]]>There are few areas in which the groupthink academy has had a more disastrous impact than the study of U.S. history. One-sidedness has its costs, however, in terms of influence outside the Ivory Tower. Courts or politicians who rely on the opinions of professors who now qualify as "mainstream" U.S. historians do so at their own peril.
Frankly, their first argument, entitled "A grant of quasi-judicial immunity to the board of regents and the university would preserve academic freedom and recognize the special role of the university in our constitutional jurisprudence" seems a bit far-fetched, at least on the "special role" the university plays in "constitutional jurisprudence." But hey, with fabulists like Churchill, et al, on the opposing side, might as well drag in some penumbras of your own. Maybe one of our legaloid jackbooted thugs could enlighten us as to the viability of such an argument. ]]>In a brief submitted Wednesday, the groups argue that the reversal of a lower-court ruling granting the board immunity “would not only infringe on the institutional autonomy that is the cornerstone of academic freedom, but would chill universities’ incentive to provide robust internal processes for faculty misconduct proceedings.”
Betcha he didn't speak in asterisks. ]]>When asked by The Huffington Post about the "little Eichmanns" remark, now ten years later, Churchill said this:
"I retract nothing. What I said has been validated beyond my wildest expectations, to tell you the truth, so let's just say that I rest my case. A lot of people were outraged by my remark, of course, but, to cop a quote from Rick Perry, 'You throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one who yaps is the one who got hit.' In other words, the people upset were the f***ing Eichmanns. Look in the mirror and own it, guys. You identified yourselves by frothing at the mouth for being called by your right name. See? Perry's good for something, after all."
"We found that he did not commit academic misconduct." Really? No, fucking really? At this point, absolutely no one can claim ignorance of Churchill's multiple academic misdeeds. Only willful self-delusion and/or contemptuous malice can lead a being sentient enough to beat a dog at checkers to conclude Churchill is anything but a fraud, a liar, a plagiarizer, and a historical fabulist. Anyone associated with this AAUP report should be fired, neutered, hanged, shot, buried, dug up again, stabbed, pissed upon, and then buried once again. And in the case of CC-AAUP "co-president" Dean Saitta, rinse & repeat. ]]>Thus far, Churchill's efforts to be reinstated at the institution have failed to bear fruit -- but the report hardly portrays the evidence against him as damning. "We found that he did not commit academic misconduct," Eron says. "I wasn't surprised by finding that the university caved in under public pressure, because there was something phony about seeking alternative means for firing him. But I was very surprised by the report by the Standing Committee for Research Misconduct. Before the report came out, there was considerable faculty support for Churchill, but afterward, it was widely perceived that he was a fraud, even though our conclusion is that what they called academic misconduct was actually a normative practice used by numerous experts in the field -- and even by some people on the committee itself.