The Try-Works

And ain’t she a bombshell, though?

Anyway, following is an excerpt from the second of two emails from Mimi Wesson, providing a private insight into her “objectivity” regarding Ward Churchill. As you’ll recall, the first email found her already formulating the arguments she later used when chairing the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. Over a year before she’d heard a shred of evidence as to Ward Churchill’s guilt or innocence. A year before the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct was even convened.

Impartial, eh?

So, this second email is for all you who’ve scoffed at the idea that those pillars of academic integrity — Mimi Wesson at their head, of course — would deign to allow public and financial influences to taint their judgment.

This one was sent by Mimi Wesson to Robert Clinton, who was serving under her on the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct.

Just so you know why I have a growing sense of panic, however, I’m forwarding you the message below — nothing special about it, it’s just today’s, but it’s one of many that I get, all suggesting that the delay represents an effort by CU to “sweep this thing under the rug” . . . When you explained that you would become unavailable, in early May, for the remainder of the month, I really felt my spirits sink. We just have to finish this thing before then. I hope we might be able to anyway, without meeting on the 21st, but frankly I am not sure. I do not expect Prof. Churchill to be all that cooperative about securing his witnesses in a timely way (although we have told him he has to) — dragging this out is somewhat to his advantage. Meanwhile the University and all who care about it have their eyes on us.

“A growing sense of panic”, you say? That’s interesting. Why would one panic about about allowing due process to run its course?

Perhaps we should take a look at the email which Mimi Wesson was kind enough to forward Mr. Clinton.

To all:

As parents of 2 children @ CU Boulder it is disgusting to see the University continue to drag out the Churchill process and to incredibly damage it’s reputation. WHY IS THERE NO SENSE OF URGENCY WHEN THIS IS KILLING CU’s REPUTATION AND PROBABLY DONATIONS, ETC….It hurts all connected with CU. There’s many clear violations that newspapers, etc have clearly documented.

I had hoped that Hank Brown would have helped to keep this process moving along.

I doubt our last child will be allowed to attend CU Boulder.

Anyone want to argue that this ain’t an attempt to influence Robert Williams’ opinion on the case? The influence behind the statement that “the University and all who care about it have their eyes on us” seems pretty clear. After all, the email’s author — who presumably constitutes Ms. Wesson’s “all who care about it” demographic — ain’t just demanding the process come to a conclusion. He’s demanding Ward Churchill be fired.

Likewise, anyone want to argue that the outcome of termination was ever in doubt? As she put it so eloquently: “We just have to finish this thing.” Or does anyone have a better reason why she’d be forwarding emails demanding Ward Churchill’s head to other members of the committee as an indication of the matter’s urgency?

Given the “panic” she’s enduring at just having to read an email or two, I can only imagine the kind of cold sweats she might undergo were she to actually envision anything besides a recommendation of termination.

Luckily for her, I guess, that was never an option.

As I predicted, CU President Hank Brown has ignored the recommendation of CU’s Privilege & Tenure Committee and is demanding Ward Churchill be fired.

Due process and all that pesky shit be damned.

Welcome to your nightmare, CU faculty.  You deserve it, you gaggle of shitlicking little cowards, you.  Tenure is a sham, and free speech is another of your dipshit little fantasies.  Remember to watch what you say, and keep one ear to the ground.

Churchill responds as follows:

President Hank Brown has quite predictably recommended that the Regents of the University of Colorado (CU) fire me – not, he claims, because of my constitutionally protected statements about 9/11 but because of my scholarship. However, as hundreds of academics around the country have pointed out, CU’s “investigation” has all along been merely a pretext, transparently catering to the political and financial interests which dictate “educational” policy at CU.

Keep reading.

This is a good one, ladies and germs. Perhaps the best we’ve had yet.

As Vincent Carroll, Mike Rosen and Dan Caplis have been pointing out of late, CU President Hank Brown is under no obligation to follow the recommendation of the Privilege and Tenure Committee, which advised Ward Churchill receive a one-year suspension. Although to do so would be to notify the public that due process at CU is a sham, Hank Brown is perfectly within his rights to follow the recommendation of the initial Standing Committee on Research Misconduct, and fire the good professor.

But see, I’ve got a little problem with the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. Particularly as regards their objectivity. Those of you who’ve been reading for some time know that I’ve suspected said committee’s chair, Mimi Wesson, of being, shall we say, less than impartial vis-a-vis Professor Churchill.

And now I can call that suspicion a flat-out fact.

Following are excerpts from the first of two emails sent by Mimi Wesson which have been passed along to me by an anonymous tipster. This one was sent by Ms. Wesson on February 28th of 2005. Before there was a Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. Before there was even an investigation into Churchill’s work.

The first excerpt has to do with Ms. Wesson’s general impression of Ward Churchill’s personality.

I confess to being somewhat mystified by the variety of people this unpleasant (to say the least) individual has been able to enlist to defend him. I know people say it’s the principle, but we aren’t all out there defending Bob Guccione’s first amendment rights, though God knows he has them. I thought that us middle-aged feminists, at least, had learned not to all fall into that trap.

On a side note, Ms. Wesson had never met Ward Churchill at this point. So one has to wonder how she knew he was “unpleasant (to say the least)”.

But, of course, that ain’t the real question. The real question is how the hell did someone openly expressing these kinds of sentiments about Churchill get made chair of a supposedly objective committee tasked with investigating Churchill.

Anyone?

And, another good question is, given her opinion of his personality, what do you think she thinks of his guilt or innocence?

Luckily, she doesn’t leave us in suspense long.

. . . the rallying around Churchill reminds me unhappily of the rallying around OJ Simpson and Bill Clinton and now Michael Jackson and other charismatic male celebrity wrongdoers (well, okay, I don’t really know that Jackson is a wrongdoer) — the tortured defenses (the cops planted the blood, “it depends on what you mean by sex”), the claim that we have to defend the principle, the idea that if “they” get him, then “they” will come to get you next.

My favorite’s her caveat about Michael Jackson, that she’s “doesn’t really know” if he’s a wrongdoer.

Y’know, because, she’s not conflicted at all about Ward Churchill’s guilt. He’s right there with OJ Simpson.

Do you think it’s too much to suggest that comparing Ward Churchill to the most notorious alleged murderer of the last fifty years and a suspected pedophile might preclude one from sitting as chair of a committee charged with objectively investigating him?

Just maybe?

And do bear in mind, this is before she’s heard a single shred of evidence against Ward Churchill. As I said above, this is before there was even an investigation.

Given the level of ethics exhibited here, I’m wondering if all those she convicted as a prosecutor might be within their rights to start filing appeals.

But the real kicker comes elsewhere in the email. Remember, this was written in February of 2005, over a year before the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct released its report on Churchill.

As you know, an unlawful arrest doesn’t immunize the person arrested from responsibility for his crimes. Churchill’s writing are all out there in the public sphere for consumption, as all scholarship has to be; it’s not as though someone violated his right to privacy by taking a look to see what was there. I can’t see a workable moral principle in the idea that any discovery of academic misconduct is immune from punishment if we can discern something discriminatory or punitive in the motives of the ones who went looking. If a cop takes offense at my bumper sticker and decides to follow me around until he sees me engage in a drug transaction in a public place, I can still be convicted, can’t I?

Sound familiar?

It should.

It’s an argument she repeats, almost verbatim, in the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct’s final report.

To use an analogy, a motorist who is stopped and ticketed for speeding because the police officer was offended by the contents of her bumper sticker, and who otherwise would have been sent away with a warning, is still guilty of speeding, even if the officer’s motive for punishing the speeder was the offense taken to the speeder’s exercise of her right to free speech. No court would consider the improper motive of the police officer to constitute a defense to speeding, however protected by legal free speech guarantees the contents of the bumper sticker might be.

Keep reading.

It’s a beaut, ain’t it? Mimi Wesson has not only decided Ward Churchill’s existential unpleasantness (“to say the least”) and affirmed his guilt, she’s already started to formulate the arguments to be used against him.

Objective? Impartial?

You decide.

One last gem for you, dear reader: I have it from my anonymous tipster that Ms. Wesson demanded to be chair of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct when it was convened.

I don’t think you have to spend too much energy wondering why.

She’d already drafted their conclusion.

Next: An email from Mimi Wesson to Standing Committee on Research Misconduct member Robert Clinton. In which she forwards a missive from a CU parent remarking on the financial consequences of keeping Churchill employed, and expresses her own frustration with how long it’s taking to just “finish the thing.”

Update: You’ll be shocked to note that Jim Paine has dismissed Mimi Wesson’s obvious bias against Churchill as “[opining] rather mildly that she finds Churchill distasteful.” However, as commenter Pablo reminds us, Jim Paine, Rocky Mountain News editorial page editor Vincent Carroll and KHOW shock-jock Dan Caplis had two American Indian Studies professors run off the committee for far lesser expressions in support of Churchill.

But fear not, dear reader, Mr. Paine explains all as follows:

Those were people who had already expressed an opinion on Churchill’s scholarship, Pablo, which was what they were recruited to investigate.

And BTW, if you’re going to compare apples to oranges, at least have the guts to use the active voice.

Now that’s the kind of hypocrisy which makes one wonder how Mr. Paine can even fucking breathe, given the amount of horseshit he manages to squirrel away in that filthy blowhole he’d like to describe as a mouth.

What the fuck do you think that bumper sticker analogy pertains to, Mr. Paine? I don’t think it takes a trained expert in the English language to pluck forth that she’s discussing his alleged “academic misconduct.” Y’know, since she states as much. And then regurgitates it in the academic misconduct report she pens over a year later.

You’re a hypocrite, boss. A singular hypocrite. Had you a shred of integrity you’d admit that she’s at least as biased as the two gentlemen you ran off. That ain’t to say you mightn’t still think Churchill guilty, but there’s no credible way you can argue that she didn’t have a conflict of interest.

And, as I’d like to remind you, CU’s own rules make it pretty clear that Mimi Wesson should never have even been on the committee, let alone acting as chair:

The Standing Committee shall appoint an investigating committee charged with conducting a thorough, informed and unbiased investigation of the allegations of misconduct.

1. In consultation with the appropriate dean or vice chancellor, the Standing Committee shall appoint an ad hoc committee of three to five members, including a chair, herein referred to as the investigating committee.

2. Investigating committee members may be selected from inside or outside the University, excluding members of the Standing Committee. Attention in selection should be paid to (1) avoiding conflicts of interest and (2) including appropriate research expertise within the committee to evaluate the allegation(s) under consideration.

3. The Standing Committee shall consult with the respondent and complainant to ensure that investigating committee members do not have a bias or conflict of interest in considering the case. If a member’s impartiality is questioned, the Standing Committee may replace that member.

4. The chair of the Standing Committee shall meet with the Investigative Committee, prior to the initiation of the investigation, to discuss the procedures for the investigation phase, described in section VI. of this document.

Those rules ought to look familiar to you, Mr. Paine. Wasn’t so long ago you were citing them all over the fucking place.

“A teacher who falsifies data should be fired.”

This announcement, posted at 6:53 this morning among the comments on Bennie’s “Melting, Melting,” was made by “Laurie,” previously among the most faithful of Jimmie the Pain’s groupies over at PB.

Given its source, and coming as it does just as the magnitude of the fraud perpetrated by the committee that “investigated” Ward Churchill’s scholarship during the spring of 2006 is finally coming to light, one can be sure that “Laurie’s” glowing statement of principle will achieve a resonance far beyond the ranks of Try-Works readers.

It is in fact certain to be quoted—with proper attribution, of course—in every research misconduct complaint filed against committee members from here on in.

We never expected to share your views on anything at all, “Laurie,” but this time we have too. The truth is that we couldn’t agree more.

Welcome aboard.

Here’s what I love about the Painenites: even when they’re trying to hold onto their Ward-Churchill-committed-academic-fraud argument like Linda Lovelace working to stifle her gag reflex, they can’t help but dribble a little down their greasy chins.

Hence, we have Paine groupie Laurie offering the following in the comments to this post today:

17-22 is the time when children challenge the values and teachings of their childhood and try to decide who they are and what they believe. It’s the time to assert independence and become their own person. All transitions are vulnerable periods. Feeding them muck and lies is disturbing and dangerous to the child and society. Fire Churchill!

. . .

We shouldn’t want such a man in a position of authority lecturing people whose brains are not physically fully matured. In other words, these are children. Calling them adults may boost their self esteem but it just isn’t so!

Get this man away from our kids! Fire the lying bastard!

Nice of you to make my case for me, Ms. Laurie. You don’t want Churchill fired for any wrongdoing, you want him fired for exercising his constitutionally-protected free speech. Hate to break it to you, ma’am, but you’re not a conservative, you’re a sniveling little Stalinist (all apologies to the MIM) with the heart of a dog.

Oh, and I’ve said this before, but it’s always worth repeating: funny how these same shitbirds opining about 17-22 year olds’ tender minds would like nothing more than see that same demographic get shipped off to Iraq to get their braincases evacuated in the name of Bechtel.

Too young to weigh divergent opinions, but always old enough to get butchered in your interests.

Remember that idiotic little screed titled the “Ethnic Studies Echo Chamber”?

You know, the one where that great researcher Jim Pain over at Pirate Ballerina announced as “fact” an endless pattern of circular referencing between/among Ethnic Studies scholars, but then, time after time, couldn’t show where those he showcased had EVER cited the others?

Not that its exposure as a consisting of little more than faulty logic and string of flagrant falsehoods, has prevented the Jimster from continuing to post the piece on his blog as if the very opposite were true. (For even better examples, try his “Churchill Chronology” and “Mo-na-see-tah’s Teeth” skits, each of which remains both posted and uncorrected years after their glaring inaccuracies were pointed out.)

A bit ethically impaired, you say?

No doubt. But, hey, whadaya expect from a guy who accepted an honorary doctorate from the Don’t Confuse Us With the Facts School of Journalism down there at Oral Roberts University?

And, at some level or another, you gotta grant a sneaking sort of admiration for anybody displaying the sort of consistent dedication to their vocation as the Jimster. Even when their vocation is getting things wrong (or, to put it more accurately, lying out his ass).

All of which leads—surprise, surprise—to the revelation that he’s at it again.

Among today’s “Updates” on PB is the following gem: “We have to wonder—if ‘Charley Arthur’ is right and Circe Sturm did plagiarize Churchill’s bogus Dawes Act assertions and publish them as her own (and it certainly appears that way)—just who the hell is running things in Ethnic Studies? And why are we starting to get a mental image of those elaborate domino set-ups shown as human-interest stories on the evening news?”

Okay, Jimster, you’ve really stumped us this time.

While we readily admit that we’ve no idea “who the hell is running things in Ethnic Studies,” it’s even less clear why you posed the question in this context.

Could it be that you’re actually unaware that Circe Sturm ain’t IN Ethnic Studies?

That both her field and her department are, well, ANTHROPOLOGY?

Which, last we heard, was/is one of those “traditional disciplines” y’all have been so busily promoting as proverbial paragons of “academic integrity” vis-a-vis Ethnic Studies (as in, does the moniker “PhD Anthro” happen to ring your bell?).

Oops.

Looks like your favorite hobby horse fell out from under you again, Jimster.

But, really, even YOU shoulda been smart enough to realize after that epic adventure floundering about in your imaginary echo chamber that it was prone to collapsing every time you tried to mount up.

And maybe that an intellectual rodeo star, you definitely ain’t.

News flash to the anonymous scribe(s) who purported to speak in behalf of everyone “who cares about the integrity of American higher education” on the RMN editorial page today: You don’t get to have it both ways, scumbag(s).

In their zeal to discredit anyone siding with Ward Churchill, ace RMN reporters Berny Morson and Kevin Vaughan, displaying the sort of “objectivity” and “journalistic neutrality” which has long been their hallmark, set out in an article of May 18 to “prove” that a source cited by Cornell Prof. Eric Cheyfitz and 8 others as “independent corroboration” of Churchill’s interpretation of the 1887 General Allotment Act wasn’t “really” independent.

To do so, they contacted Circe Sturm, author of “Blood Politics,” a book which describes the Act in language virtually identical to Churchill’s. And, if the snippet from their interview with Sturm they chose to quote is accurate, she claimed that she’s now “sorry” she “relied on” Churchill’s material in formulating her own explanation of the Act’s blood quantum provisions.

What’s the problem? How about the fact that Sturm cites/mentions Churchill nowhere in her book? Hence, if she did in fact “rely” on Churchill’s interpretation in articulating her own, she did so by way of plagiarizing him (that’s what it’s called when you use somebody’s ideas and/copy their language/closely paraphrase them without giving them direct credit, e.g., Berny Morson’s appropriation of John LaVelle’s end notes back in that article back in Feb. 2005… Remember, Berny?).

EITHER Sturm’s formulation was arrived at independently OR it was stolen from Churchill. There is no third possibility. And Sturm herself pretty well spelled out which, assuming she was quoted accurately.

Now, before Jim Pain, Vinnie the Geek, or anybody else gets on a high horse about how Sturm LATER referenced an article credited to M. Annette Jaimes—but ghostwritten by Churchill—it should be noted that this doesn’t help a bit.

The Jaimes reference has nothing to do with Sturm’s explanation of the Act. In fact, the citation she DOES offer at the end of her two explanatory paragraphs (pp. 78-9 in the paperback edition) is to an article by Indian Commissioner John Collier, making it appear that she relied on Collier rather than Churchill (or “Jaimes”) in producing her own formulation.

That being so, Sturm would appear to be guilty of misrepresenting the source she actually cites, as well as plagiarizing Churchill.

Returning to Sturm’s reference to the “Jaimes” piece (p. 79), it bears mentioning that it is immediately followed by a quote from historian Patricia Nelson Limerick’s book, “The Legacy of Conquest.” Although it appears at first glance that Sturm’s citation of Limerick is proper, this simply goes to show that appearances can be deceiving (and created for that very purpose).

The language quoted from Limerick is exactly the same as that quoted by Churchill (and “Jaimes”) in the same connection, and Sturm makes no other reference to Limerick’s book anywhere in “Blood Struggle.”

This constitutes “smoking gun” evidence that Sturm “source-mined” the Limerick quote. That’s to say that she lifted the quote directly from the Churchill/Jaimes material upon which she was otherwise “relying” without attribution, but cited Limerick as if she’d come up with the quote on her own.

Source-mining, according to both the American Historical Association and the American Anthropologcal Association—Sturm is an anthro, but was writing history—is “a form of plagiarism” (at which the late Stephen Ambrose excelled).

It should be added that Sturm imputes EXACTLY the same meaning to the Limerick quote as do Churchill/Jaimes, an interpretation the CU Investigative Committee—not to mention the RMN—insists is a “misrepresentation” of Limerick’s intent (instructively, Limerick herself has never said this).

Okay, let’s review: That’s 2 instances of plagiarism and 2 flagrant misrepresentations of sources in barely 2 pages of text. Which leads our intrepid truth-seekers, Berny and Kevin, to conclude that Sturm’s scholarship is fraudulent.

Right?

Well, of course NOT. Even after they quote Sturm admitting that she never so much as looked at text of the Allotment Act until long AFTER she “summed it up” in print for an academic press, they continue to describe her simply—and quite respectfully—as an “Oklahoma scholar.”

So much for the Rocky’s editorial posturing about its obligation to preserve “scholarly integrity,” eh? As the dynamic duo made perfectly clear on the 18th, the RMN—from John Temple on down—has no more genuine concern with the integrity of scholars than it does with the integrity of its own reportage.

Which is to say, well, none at all.

ANY source will be—in fact, HAS BEEN—treated as credible by the RMN, so long as it is anti-Churchill (or can be made to seem so with a little editorial tweaking).

Which takes us to the REAL beauty of Berny’s/Kevin’s “revelations” about Circe Sturm. Although they will likely prove extremely damaging to the Rocky’s “Oklahoma scholar,” they don’t make a whit of difference regarding the charge brought by Cheyfitz, et al., against the Investigating Committee.

See, guys, it works like this: Sturm presented her interpretation of the Allotment Act AS IF it were the result of her own independent analysis. And, since CU’s vaunted Invesigating Committee “couldn’t possibly have known” that it wasn’t, they were obliged to treat it as such.

Instead, the committee suppressed it, effectively denying its existence, and therein lies THEIR fraud.

Bottom line? You’ve done Churchill yet another exemplary service.

This is a perfect example of why people say that the two of you, collectively, are dumber that a single sack of hammers (Bernie can’t even manage the correct spelling of his own first name, for fucksake). Not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, are’ya?

But, hey, WE really appreciate your efforts in Churchill’s behalf. DO keep it up.

Update 1: Word has it that Churchill has already contacted Sturm’s publisher, the University of California Press, to enter a formal complaint about her plagiarism. Chances are good that he’ll file one with the University of Oklahoma as well.

Update 2: Word also has it that Cheyfitz and his colleagues have another 2-dozen-odd quotes supporting Churchill’s interpretation of the Act—all of them suppressed/denied by the Investigating Committee—ready to toss into the hopper. Best part? At least one comes from an article upon which the Investigating Committee, quoting selectively, relied upon quite heavily in making its “case” against Churchill.

Update 3: It seems that additional research misconduct complaints will be filed against the Investigating Committee in the near future, that they include a whole raft of plagiarism allegations, and that they ain’t comin’ from Cheyfitz, et al. That’s to say that other scholars are getting ready to weigh in on the scam the CU administration’s been running these past couple of years. It’s also to say that this is beginning to look like real fun.

Like you didn’t see that coming.

What they’re not telling you, for the thousandth time: the Privilege and Tenure Committee’s recommendation is in response to Ward Churchill’s appeal of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct’s findings.

So, yeah, as the Ballerinas and these clones keep repeating, Hank Brown can fire Ward Churchill.  So long as he’s willing to concede this: the appeal process was a sham.

After all, if he simply ignores their finding, then what the hell was the point of pretending there was an appeal process in place at all?

As I keep saying, it means the end of even the pretense of due process.  It means that Churchill’s firing was never in question, and that all this wrangling about academic misconduct was only a horseshit card hustle in an attempt to hide the real reason for Ward Churchill’s shitcanning: the exercising of his right to free speech.

And it means what I’ve been saying all along: free speech doesn’t exist.  Speak out of turn, you’ll lose your livelihood.  Pure and simple.  Or, as Bob Dylan once put it, “you’re dancin’ with whom they tell you to, or you don’t dance at all.”

A frightening recognition?  Not to me.  I’ve never been of the opinion due process at CU wasn’t a sham.  And I’m under no illusions about the state of tangible freedom around here.

But, man, if I were a tenured faculty member, I’d be tearing up Higher Ed Jobs like a motherfucker.

For anyone who cares about the integrity of American higher education, recent reports that the University of Colorado’s Privilege and Tenure Committee has recommended professor Ward Churchill be suspended for a year but not fired is a blow to the stomach.
And bad news for CU, too.

Don’t get us wrong. We don’t believe for a moment that President Hank Brown will actually adopt the committee’s advice and let Churchill remain as a permanent blight on the Boulder campus. At the end of this month Brown will, we remain confident, concur with recommendations made last year by the then-acting chancellor and the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. They said Churchill should be fired.

The rest.

Dan Caplis responded to the P&T recommendation that Ward Churchill only receive a one-year suspension here. It starts at about 3:15 and doesn’t run long. Caplis thinks Brown will fire him anyway and encourages him to do so.

KHOW clones and the papers have been trying to run a line of bullshit that Hank Brown can consider both reports before making his recommendation, and that he can still fire Churchill based on the first report.

Well, yeah, he can also consider the New Testament and the complete writings of William T. Vollmann. Hell, he can consult the 700 Club if he wants to.

But the P&T committee’s recommendation was the final result of due process. That was it. The P&T committee’s recommendation was a response to Churchill’s appeal based on the initial report. Meaning the drastic lessening of punishment was obviously based on flaws in said initial report. To ignore the P&T committee is to admit that due process has always been a sham, and that Churchill’s firing was preordained.

It’s also to admit that tenure is a sham. That CU will violate any contract made with its employees at will. And that the CU of today doesn’t differ one fucking jot from the CU of Dalton Trumbo’s day.

Which it doesn’t, of course. Don’t get me wrong, I have no hope whatsoever that Hank Brown is gonna do anything but fire Churchill. And I’m hoping that the shiteating horde of CU professors who’ve spent the last two years hiding under their desks understand exactly the implications to themselves.

This is their baby. They’ve let the university’s administration run roughshod over every principle it professes to exemplify. And, with very few exceptions, they’ve been too cowardly to stand up for even their own rights. I can’t wait for the dawning recognition that they no longer have a right to due process either. That their tenure can be revoked for shits and grins.

And, hell, I’ve got the delicious suspicion that a few of them are gonna get the chance to enjoy the process one of these days.

Make no mistake, Churchill won’t be the last.

This from this morning’s Denver Post:

The attorney for University of Colorado ethnic-studies professor Ward Churchill said Tuesday that the committee reviewing his academic misconduct case has recommended a one-year suspension rather than dismissal.

“We feel any discipline is not warranted, but at least (the committee members are) moving in the right direction,” said Churchill attorney David Lane. “This will make it more difficult for Hank Brown and the regents to fire him.”

Keep reading.

I can’t wipe this grin off my face. Three things pop immediately to mind.

1. A one-year suspension is the bare minimum the P&T Committee could have given PROFESSOR Churchill without dismissing the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct’s dipshit report entirely. I never hoped for anything but termination, given that anything less would be smacking several of their colleagues across the face. Oh, yeah, and the entire CU administration. And the local media. And every elected official in the state. Obviously, I don’t think the suspension is warranted, but I submit, the P&T committee couldn’t have done less without being fucking lynched.

Oh, and they will be anyway. Have no fear about that. In fact, the Ballerinas have already posted the list of members.

Hold on to your hats, gentle(wo)men, things are gonna get real ugly around your households in the immediate future. I’m recommending an immediate trip to your local firearm vendor.

2. Whatever’s said or not said in the near future, this is exactly an admission that the aforementioned Standing Committee on Research Misconduct report is out-and-out bullshit. Y’know, just like I’ve been saying it was for the last fucking year. You don’t drop punishment from termination to a single year’s suspension (assumedly paid) on a whim, particularly given the costs involved to the P&T committee’s membership.

As I, Jim Paine, and everyone else have noted, there’s been no pressure on them whatsoever to go easy on Churchill. Sure as hell not from CU administration: hell they solicited the initial charges of academic fraud. Certainly not from CU’s faculty: with very few exceptions, I ain’t seen a more cowardly gaggle of chumps in my lifetime. And not from the local media, that’s for sure: they’ve been consistently arguing Churchill should’ve been shitcanned for his political statements from the get-go.

The only political pressure on the P&T committee has been for termination, and it’s been immense. Stay tuned, because I’ll be tracking the fallout.

3. Lastly, and this is the kicker: this is the final result of due process. This is it. If Hank Brown and the regents go for anything greater than this one-year suspension, there’s no argument it ain’t political. If they fire him, they do so in violation of every principle they’ve been pretending to represent since this scandal began. They expose this neo-Stalinist purge for exactly what it is.

And, of course, there’s no doubt now that they’ll make the big guy a very rich man in the process.

This is my kind of day. I’m buying a bottle of Jim Beam and carjacking a Cadillac. Gonna careen around Boulder with my middle finger up, listening to Steve Earle’s “F the CC.”

Some rightwing pro-Israel nut is pissed.  Righteously, wholeheartedly pissed.

Why, you ask?

In the video clip above, Churchill urges students with the MSU to go to the pro-Israel booth on Ring Road, to eat a slice of the cake they have, to “get a plate, [and] proceed symbolically to eat the state of Israel.” He also discusses “liberation” and “resistance.” Somehow Ward Churchill made his way into the pro-Israel booth today, and took a slice of cake and a t-shirt. I have no idea how this happened and why he was allowed into the booth.

Keep reading.

Now, that’s the kind of swagger that made me so like Mr. Churchill in the first place.  Calling them out for the shitbirds they are, then eating their goddamn cake.

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s class.

Another too good to be true moment from the Ward Churchill Solidarity Network.

On April 23, 2007 the undersigned professors called on the University of Colorado at Boulder to rescind the “Report of the Investigative Committee concerning Allegations of Academic Misconduct against Professor Ward Churchill” [henceforth Report] because it contained so many egregious errors. On May 7, 2007, the University officially declined our call to retract the report. Since the university has declined to act in good faith, we are now compelled to file these charges.

For the dual purposes of defending academic freedom and securing justice for Professor Churchill, we now bring charges of research misconduct against the authors of the Report: Marianne Wesson, Professor of Law at the University of Colorado [chair of Investigative Committee]; Marjorie McIntosh, Professor of History at the University of Colorado; Michael Radelet, Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado; Robert Clinton, Professor of Law at Arizona State University; and José Limón, Professor of American and English Literature at the University of Texas.

We further ask that any person with a known bias against Professor Churchill recuse themselves from consideration of his case. We note that the decision not to retract the Report came from the new Vice President for Academic Affairs, Michael Poliakoff, whose office has a conflict of interest in this case because of his involvement with the American Council of College Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). Since ACTA has a long and well-documented history of animosity toward Ward Churchill, no-one with ACTA affiliations, including a co-founder like President Hank Brown and a named proponent like Poliakoff, is in any position to make an unbiased decision in this case.

Keep reading.

And more on Hank Brown’s membership in the neocon nutjob ACTA.

Hey, CU suddenly remembered its own rules.

A University of Colorado professor who once compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi could learn within three weeks whether he can return to the classroom — or whether the university will pursue sanctions including dismissal.

University President Hank Brown received a report Tuesday from a faculty committee regarding its hearing on alleged research misconduct by ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill.

Brown has 15 business days to determine how to proceed, the university said. If Brown decides the are no grounds for dismissal, he could return Churchill to the classroom and close the case, or he could recommend sanctions such as suspension, school spokeswoman Michele McKinney said.

The Privilege and Tenure Committee’s report was not publicly released because it was considered a personnel matter, McKinney said.

Keep reading.

Better late than never I suppose.

Anyone who thought about this for more than a half-second knew this was gonna be when the report would hit.  There’s no way in hell Hank Brown was gonna do what everyone on earth knows he’s gonna do during either of the main semesters at CU.

Again, Brown will fire Churchill.  That’s not up for debate.  The only point of debate is which small country do you think Ward Churchill will be purchasing after his lawsuit against the university?

Things are shaping up for a little October fun.

For 18 years, Colorado AIM, and scores of our organizational allies in the Transform Columbus Day Alliance, have worked in many arenas to educate the public, teachers, the media, and politicians about why Columbus Day should be transformed in Colorado, its birthplace. We have been in schools and churches, in the streets, taken to jail and been on trial, we have written newspaper columns and letters to the editors, we have met with numerous politicians and others. Because Columbus Day was born in Colorado 100 years ago this year, we believed that there was a perfect opportunity for political leaders to break with the racist actions of the past, and to set Colorado on a new course. While the Republicans controlled the state legislature and the governor’s office, this was impossible. When the Democrats gained control last November, we believed that finally, after fort years, an opportunity presented itself to transform Columbus Day, and to make a statement for historical integrity. The Democratic leadership failed us. They did not so much as allow a debate in this session of the legislature. They would not allow a bill to be introduced to repeal Columbus Day, or even a resolution that suggested that repeal was a good idea, or even a resolution that recognized and regretted the genocide against Native peoples in the Americas. The Colorado legislature (especially Senate President Joan Fitzgerald), and the Colorado governor, Bill Ritter, are all cowards, who prefer to support anti-Indian racism to advancing the racial justice that they pay lip service to. Today, we held a press conference to call to account those weak-willed, racist politicians who have decided to keep a holiday in place to an Indian-murdering, slavetrader.

Keep reading.

Posting shall be light to nonexistent for the next week or so.  But, if you’re pining for us, there’s a hell of a brawl going on in the comments here.

In the interest of throwing gasoline on the fire:

In our society we have been trained to believe that scientists search for, examine, and articulate truths about the natural world and about ourselves.  They don’t.  But they do search for, take captive, and protect the social and economic status of scientists.  As many lies are told to protect scientific doctrine as were ever told to protect “the church.” — Vine Deloria Jr.

And:

[E]ven the best European thinking during the period called “The Enlightenment” was always dedicated to the eurosupremacist task of rationalizing and legitimating empire . . . Far from offsetting or countering the vulgarities of Europe’s imperial pretension, Enlightenment philosophy served as the intellectual engine powering its expansion to global proportions. — George Tinker

And:

The development of scientific thought, the exploration and ‘discovery’ by Europeans of other worlds, the expansion of trade, the establishment of colonies, and the systematic colonization of indigenous peoples in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are all facets of the modernist project.  Modernism is more than a re-presentation of fragments from the cultural archive in new contexts.  ‘Discoveries’ about and from the ‘new’ world expanded and challenged ideas the West held about itself.  The production of knowledge, ideas about the nature of knowledge and the validity of specific forms of knowledge became as much commodities of colonial exploitation as other natural resources. — Linda Tuhiwai Smith

And:

We are fascinated by Rameses as Renaissance Christians were by the American Indians: those (human?) beings who had never known the word of Christ. Thus, at the beginning of colonization, there was a moment of stupor and amazement before the very possibility of escaping the universal law of the Gospel. There were two possible responses: either to admit that this law was not universal, or to exterminate the Indians so as to remove the evidence. In general, it was enough to convert them, or even simply to discover them, to ensure their slow extermination.

Thus it would have been enough to exhume Rameses to ensure his extermination by museumification. For mummies do not decay because of worms: they die from being transplanted from a prolonged symbolic order, which is master over death and putrescence, on to an order of history, science and museums — our own, which is no longer master over anything, since it only knows how to condemn its predecessors to death and putrescence and their subsequent resuscitation by science. An irreparable violence towards all secrets, the violence of a civilization without secrets. The hatred by an entire civilization for its own foundations. — Jean Baudrillard

And:

That scientific and technical knowledge is cumulative is never questioned. At most, what is debated is the form that accumulation takes – some picture it as regular, continuous, and unanimous, others as periodic, discontinuous, and conflictual.

But these truisms are fallacious. In the first place, scientific knowledge does not represent the totality of knowledge; it has always existed in addition to, and in competition and conflict with, another kind of knowledge, which I will call narrative in the interests of simplicity (its characteristics will be described later). I do not mean to say that narrative knowledge can prevail over science, but its model is related to ideas of internal equilibrium and conviviality next to which contemporary scientific knowledge cuts a poor figure, especially if it is to undergo an exteriorization with respect to the “knower” and an alienation from its user even greater than has previously been the case. The resulting demoralization of researchers and teachers is far from negligible; it is well known that during the 1960s, in all of the most highly developed societies, it reached such explosive dimensions among those preparing to practice these professions – the students – that there was noticeable decrease in productivity at laboratories and universities unable to protect themselves from its contamination. Expecting this, with hope or fear, to lead to a revolution (as was then often the case) is out of the question: it will not change the order of things in postindustrial society overnight. But this doubt on the part of scientists must be taken into account as a major factor in evaluating the present and future status of scientific knowledge.

It is all the more necessary to take it into consideration since — and this is the second point — the scientists’ demoralization has an impact on the central problem of legitimation. I use the word in a broader sense than do contemporary German theorists in their discussions of the question of authority. Take any civil law as an example: it states that a given category of citizens must perform a specific kind of action. Legitimation is the process by which a legislator is authorised to promulgate such a law as a norm. Now take the example of a scientific statement: it is subject to the rule that a statement must fulfil a given set of conditions in order to be accepted as scientific. In this case, legitimation is the process by which a “legislator” dealing with scientific discourse is authorized to prescribe the stated conditions (in general, conditions of internal consistency and experimental verification) determining whether a statement is to be included in that discourse for consideration by the scientific community.

The parallel may appear forced. But as we will see, it is not. The question of the legitimacy of science has been indissociably linked to that of the legitimation of the legislator since the time of Plato. From this point of view, the right to decide what is true is not independent of the right to decide what is just, even if the statements consigned to these two authorities differ in nature. The point is that there is a strict interlinkage between the kind of language called science and the kind called ethics and politics: they both stem from the same perspective, the same “choice” if you will – the choice called the Occident. — Jean-François Lyotard

And:

Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent . . . Only nature can enslave man and only when the existence of each last entity is routed out and made to stand naked before him will he be properly suzerain of the earth . . . The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear.  Superstition will drag him down.  The rain will erode the deeds of his life.  But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of the world will have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.  — Scalphunting genocidal madman, Judge Holden.

As you know, I’ve been harping on Dan Caplis’ horseshit lawsuit against Glenn Spagnuolo for over year. (And, please, when you click the link, make sure to peruse the files at the bottom of the page, including as they do, a description of the Caplis gang’s casual use of racial slurs and Dan Caplis’ assault on a several students of color.)

So imagine my amusement when this turned up in my inbox this morning.

Read, laugh, enjoy.

DAN CAPLIS DROPS LAWSUIT AGAINST ACTIVIST AND R-68 ORGANIZER!

DENVER, May 2, 2007—After more than a year and a half of stalling, 630 am KHOW afternoon talk radio show host Dan Caplis, of the “Caplis and Silverman” show, has dropped his civil lawsuit he had filed against Re-create 68 organizer and community activist, Glenn Spagnuolo. The lawsuit stemmed from remarks Spagnuolo made at a speech he gave on the University of Colorado’s Boulder Campus in support of Ward Churchill. During the speech, Spagnuolo stated that, “It is no surprise that Dan Caplis and the three stooges of Clear Channel, Boyles, Silverman, and Caplis, would attack the Ethnic Studies Department”. He than went on to reference a racial incident that occurred when Dan Caplis was a student at CU that resulted in Caplis engaging in a fist fight with students of color. The comment was replayed on KHOW radio the next day, at which time, Caplis vowed, “not to let these slanderous lies and attacks on him go unanswered” and promised to sue Spagnuolo. As promised, Caplis filed what was nothing more than a S.L.A.A.P.P. suit against Spagnuolo, which prevented him from appearing on any Clear Channel owned stations, due to its policy of protecting employees during litigation.

After numerous settlement offers from Dan Caplis to Spagnuolo, Caplis finally dropped the suit without any concessions offered by either party. Spagnuolo was not only willing to have his day in court in order to clear his name that was besmirched by Dan Caplis and his cronies on KHOW radio, he was also willing to prove the facts of the statement in question.

In the racial climate that has been created by the likes of Don Imus, Mel Gibson, and Michael Richards, it can come as no surprise that a radio host preparing for a run at the U.S. Senate would be interested in silencing this issue. When asked for comment, Spagnuolo stated, “He is a bully on his radio show, but not in the real world. He thought he could intimidate me by the prospect of the high legal cost associated with a proper defense from this frivolous lawsuit and the fear of a large court ordered penalty; this tactic has been used by guilty parties in the past to silence critics. You have to ask yourself why he buried this for so long and has now dismissed this when he believes everyone has forgotten about it. At this point I want to move on with my work. He is a man of little significance and I have bigger issues to worry about like the 2008 DNC and the 100th anniversary of the racist Columbus Day holiday in Colorado!”

Ah, that’s what I like about Dan Caplis: a coward, a bully, and a fucking fraud to boot. The only thing positive to say about him is that he’s done one hell of a job of making sure that Professor Ward Churchill lives a happy and wealthy life, and that the University of Colorado is that much the poorer.

Update:  KHOW audio of Caplis (sort of) explaining why he dropped the lawsuit.  He starts whining around 11:55.  He rambles forever about how “these lies” were espoused to get a “Churchill follower” to put a hit on him or some such shit.  There is, of course, no actual explanation as to why he subsequently dropped the suit.

Oh, and I’ve been repeating those “vile falsehoods,” like, daily.  In fact, I’ve even given them a permanent home.  And I’ve got evidence to corroborate exactly why I’ve been saying what I’ve been saying.

You know my name.  Sue me, fucker.

From the comments, John Martin would like to know why I’ve not posted links to his posts about the recent Ward Churchill conference.

For the record, I didn’t link to them because they’re fucking boring, Mr. Martin. To be honest, I don’t think I ever even finished reading them.

That and there was something markedly depressing about watching you work. I realized, shit, I spend a good ten minutes a day poking at these fuckers, and this is my arch-nemesis? A creepy, middle-aged neurotic with all the impulse control of a thirteen-year-old Benzedrine-popping panty-sniffer? Hell, I half expected you to start chewing on the female students. (I assume you’re saving all those pics you snapped of the “professionally ethnic” young ladies — to use your racist euphemism — for your, ahem, private collection?)

‘Tis enough to make a man stop blogging altogether.

Update: Oh, and I’ve been having way too much fun over at Kick Him, Honey.

An interview with Ward Churchill from Marlena Gangi.

My to-do list of late has included tracking down a soft copy of the statements of support for Ward Churchill read at the conference.

No need.

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Gil Anidjar

The attack on the university, on intellectual life and on political engagement, indeed, on the political and ethical significance of our profession is no more than the latest round in a long struggle dedicated to the destruction – in each of us – of that which thinks and weighs and learns and judges with integrity, conviction and courage. Ward Churchill is who he is precisely because he speaks truth to power, because he reminds us of our obligations, as scholars, activists, citizens and illegalized individuals. He reminds us of our duty in the face of intimidation, in the face of collaboration and silence, in the face of hegemony, economy, carpet bombing and other kinds of mass murders. He calls on us to stand up in a climate of ever expanding fear. For it is fear, not conscience, that makes cowards of us all. But it is also fear that moves those who seek to silence Ward Churchill and we who follow his example. They are the cowards who, armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destructions, weapons of mass intimidation, they who want us all to be cowards and never to stand up, never to think and act responsibly, never to have the courage to think and weigh and learn and judge. The war on terror should start with them, with the fear mongers. That is why Ward Churchill is our example and our model: he puts an end to the reign of fear. That is what tenure, in the true sense of the term, is. And that is why Ward Churchill will never lose his tenure. Ward Churchill has already won. And we “most dangerous professors,” at Columbia University and elsewhere, we will make sure he continues winning. With Ward Churchill, we will continue to join in that fight. And together with him, we will win. We are winning.

Gil Anidjar Associate Professor Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures Columbia University

Statement in Support of Ward Churchill
by Bill Ayers

Dear Colleagues,

In Brecht’s play Galileo the great astronomer sets forth into a world dominated by a mighty church and an authoritarian power: “The cities are narrow and so are the brains,” he declares recklessly. “Superstition and plague. But now the word is: since it is so, it does not remain so. For everything moves my friend.” Intoxicated with his own radical discoveries, Galileo feels the earth shifting and finds himself propelled surprisingly toward revolution. ” It was always said that the stars were fastened to a crystal vault so they could not fall,” he says. “Now we have taken heart and let them float in the air, without support… they are embarked on a great voyage—like us who are also without support and embarked on a great voyage.” Here Galileo raises the stakes and risks taking on the establishment in the realm of its own authority, and it strikes back fiercely. Forced to renounce his life’s work under the exquisite pressure of the Inquisition he denounces what he knows to be true, and is welcomed back into the church and the ranks of the faithful, but exiled from humanity—by his own word. A former student confronts him in the street: “Many on all sides followed you with their ears and their eyes believing that you stood, not only for a particular view of the movement of the stars, but even more for the liberty of teaching— in all fields. Not then for any particular thoughts, but for the right to think at all. Which is in dispute.”

The right to think at all, which is in dispute—-this is what the Ward Churchill affair finally comes to: The right to a mind of one’s own, the right to pursue an argument into uncharted spaces, the right to challenge the church and its orthodoxy in the public square. The right to think at all.

It’s no surprise that this outrage against Professor Churchill occurs at this particular moment— a time of empire resurrected and unapologetic, militarism proudly expanding and triumphant, war without justice and without end, white supremacy retrenched, basic rights and protections shredded, growing disparities between the haves and the have-nots, fear and superstition and the mobilization of scapegoating social formations based on bigotry and violence or the threats of violence, and on and on. There’s more of course, and this isn’t the only story, but this is a recognizable part of where we’re living, and a familiar place to anyone with even a casual understanding of history. Here the competing impulses and ideals that have always animated our country’s story are on full display: rights and liberty and the pursuit of human freedom on one side, domination and war and repression on the other. The trauma of contradictions that is America.

Ward Churchill is under a sustained, orchestrated, and determined attack because of his political beliefs and statements and activities, and nothing more. No one doubts his productivity or his accomplishments. But the attack on Churchill is neither isolated nor innocent— the high school history teacher on the west side of Chicago gets the message, and so does the English literature teacher in Detroit and the math teacher in an Oakland middle school: be careful what you say; stay close to the official story; stick to the authorized text. If someone of Ward Churchill’s stature and standing for so many years at the University of Colorado can suffer this kind of campaign, what chance do I have?

Every committee, every investigation, every report plays out under a shadow of the star chamber; everyone must choose who to be and how to act in response. For this reason I support Ward Churchill unequivocally, unapologetically, whole-heartedly. I urge my colleagues and my students and everyone who values education as a grand enterprise geared toward enlightenment and liberation to speak out forcefully and fearlessly now on behalf of the liberty of teaching and learning, on behalf of the right to think at all.

Sincerely,
William Ayers
Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar
University of Illinois at Chicago
billayers.org

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Dana Cloud

To my colleagues and comrades:

I stand today with Ward Churchill against the right wing culture warriors who have set their sights on critical, progressive, and radical faculty on campuses across the United States.

It is obvious that the charges against Professor Churchill did not originate with questions about his research, but about the political arguments he made after 9/11. We all have the right as citizens to speak our minds and hearts on matters of importance. We must defend this right every time it comes under attack. If Professor Churchill’s scholarship were really the issue, the administration would have found fault during his tenure review or subsequent promotions—including promotion to Chair of his department. No, these attacks are politically timed and motivated and we must see them for what they are.

David Horowitz and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, among others, are engaged in a well-orchestrated, well-funded, and coordinated assault on faculty across this country, under the cynical guise of a campaign for academic freedom. They know that real academic freedom is what has made universities in the U.S. and around the world spaces of critique and democratic dissent throughout modern history. In this context, we are threats to the bullying, racist, imperialist warmongering, lying, cheating, and stealing, anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-freedom ruling class that is running our country.

They spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a devastating war for oil, an atrocity, a massacre that we should grieve at least every bit as intensely as we do those young people in Virginia. We see the ruin and waste even as we know 46 million Americans do not have access to health care, Medicare is in jeopardy, children around the world starve while too much food is produced in the West to sell, and the money spent destroying Iraq could actually end world hunger. We stand together to challenge the sick priorities of a society organized for profit rather than human need and freedom.

We can only stay strong in those struggles if we hold the line on the most basic struggle that ties us together: for the right to fight at all.

There can be no doubt that ACTA and Horowitz and their minions are licking their chops waiting to see if Professor Churchill will fall. We have done everything in our power to stop the University of Colorado Administration in its efforts to fire him. If they go through with this decision—and I hope they will be wise enough to think again, but if they go through with it, it will bring shame on them and leave a devastating scar in the intellectual and political landscape.

And if this thing comes to pass, it will be a warning to those who have held back from standing in solidarity with Professor Churchill.

Many of us are vulnerable. But we cannot afford caution. We may have legitimate differences with and criticisms of each other. But we cannot become so mired in difference that we cannot see the urgency of standing together. We must have each others’ backs. We stand today for Ward Churchill. In doing so, we are asserting the fundamental principle of freedom of thought and action in a world that desperately needs our courageous voices, powered by our collective strength.

In solidarity,

Dana Cloud
Associate Professor, Communication Studies, University of Texas (identification purposes only; I do not speak for the University in this matter)
Horowitz antagonist
Longtime member, International Socialist Organization

Statement in Support of Ward Churchill
by Drucilla Cornell

Ward Churchill has been a brave and important scholar. I have followed his work carefully and I have learned so much from him. But I am defending him because there is more than just his work involved. We are fighting for academic freedom for all of us. We cannot let ward Churchill’s case set a dangerous precedent.

Drucilla Cornell
Professor of Political Science, Women’s Studies, and Comparative Literature,
Rutgers University

Statement in Support of Ward Churchill
by Hamid Dabashi

I write this note on behalf of Professor Ward Churchill who in my estimation today stands for all of us in the U.S. academy. The crucial task of cultivating critical judgment for responsible citizenship has scarcely been a more urgent task in the long and tumultuous history of this country. With Ward Churchill it is the very inviolable principle of free and fearless exercise of democratic dissent that is today on trial.

There is a magnificent scene in Stanley Kubrick’s “Spartacus” (1960), when a Roman general stands before the captured slave army and demands that they turn over Spartacus, or else face vindictive punishment. To save his comrades, Spartacus stands up and says “I am Spartacus.” But one after another of his comrades immediately stand up and say “I am Spartacus!” Today, every single professor teaching in the remotest parts of this country with an abiding conviction in the moral duty of democratic dissent is Ward Churchill. In the company of that magnificent chorus of hope for the democratic future ot this country, I too am Ward Churchill.

In Solidarity,

Hamid Dabashi
Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature Columbia University

Why I support Wade Churchill
by Michael D’Andrea

To Allies in the struggle for justice and peace:

The United States in suffering from a colossal crisis in moral, political, and academic leadership. Although this crisis is reflected in failed leadership in all areas of our society, it is most obvious in the Bush Administration’s incompetence and dishonest handling of the War in Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan.

These recent military ventures represent only 2 of a long legacy of military interventions that are purposely designed to protect the economic and political interests of a small number of persons in leadership positions in this nation.

The individuals who benefit from the immoral and failed foreign and domestic policies that perpetuate the suffering and death of millions of persons in our nation and around the world understand the importance of silencing those persons who present clear and accurate critiques of the immoral and ineffective leadership that continues to exist in our country.

These persons also understand the importance of discrediting and removing those scholars in higher education who assert the courage to unveil the crisis in moral leadership that exists in the political, educational, and corporate institutions in the United States.

Attacks on progressive scholars continue to increase on campuses across the country as is reflected in the case of Ward Churchill at the University of Colorado. Students and faculty who are committed to the principles of democracy and freedom are coming together on April 28, 2007 from various parts of the nation to publicly express their support for Ward Churchill and the many professional and social contributions he has achieved as a scholar and activist.

The stellar academic career of Ward Churchill and his commitment to promote justice and freedom through his scholarly endeavors far outweigh the criticisms of those who seek his termination as a faculty members.

With this in mind, I want to have my voice counted among those advocates for free speech and academic freedom that are assembling on April 28, 2007 in Colorado and across the United States to support Ward Churchill. As a progressive scholar who was recently banned from the University of Hawaii for my work as a social justice and peace advocacy and critique of the crisis of administrative leadership in our country and on our campus, I join in solidarity with all of those meeting in Colorado to support Ward Churchill.

Now is the time for all of us to join together to support Ward Churchill and his right to free speech and academic freedom.

Now is the time to support all progressive scholars whose social-political critiques mark them as targets to be silenced, discredited, and removed from their faculty positions.

Now is the time to join together against those persons who seek to undermine our collective efforts to promote justice and peace in our world.

Now is the time to express our unity with Ward Churchill and publicly acknowledge our respect for his many contributions as a scholar and social justice advocate.

Now is the time to stop the coordinated attacks on the voices of dissent that are being raised by millions of people committed to promoting justice and peace in our world.

In the continuing struggle for justice and peace I submit my support for Ward Churchill and other progressive scholars in this world,

Michael D’Andrea
Professor
University of Hawaii

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Richard Delgado

The issues the Ward Churchill case poses are of vital interest to all students and vaculty members concerned about academic freedom. They include selective prosecution and the legitimate role of critics and others who voice unpopular ideas. They are of special concern for racial minorities, Native Americans, students, and workers. We must all insist on justice for Professor Churchill and the assurance that travesties, like those that marred his case, do not happen again.

Professor Richard Delgado
University Distinguished Professor of Law & Derrick Bell Fellow
University of Pittsburgh School of Law

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Richard Falk

All of us who value academic freedom should now stand in full solidarity with Ward Churchill. The outcome of his case at the University of Colorado is the best litmus test we have to tell whether the right-wing’s assaults on learning and liberty will stifle campus life in this country. Never in my lifetime have we in America more needed the sort of vigorous debate and creative controversy that Ward Churchill’s distinguished career epitomizes. We all stand to lose if his principled defense fails.

Richard Falk
Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University;
Visiting Distinguished Professor (since 2002), Global Studies,
University of California, Santa Barbara

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Juan Gomez-Quinones

Ward Churchill is a uniquely productive scholar in areas of social history research seminal to the ongoing evaluation of the present United States society. If there is to be a substantive mass of informed analysis which would be of critical assistance in charting a more economically just and more ethically governed society, Professor is already surely a key contributor. The appropriate site for critical research and critical discourse is the university. Clearly, the university which would not collegially accommodate a productive, recognized scholar would weaken and tarnish its unfolding role in fulfilling its claim to being an institution of learning, the site of scholarly production and the sharing of knowledge. Consequently a university must safeguard through specific acts protecting specific scholars such as Professor Ward Churchill. The punishment being designated for Professor Churchill ending his University of Colorado scholarship and removal from this university is a confession he is being persecuted as a scholar. As I hereby do, I ask scholars who are committed to the practice of academic freedom and civil liberties to join in solidarity the defense of Professor Ward Churchill and support his continuance in his university position.

Professor Juan Gomez-Quinones
Department of History, UCLA

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Robert Ivie

Anyone who believes in the democratic value of academic freedom, who understands that protecting unfettered scholarly inquiry is crucial to developing and sustaining a healthy democratic society, and who know that the very purpose of exercising academic freedom is to hold orthodoxies – whether political, religious, social, or economic – accountable to critical thinking, also understands how easy it is for institutions of higher learning to rationalize violations of academic freedom, especially in what is perceived to be dangerous times. To succumb to inevitable political pressure, especially when the fruit of the university’s internal investigation of a targeted professor has been so overtly poisoned by forces external to that university, amounts to a mockery of the principle of academic freedom and a failure to serve the very purpose for which the institution was founded.

Robert L. Ivie, Professor
Rhetoric and Public Culture
Department of Communication & Culture
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Robert Jensen

Many of us with left/progressive values have been targeted by forces that want to undermine independent, critical inquiry in the universities. But in recent years no one has been targeted with the ferocity with which reactionary forces have gone after Ward Churchill. Defense of his academic freedom stands at the center of the struggle for not only our universities but for a democratic political culture.

Professor Robert Jensen
University of Texas at Austin

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Peter N. Kirstein

If one looks at America today, one sees the thunder of the right as a strategic threat to higher education. Ward Churchill’s persecution and silencing before his scheduled appearance at Hamilton College, and the possibility of the revocation of his “continuous” tenure is symptomatic of the persecution of progressive faculty. It is essential that American Association of Unviersity Professor guidelines be addressed to reverse this execrable auto da fe. “Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results…” American Association of University Professors, “1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.” I have been persuaded by both the AAUP C.U. president and other analyses that the alleged academic misconduct of Professor Churchill was either scant or non-existent. I have seen nothing that would suggest he should be fired. The 1970 Second Interpretive Comment of the 1940 Statement also pronounced: “The intent of the statement is not to discourage what is “controversial.” Controversy is at the heart of the free academic inquiry which the entire statement is designed to foster.”

Also suspension cannot be levied unless there is an imminent threat to the individul or to others. That is the ONLY basis of a suspension according to many A.A.U.P. documents such as the ninth “1970 Interpretive Comment” of the “1940 Statement of Principles of Academic Freedom and Tenure,” the “1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings” and the revised 1999 “Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure.” I was suspended for an anti-war e-mail to the Air Force Academy and I know the literature quite well. C.U. would do well to fully apply this epochal statement and other A.A.U.P. academic freedom policies to the current controversy over Professor Churchill’s status as a tenured full professor. My statement, however, is my own.

Peter N. Kirstein
Professor of History
St Xavier University
Vice-President Elect, A.A.U.P. Illinois Conference

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Carlos M. Munoz, Jr.

The attack on the academic integrity of Professor Ward Churchill is an attack against all of us who cherish the principles of academic freedom. In particular, it is an attack against those of us who have long labored to develop the disciplines of Ethnic Studies in the academy. We must continue to demand that those who govern the University of Colorado immediately stop the witch hunt against Professor Churchill, one of the most prolific Ethnic Studies scholars in the nation.

Carlos Munoz, Jr., Professor Emeritus, Department of Ethnic Studies,
UC Berkeley

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Henry Silverman

Ward Churchill has been a controversial writer, speaker and teacher, someone who has stimulated much needed discussion and debate. He comes from a long tradition of provocative university thinkers who have suffered from the recent ascending arc of right-wing intimation. This campaign from right-wing thought police is attemping to define what is acceptable speech and behavior in our academic institutions. The Ward Churchill firestorm has chilled free speech at our universities. To stifle dissent is to stifle education. All who cherish real educational values should speak out in his behalf.

Henry Silverman
Professor and Chairperson Emeritus
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Paul Von Blum

I vigorously oppose the continuing attacks on academic freedom, exemplified by the politically inspired assault on Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado. A university must be a bastion of free and open expression, including (and especially) those views and opinions that challenge dominant ideologies and values. The targeting of Professor Churchill is ultimately an attack on the deepest values of a democratic society.

Professor Paul Von Blum
African American Studies and Communication Studies
UCLA

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Immanuel Wallerstein

For me the issue is very simple. I do not know Ward Churchill and I have not read much of what he has written. But the whole move for his dismissal was precipitated by his criticism of the U.S. government’s reaction to September 11, which caused some Colorado legislators to call for his dismissal. This is direct and dangerous interference with academic freedom. Furthermore, it undermines the legitimacy of political dissent, without which no country can pretend to be democratic. We must all defend such dissent, whether or not we agree with it.

As far as I can see, the university administration, knowing that they could not openly accede to such illegitimmate political pressures, did an end run and sought to find an excuse, a thin one in fact, to dismiss Ward Churchill on other grounds. They knew what they were really doing, which was responding to political pressure. And we know that it is shameful. They should rescind all action along these lines.

Immanuel Wallerstein
Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scholar
Yale University

Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Historian Howard Zinn

I have declared my support of Ward Churchill because to defend him is to defend the principle of academic freedom, the idea that no one should lose his or her job or status in education because of factors outside of teaching and scholarship. Those factors — political, ideological — are evident in his case, and they are joined by a mean-spiritedness which does not belong in an academic or any other environment. The attack on Ward Churchill comes at a time in our nation’s history when constitutional rights are under attack by the national government, when war threatens the lives and well-being of all, and therefore we need the marketplace of ideas to be as open as possible. If we want to live in a democracy we must protect that openness. That is why defending Ward Churchill has an importance far beyond his particular situation.

Howard Zinn
Professor Emeritus, Boston University

And, hell, since you’re reading statements of support, don’t stop there.