Ward Churchill Never Published In Peer-Reviewed Journals

Ward Churchill never published in peer-reviewed journals. That’s one of those truisms that’s so permeated the media, not to mention the blogosphere, that it just kinda gets reflexively regurgitated by the anti-Churchill bloc as unmitigated truth. It’s been one of Caplis and Silverman’s favorite refrains for more than two years. And like most of what gets regurgitated by our local media, it’s an uncategorical lie.  Ward Churchill has been published in two dozen peer-reviewed/refereed journal.
How do I know? Well, I took a look at his vita, posted here. Something anyone pretending to be a journalist might do before leveling that kind of idiotic accusation.

So, where’d it start? Well, the first time I ever heard it was in June of ’05, on Jim Paine’s Pirateballerina, the blog that wags the media’s tail here in Denver, when, in the pre-Try-Works days, I was giving him a little hell in his comments.

As far as refuting everything Churchill has ever written in order to convince his apologists that he may indeed have fudged on some facts here and there, that is a life’s work, and a sacrifice I’m not interested in pursuing. I do find it interesting, though, that Churchill has yet to publish in a peer-reviewed journal.

The rest.

You’ll note that even at this early stage, Mr. Paine was already engaging in his own, shall we say, unique brand of logic: i.e., no lie told about Churchill need be substantiated because, well, he’s already been declared a liar by the same dipshits who refuse to substantiate the current allegations.

Yeah, I know, try and wrap your mind around that for a while. See if you can keep from putting your head through your windshield.

But, anyway, bloggers and the local media weren’t the only ones to pick it up. Its single dumbest and most humorous incarnation came in the final report from CU’s Standing Committee on Research Misconduct.

Professor Churchill’s academic background and choice of publication venues are untraditional. Although many of his writings, including nearly all those discussed in this report, address historical and/or legal issues, he does not have formal training at the graduate level in those fields. Professors writing on the topics he addresses would typically have a Ph.D. in history or a law degree; Professor Churchill’s graduate degree is an M.A. in Communications Theory. Further, he has decided to publish largely in alternative presses or journals, not in the university presses or mainstream peer-reviewed journals often favored by more conventional academics.

The rest.

Why’s that humorous? Well, because said committee was headed up by one Mimi Wesson, of CU’s law school. And according to her own vita, Ward Churchill’s production in scholarly journals far exceeds her own. And it’s worth noting that she doesn’t even bother to separate her peer-reviewed scholarly articles from those that aren’t. Nor, for that matter, to even separate her book reviews from her scholarly output. If you include Churchill’s reviews and unrefereed work, he outperforms Ms. Wesson by a factor of three.

Update:  Jim Paine’s latest idiot little trick has been to post the list of 25 peer-reviewed journals which Mr. Churchill has been published in — including, for some unfathomable reason, another eleven journals and/or magazines which reprinted the original article, and which Mr. Churchill has never claimed were refereed. Mr. Paine has then performed some sort of investigation, and tagged each journal with either “refereed,” “unknown,” “currently,” “peer-reviewed,” “possible” or “unlikely.”

So I kinda wondered what the hell his methodology could be? I mean, I know he didn’t wander down to a university library and ask, so I figured he musta performed some kind of Google search.

And, hell, I thought, I can do that. So, I took the first five journals Mr. Paine has listed as some variation of unknown, and, like, Googled them.
So, to begin in no particular order, let’s take Cultural Survival Quarterly, which Mr. Paine lists as “not likely”. Is it refereed? Well, others certainly think so. All you have to do is Google the name of the journal with the term “refereed,” and you get flooded with vitas claiming it in their own list of refereed articles. Take, for instance, this overview of Dr Larissa Behrendt, Harvard graduate and novelist, in Australia’s Vibe magazine. She claims it as such.

So, why “not likely,” Mr. Paine?

How’s about Africa Today, another one Mr. Paine has listed as “not likely.” Again, I Googled the name of the journal and the word “refereed,” and the second hit down was a vita for Paul Keiser over at the University of Pennsylvania, claiming it as refereed. That’s just the first vita that popped up; there are over 1,000 hits on the search string.

So, how’s about The Black Scholar. Well, I did the same minimal amount of research — the only kind I can imagine Mr. Paine doing — and guess what? Yep, it’s fucking refereed. That one was even fucking easier, as this library is kind enough to list all its “refereed/juried education journals.” And, if you don’t buy that, you can pay $32 to read John H. Stanfield tell you it’s refereed in this volume of American Sociologist.

What’s next? Ah, yes, Current Perspectives in Social Theory. Same Google string, and guess what? The first fucking hit’s for a vita that lists the journal in their Refereed Articles section.

So, how’s about the Fourth World Journal? Well that one was real easy, because they list what they’re looking for on their fucking web page.

Submissions may be articles, essays, book reviews, commentaries, or reports that address current developments or events, and refereed articles that are final papers or essays that the author submits for peer review.

The rest.

In other words, they publish both peer-reviewed and general publication work.

So, it took me all of about ten fucking minutes to track down the first five journals on Mr. Paine’s list and clear up his immense confusion. Leading me to wonder, what the hell’s taking the Ballerina leader so long to figure these motherfuckers out?

It’s possible, I suppose, that he could be just a little slower than I give him credit for — which seems unlikely, given my general estimation of his intelligence — but I consider it more likely that he’s just, yet again, been busted with his pants around his swollen ankles, and is now waffling like a garage sale card table in a hard wind.

What say you, Mr. Paine? Whyn’t you try just a little bit harder over there to work this one out. After all, your none-too-sharp cronies are already doing an embarrassing bit of crowing. William T Sherman had this to say, for instance:

Do you have any clue about why this would raise hackles among people who have actually had to respond to challenges from “peer reviewers” in real, actual, rather than sham, “peer review?”

I think when the smoke clears we’re going to be left with maybe five or six Churchill articles that were seriously “peer reviewed.” I will not necessarily object to them. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

The rest.

To that, one can only say, ouch.

Oh, and, the collective Pirateballerina readership is as dumb as a hatful of assholes.

But you knew that.