As two of the four older Indian women Churchill and his ex-wife, Professor M.A. Jaimes of San Francisco State University, assaulted in 1994 at the San Francisco Press Club, we are intimately familiar with the problems Churchill creates and leaves in his wake. While we hold CU ultimately responsible for licensing, nurturing, and supporting his plagiarism and deceit, we also understand how he misled them with skillful hucksterism. We would also like to remind the public that CU was contacted repeatedly about Churchill's fraudulent and volatile activities years before he made the "Little Eichmann's" comment.

CU turned a blind eye to his spurious, often violent activities toward Indians, on and off campus. They turned their back on the many complaints they received with typical Ivory Tower lack of respect for Indians - but also out of fear.

As he has demonstrated during this investigation, Churchill goes on the extreme attack when confronted. In California he and his former wife assaulted us - Indian women between the ages of 42 and 86, to try to stop us from distributing a statement denouncing his fraudulent activities in the Bay Area Indian Community.

And as he has also demonstrated over the course of this investigation, he does not mind biting the hands that feed him. We are quite sure that many at CU found him an embarrassment, but taking him to task would have meant admitting their duplicity in his empowerment. After all, handing a lucrative, Indian-specific professorship to a non-Indian without adequate credentials - in this case, only a Master's degree and an "honorary" tribal membership card - is reprehensible to say the least, and for that, they should be ashamed.

Some say Churchill is a media clown that no one takes seriously. He’s also called a poster boy for free speech in academia, yet there is method behind this poster boys' madness. His “scholarship,” long refuted by many Indian scholars, has been widely used in college classrooms for years. An entire generation is now wandering around with his scurrilous notions about Indians and tribes implanted in their brains. Many take him seriously, certain academics included.

His “buffoonery” is well known and largely loathed in the American Indian community. Using mean-spirited rumors, sophomoric name calling, distorted facts, figures, and accusations, as well as threats and violence, he has bullied his way through Indian America, sowing seeds of discord among organizations and tribes, wherever he ventured. In the atmosphere of disunity and suspicion he has created, supported by his university "credentials," his work has served a seemingly greater purpose - the further marginalization of Native Americans.

Some call him a "crazy." Long ago many Indians understood him to be not crazy, but as a wolf in sheep's clothing-a "radical, non-Indian, Indian activist" who confused and confounded instead of explained and enlightened complicated issues of Native America. Crazy? Or crazy like a fox?

During this investigation, CU admitted Churchill's native identity was becoming "increasingly dubious." This very statement exemplifies how little respect CU held for Indians in this matter. Over a decade ago, three different tribes he tried to align himself with, flatly denied his membership, or that of his ancestral family. Why wasn't tribal authority respected? Ironically, one reason is that through his "scholarly work" Churchill has cast a shadow of disrespect, doubt, and disbelief over tribes. The consequences have been sorely felt throughout Indian and scholarly communities across the nation.

When complaints over Churchill's "Little Eichmann's" essay first hit the newswire, many Indian in the know rolled their eyes and sighed. No one cared when he was simply beating up Indian women and writing book after book of misleading native history. But we knew that after attacking mainstream Americans, there would be great outcry - not that it wasn't deserved, but why was the Indian community completely disregarded? After the charges against him were filed, and the media circus raged, certain reporters drug us out to "testify" against him and apprise the public of all that we had gone through in order to plunge the knife in a bit further. Of course we did discuss our problems with him publicly. At last someone wanted to hear what we had to say. But instead of supporting us, as soon as we served their purposes, we were ignored again. This, however, began in the Indian community, has marginalized the Indian community, and concerns the Indian community. We are left now, to deal with the hurtful and false information he has so masterfully disseminated all these many years.

As far as his comments on the World Trade Center victims go, many people believe that by behaving like a "whacked-out, radically liberal professor," Churchill's other goal has been to enrage conservative education critics, pitting them fiercely against the thing he claims to revere most - academic freedom. His real intention is to divide rather than unite forces for positive change. While we can not be sure about this theory, it certainly fits his MO in his dealings with the Indian community. The publicity he has generated is not favorable toward Indians or academia, and has created public suspicion toward the Indian community, and an outcry for conservative reform in the academy.

We urge you not to believe for one instant, that Mr. Churchill has lost one wink of sleep over the damage he has done to Indians or CU. His conduct in the light of CU’s decision, confirms what many Indian people have long known: he is a dangerous presence in the University. For their willingness to finally admit that, CU must be congratulated. Indians who once trusted Churchill are now wiser. Only time will tell if CU has learned from its mistakes.

We believe that academic freedom of speech is important, but it is more than a mere right; it’s a grave responsibility to present truths and speculations accurately and honestly. No one understands this better than Indian people who have been victimized through academia for centuries. We have all worked very hard over the past few decades to try to work together with and apart from the academy to try to right these historic wrongs, and Churchill's academic misconduct has severely damaged the positive attainments we have made. The idea that educating is a privilege that should be conducted as objectively as possible, and should never be taken lightly is a notion we all share in common. It demands honesty, which is a most Indian virtue.

Patti Jo King
Carole Standing Elk