| By pdelatorre - Jul 25th, 2007 at 4:58 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Tags: Academic Freedom, Churchill, free exchange, Higher Education, University of Colorado
Churchill, an author and University of Colorado professor, got in some serious trouble a few years ago when he called victims of September 11th “little Eichmanns.” Many called for him to be fired from his position at the University of Colorado, and the conservative “academic freedom” movement used him as an example of everything they thought was wrong with academia. He was given the pink slip yesterday because a review of his academic work seems to show falsification and plagiarism.
Our friends at Free Exchange on Campus just put up a blog post about the controversy that sums it up nicely:
ACTA [*] and others claim that Ward Churchill is just one of many dangerous academics, and a sign that academics are so out of line that the only thing to be done is to start imposing academic diversity in the classroom and limiting the number of tenured faculty positions created to let these overly-politicized professors run amok. […]
But contrary to popular belief, he's not the norm, and using him as a rallying point to make academia an even more difficult field to work and learn in than it already is won't help form the independent critical thinkers and good citizens they want to be made at the university.
The picture they paint of various "Ward Churchills" is bleak, but it's not the picture of academics I have had painted for me, and it's certainly not the picture that inspired me to go for grad school.
!
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This really doesn't bode well for academic freedom. Right-wingers and Horowitzites everywhere are going to be emboldened by this.
Let's be clear about something else: so far as I can tell, most of us on the left were perfectly happy with dismissing Ward Churchill as a fringe nut who contributed little besides inflammatory bullshit to the discourse. It was the right wing, especially Fox Opinion, who promoted this guy to a national figure. He's their golem, they gave him exposure, and I for one am glad to see him discredited, since he was good for little other than serving as a boogeyman of the left.
I couldn't agree more. The incredibly fraudulent Ward Churchill is the last person in the world the Left needs to embrace as a martyr.
So a professor is about to be axed for research misconduct even though no one with any expertise in his field has substantiated the charges. In fact a number of experts in Native American Studies who examined the committee’s report found that it had numerous flaws and seemed to reflect the selective use of evidence to advance a predetermined objective. They found no evidence of gross errors, which is what 'research misconduct' means, in Churchill's work."
From this article: Link
You are obviously not familiar with this case at all. Numerous experts in Native American Studies have substantiated that Churchill's so called "research" is riddled through and through with errors, misrepresentations, out and out fictions, and numerous plagarisms.
These facts were not only brought before the commitee, but numerous Native American experts, including some REAL Indians, have been filing complaints with the University of Colorado for more than 10 years that they had an out and out fraud running their Native American Studies program. Unfortunately, no one at the university was willing to listen. An incredible error in judgment that I am sure they have come to regret.
I Got Your University; Right Here
Set the Wayback Machine for 23 August 1995: a hot day in the nation’s capitol. But 3000 miles due west on California’s Central Coast, a constellation of events was unfolding that would have a profound effect on Western civilization; plunge it into war. Yet, this cataclysmic upheaval was only part of the plan. Bill Clinton picked up the telephone. It was his Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, calling from a payphone in Monterey. Bill held the receiver at arms length and gazed at the tasteful floral arrangement that adorned the Oval Office. Leon’s disembodied voice filled the room. What now, asked Hillary. It’s that damn college, mouthed Bill. There was, no getting out. Hillary nodded, just tell Leon he’ll get whatever he needs: Link