The Real Reason Churchill Says Outrageous Things

I don't know, Jim. Now that CU had its nose firmly rubbed in the evidence for Chutch's academic misconduct, they have no choice but to fire him. What a judge is going to be asking, considering the dates of LaVelle's articles, is, "What took you so long?"



CU is not going to enjoy this experience, and their reputation is going to be damaged no matter what they do.



I recommend that they brace themselves and take their medicine.

  — Dianna () (URL) - 08 July '05 - 14:13

That's my point, Dianna. CU is going to fire him... and he's immediately going to take them to court and make them try to prove they didn't fire him on "freedom of speech" issues. They'd be very hardpressed to do that, given the constant scandalizing of public sentiment Churchill's very cleverly engaged in.

  — jwpaine - 08 July '05 - 15:02

Please tell me where I can tell Churchill the idiot what it's like to be fragged by those who view him in contempt! The evidence against Churchill is in and it's uncompromising. If Phil deStifano can't get his act together and come up with a defensible position, he's on his way out at CU! If the CU faculty finds that unacceptable, so what, we haven't lost a whole lot as far as real academia is concerned. The door is open, and the CU Stalino-Fascist faculty can leave whenever they want--the sooner the better!

  — Mescalero () - 08 July '05 - 23:10

He wants to go for a big buyout. The more outrageous his comments, the more the college will pay to get rid of him without an argument.

  — Walter E. Wallis () - 08 July '05 - 23:39

Jim, I don't know where CU ends up, given that the real question is, "what took them so long?" But when the courts consider that CU has real cause, I don't know where the courts end up. It's rather circular.



This isn't fun. But, no matter how long it took CU to fire Chutch, surely they're covered by the facts of Churchill's fraud, fabrication and plagiarism, however it was drawn to their attention?

  — Dianna () - 09 July '05 - 01:48

Real question: what will the Great Deceiver, be doing this fall? Teaching? or counting paper clips?

  — Buzzy () - 09 July '05 - 06:16

"Has it not occurred to anyone that this is part—a very large and important part—of his overall legal strategy? While those opposed to Churchill rail loudly for his immediate severance from CU (And the Right is playing right into this strategy; some are so ignorant of the stakes that they don't even wait for Churchill to actually utter scandalous statements, but instead imagine in print what he might say, for instance, about the London terrorist bombings Thursday), Churchill keeps his eye on the prize: Winning the legal fight over his employment. All else is secondary."



Jim, isn't this precisely what Betsy Hoffman said months ago? Are you suggesting that public discussion should be curtailed to avoid making Churchill a "very rich man"? Sorry, Jim. I didn't believe it then and I don't believe it now.



Churchill threw stones from his glass house, resulting in revelations concerning his lack of proper credentials, plagerism, research fraud, copyright infringement and posing as a member of a group being offered special employment opportunities. No amount of public discourse, cogent or not, changes these things.



If a drug user stands on a corner yelling "Kill all cops!" and has a tourniquet on his arm and a syringe hanging off a main vein, do you think a good defense would be abridgement of free speech and assertion that the speech was the cause of his arrest? If a crowd gathers and engages the suspect concerning his "Kill all cops!" statement, will a judge then drop the drug charge, disregarding the evidence of the crime?



Churchill's past and present comments and public responses to them are irrelevant. The charges being considered are what matters when the committee determines his fitness to teach at CU. If Churchill is discharged, a subsequent lawsuit will not fail or succeed because of Churchill's comments or public outrage.

  — Laurie () - 09 July '05 - 08:08

Laurie:



I wasn't recommending anything, just making an observation. I don't recall Hoffman saying anything about Churchill saying outrageous things specifically because they would serve to strengthen his "freedom of speech" defense. If she did, bueno for her prescience.



If I were to make a recommendation to CU it would be: Fire Churchill and take the hit (if necessary) in court. CU made this mess, and CU can damn well clean it up. If it costs the university dearly to learn this lesson, well, tough.

  — jwpaine () - 09 July '05 - 09:08

The pusilanimous administration has no stomach for a fight, and Churchie knows it. Right now they are just arguing price.

"WHO WILL RID ME OF THIS TURBULENT PRIEST?"

  — Walter E. Wallis () - 09 July '05 - 09:47

Jim,

Please note that the passage quoted pertained to the responses to Churchill's statements. I guess it's possible that he would like to be on record numerous times, at least as many as the number of allegations he faces, for making unpopular speech.



However, you made the point that "While those opposed to Churchill rail loudly for his immediate severance from CU" and "the Right is playing right into this strategy; some are so ignorant of the stakes that they don’t even wait for Churchill to actually utter scandalous statements...". Forgive me if I misunderstood, but the language you used ("playing right into", "so ignorant of the stakes") left me with the impression that you feared the legal impact of these discussions. That is what I compared to Betsy Hoffman's view on public comment. Here are her statements on the subject:



University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman warned lawmakers yesterday against rushing to punish a professor who likened some Sept. 11, 2001, victims to Nazis, saying a misstep could land the university in court and make the embattled teacher "a very wealthy man at our expense."



"If we approach this issue wrong, not only will every regent be sued personally, but every administrator will be sued personally and professor Churchill will win his lawsuit with triple damages and be back on the faculty, a very wealthy man at our expense," Hoffman said.



"The more talk there is about the need to fire him, the more difficult it becomes for us to do that, if that's what we decide to do," she said.



I agree that some blogs are downright silly, such as the comparison to Billy Jack and the Little Entemenns story. It may be fun, but it is distracting and not very smart. Some idiot will believe and reprint it....such as WDN. I don't think either will be discussed by the committee or the courts.

  — Laurie () - 09 July '05 - 10:15

I agree that CU should take the hit...but I know who will pay for it. Just a minute...let me get my wallet.

  — Laurie () - 09 July '05 - 10:57

My fear is that Hoffman pegged the danger perfectly—and Churchill is doing everything he can to make that danger reality. His apparent strategy is to make himself as repulsive and annoying as possible (always j-u-s-t inside the limits of legality).



I'd like to think the regents and the misconduct committee are august bodies the mills of which grind slow, yet they grind exceedingly fine. But I'm afraid they're just as prone to anger and scandal as the rest of us; the reactionary media is watched and listened-to, not only by the regents and the misconduct committee, but by judges, as well. The preponderance of information available shows Churchill to be a consistently outrageous speaker.



And again, I'm only making an observation. PB will still cover Churchill's outrages, just like the rest of the media. My only hope is that the media's reportage is at least informed with a knowledge of what's at stake—and who's zoomin' who.

  — jwpaine () - 09 July '05 - 12:09

It is past time to reexamine the concept of tenure. No one should be able to job the public the way Churchie does and not risk his employment. Next, we need to cut off the ability of student body groups to use funds extorted from students to pay people to trash those students. Then kill commpulsory union membership.

  — Walter E. Wallis () - 09 July '05 - 15:01

It seems clear to me that Churchill's strategy has from the beginning to garner headlines, which are the building blocks of his academic house of cards. Sensationalism is his stock in trade. And he has cleverly hit on a brand of sensationalism that plays to the tastes of contemporary liberal academic elites--they didn't promote Churchill because they were stupid, they did it because they liked what he was saying and they liked that someone was saying it loudly. The case against him is obvious and clear, even by academic standards, and if he weasels out of this one it will be because the ideology he promotes it the ideology that is shared by all those who judge him. Yes, CU should take the hit on this one if they are interested in promoting an open and unbiased academic atmosphere where true freedom of thought can prosper. But have they ever shown any interest in such a course in the past? Don't hold your breath.

  — AcademicElephant () (URL) - 10 July '05 - 12:48

I'm no huge fan of tenure, but it wasn't tenure that gave us Churchill. It was the fraudulent nature of ethnic studies itself. Ward Churchill was, is and will continue to be the poster child of the ethnic studies academic community specifically because it is not about academics but radical Leftist political propaganda.

  — SPQR () - 10 July '05 - 20:29

SPQR: QED.

  — AcademicElephant () (URL) - 10 July '05 - 22:26

I agree with the analysis that Ward Churchill is making controversial and outrageous statements to illicit a response, that response is not however from the public at-large but the Governor, members of the State Legislature, Regents, and University of Colorado Administration. If Churchill can goad any of them into a public response he and his lawyer could claim undo political pressure over Churchill's political stance influenced the current proceedings to oust him from his teaching position. President Hoffman's comments indicate she firmly understood the need to be judicious in this case.



The saying "act in haste, repent in leisure" applies to the Churchill situation. The University of Colorado used an accelerated proceedure to grant Churchill tenure. He did not go through the rigorous review process necessary to Tenure (I have been through the process, nine years from first hire to Tenure). It is obvious a serious review of Churchill's work and career did not occur. The University is now paying a high cost in damage to its reputation. Alumni, of which I am one, are furious and disgusted by this stain on the University's academic reputation (the football program is another problem but it does not stain the academic reputation of the University). However to placate an immediate political controversy by rhetorically throwing Churchill to mob may lead CU into another hasty and costly decision. The leadership of the state of Colorado and the University of Colorado must be very cautious in their responses to Churchill's comments. Churchill is well aware of how much of a "knee jerk" reaction CU's leadership and Regents have had to past controversies. All he needs is a Regent, like Hugh Fowler, (known to throw a rhetorical bomb nearly every semester he was a Regent back in the Eighties)to comment on his outrageous statements and he may well turn this case into a Left-Right political issue and achieve a large payday from CU.



It should be remembered Churchill first arrived at CU during the Nichols Hall/Sand Creek Massacre controversy. He used his "Native American Heritage" to parlay a political controversy at CU into an "Academic career" for himself and will continue to play this political game to achieve a large settlement from CU before moving to some very left-wing liberal arts college that will see this as a case of "political correctness" from the right that needs redress by giving Churchill a position on their campus rather than this case being about Academic Standards, which is what it should be about.

  — [rex] - 11 July '05 - 10:48

Ward Churchill may "explain" that he is not actually advocating "fragging" but he bragged that he taught people how to make bombs and in the picture you have on this site he is holding a really big gun.



Of course he advocates "fragging." He has been carring water for Saddam's anti-sanctions crowd for years.



He blames the American sanctions for the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. He doesn't blame Saddam for stealing all the oil for food money. And Churchill will probably not criticize the terrorists for deliberately bombing a group of Iraqi children yesterday. These kids were deliberately killed so that Iraqis would blame the US soldiers for the bombings.

  — [The Surf Ballroom] - 14 July '05 - 11:52

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