plagiarism, fabrications, and falsifications in Churchill’s writings have inflicted serious harm on the fields of Indian studies, Indian history, and Indian law and policy. One of the most important developments in these academic fields has been a steady rise in contributions by American Indian scholars in recent times, scholars whose uniquely situated sensitivity to the sovereign rights of Indian nations and the particular, often oppressive historic experiences of Native people has challenged, balanced, and augmented conventional narratives, thereby benefiting all students and scholars within these disciplines. By injecting deliberate falsehoods and distortions into the stream of scholarship that feeds the increasingly interrelated fields of Indian studies, Indian history, and Indian law and policy, Churchill’s writings compromise the work of genuine scholars within these disciplines who unwittingly rely on Churchill’s fabrications and falsifications. Moreover, as Churchill’s falsehoods and distortions become more widely known and recognized as such, they collaterally discredit and undermine the entire fields within which Churchill writes, and they burden the innovative contributions of Native scholars, in particular, by fomenting public suspicion about the integrity of those contributions.

[M]ost of Churchill’s scholarship is neither fair, nor objective, nor accurate. Because he promotes himself as the ultimate “Indian expert,” his views have been widely disseminated through classrooms across the nation. Yet much of his writing contains serious, extreme revisionism that is designed to support his personal, radical, political agenda – an agenda that is tremendously harmful to Indians and tribes.

In 1984, the Cherokee Nation contracted with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to process Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB) applications for all Cherokees. One must have a CDIB before one can apply to become a citizen of the Cherokee Nation or a member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. To become a member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, an individual must be at least one-fourth degree of Cherokee Indian blood. Ward Churchill has no CDIB, nor has he produced the required evidence establishing an ancestor on the Dawes Roll. Churchill therefore is not entitled to be a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, nor is he entitled to be an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.

CNews 21May09

John Aguilar at the Daily Camera continues to bird-dog the Churchill case, with a report today covering CU's response to The Perfesser's motion for reinstatement, to whit: "The jury determined that Professor Churchill's constitutional injury was nominal, and a nominal injury should not serve as a basis for reinstatement or any other equitable relief[...] The Court should not contravene the jury's implied finding that Professor Churchill suffered no actual damages."

Update: University of Denver Sturm College of Law has just posted CU's 131-page "Brief in opposition to Motion for Reinstatement" (pdf; ht Leah)
Excerpt:

Reinstating Professor Churchill is fraught with similar perils. Indeed, not more than forty-eight hours after the jury’s verdict, Mr. Lane stated, “Anything that is deemed retaliatory is another lawsuit. If they look at him cross-eyed, they could very well end up back in court.” Mr. Lane similarly stated that he would file suit if the University assigns Professor Churchill an inadequate office or class times he doesn’t like. Where Professor Churchill’s attorney is threatening lawsuits before even filing a Motion for Reinstatement, it is doubtful that reinstatement will create an amicable and productive work environment.

CNews 19May09

According to this Daily Times story by John Aguilar, Professor Doctor Ward Churchill wants an expedited one-day hearing in June to determine whether he'll get his Ministry of Propaganda position back.
Excerpt:

Churchill's legal team has stated that the former ethnic studies professor wants to resume his place in the classroom by the start of the fall semester, which begins Aug. 24.

CNews 15May09

Over at Indian Country Today, Elizabeth Cook-Lyn has nothing good to say about Professor Doctor Ward Churchill, but only manages to sound like a spokeswhiner for yet another advocacy faction with which the Victims Studies milieu is rife. Paulo Freire would be proud. (ht Leah)

CNews 7May09

CNews 6May09

CNews 5May09

From The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) (emphasis ours; ht Leah):

In a "motion for reinstatement of employment" filed in state court late last week, Mr. [Ward] Churchill offered assurances that he would not be a disruptive force at the university that he has battled for four years over his job, and that his return to the ethnic-studies department at its Boulder campus would be welcomed by his former colleagues there.

In their own motion, filed on Monday, the university system's lawyers did not answer Mr. Churchill's assertions. They instead focused on trying to persuade the judge handling the case, Larry J. Naves, to grant the members of the system's Board of Regents immunity from personal liability for their 8-to-1 decision to fire him in 2007. University officials have said, however, that they do not want Mr. Churchill back, especially in light of a university investigation's conclusion that he had committed scholarly misconduct.

In an affidavit submitted with the motion, Mr. Churchill says his reinstatement will restore confidence in the integrity of his academic scholarship by the public and his academic peers.

Ah, speechless no more. The only thing that could restore confidence in the integrity of The Perfesser's scholarship would be a sudden, precipitous, and universal drop in IQs to moron level.

But The Race To The Bottom has a different take on CU's motion (ht and a couple of @sspats upon Leah):

CU has filed a motion to dismiss the unlawful termination claim on the basis that the Board of Regents are a constitutionally created—and therefore governmental—body which was acting in its quasi-judicial capacity, and is therefore immune from lawsuit. This claim was previously preserved while going forward with the jury trial.

Hmmm. Sounds crazy. So crazy it just might work.

University of Denver's Sturm College of Law, by the way, has oodles (it's a technical term) of documents related to Teh Trial, including a letter of support for The Perfesser from the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT), the Board of Governors of which includes none other than Churchill's latest wife, Natsu "Truthforce" Saito—but surely that had nothing to do with SALT's letter.

Also among the documents is Churchill's affidavit accompanying his recent motion, wherein we find the following:

Another crucial purpose of my litigation against the University of Colorado was to protect the legacy of my thirty years of academic scholarship. My academic scholarship was possibly irreparably tarnished due to the University’s false accusations of academic misconduct. The jury verdict in my favor, finding that the University fired me in retaliation for the exercise of my constitutionally protected rights of free speech, and that the University would not have fired me but for this speech, fully vindicated me and my scholarship and conduct.

The "Liar, Liar! Pants on fire!" argument—however simple, valid, and righteous it may be—seems useless at this point.

CNews 2May09

Why does the news that Doctor Professor Ward Churchill has filed his motion with District Court to return to his CU classroom remind us of Michael Jackson expressing his desire to return to Neverland?
Excerpt:

Churchill's attorney David Lane has said that CU cannot retaliate against Churchill by giving him a substandard position on campus or he will sue again.

That might be a problem, since any position Churchill fills is automatically rendered substandard. To put it delicately, Churchill is to education what shit is to a shit sandwich.

Update: DrunkaButt has more.