Thursday,
June 15,
Italian American Nemises, Prof. Ward Churchill,
The
ANNOTICO Report
Prof.. Ward Churchill, of Colorado University who has been
a constant denigrator of Columbus, and has led Annual disruptions of
Italian American Columbus Day Parades in Denver, and calling them
"Mafia Scum" and "Wops", is facing Firing or Suspension for
plagiarizing, fabrication and falsified material.
Although
his attacks on Italian Americans went unnoticed, when his writings comparing
9/11 victims to little Eichmans; and his tirades
against the
On
March 24, 2005, the University of Colorado Board of
Regents released its Report on...Matter of Professor Ward Churchill that
states that no action should be taken against Professor Churchill on the basis
of even his most controversial public statements.
The
report also states, however, that sufficient evidence exists of
plagiarism, misuse of others work, falsification and fabrication of
authority to refer such allegations to the
Now
that "Committee on Research Misconduct" has released a Report
validated those allegations and recommends that Churchill be Fired or
Suspended.
The
Following article does not sufficiently list his series of scholarly
transgressions, nor his misrepresenting himself to be American Indian, but I
have followed with those specific charges.
Panel
on Churchill: Fire or suspend him
CU prof
strayed from the truth, committee finds
By Jennifer Brown
June 14, 2006
The
ethnic-studies professor's academic misconduct was serious enough that CU could
fire him or suspend him without pay, at least for two years, the committee
report said.
"Professor
Churchill's misconduct was deliberate and not a matter of an occasional
error," it said.
Churchill's
writings show an "indifference to the proper attribution of scholarly work
to its genuine author" and a "pattern of failure to understand the
difference between scholarship and polemic."
Four of the five
scholars who examined Churchill's work for four months thought CU should
suspend him without pay - two suggested two years and two suggested five years.
The fifth committee member said the university should fire him.
Two of the
committee members who recommended suspension agreed the misconduct was severe
enough that CU could fire Churchill.
Churchill's fate
is in the hands of provost Susan Avery, arts and
sciences dean Todd Gleeson and interim chancellor Phil DiStefano,
who are expected to announce a decision by mid-June.
Churchill, who
received the report Tuesday morning, told 9News the findings were false. He also
said that no committee members were competent in his field or any other areas
discussed, except law, and that people competent in his field were excluded.
Churchill took
particular exception to a finding that he was disrespectful of Indian oral
traditions when he wrote about an 1837 smallpox epidemic. The committee was
"a bunch of white academics" who "overruled" what Native
Americans have told him, he said. "I have disrespected no one. They
did," he said.
Churchill
attorney
Churchill has two
weeks to write a response to the report.
The committee
investigated seven allegations against Churchill, finding problems in six. They
include his interpretation of Indian law and his suggestion that the
The committee
said Churchill's tendency "is to attack" anyone criticizing his work.
The panel disagreed with his description of scholarly process, calling it
"impoverished."
The report quoted
Churchill as saying this about his research methods: "I've got this
general understanding. You say, 'but can that general understanding be
confirmed?' Well, I'm looking to confirm it. I'm also looking for information,
and I told you this at the outset, I'm looking to prove it's true."
The committee,
consisting of three CU professors and two from other universities, decided to
keep secret the way each member voted. Committee chairwoman Marianne Wesson, a
CU law professor, said they had been subjected to "a certain amount of
abuse" from the public and wanted the protection of confidentiality as
they spoke with one another.
Politicians,
including state Rep. Josh Penry of
"The speech
is free, but it doesn't mean he can enjoy it and maintain a taxpayer-funded
position," Mitchell said.
Gov. Bill Owens
suggested Churchill resign, saying his "prolonged presence ... besmirches
the reputation of a fine university and its many outstanding teachers."
The chairman of
the university's regents, Paul Schauer, thanked the
committee for its work and declined to comment further, as did CU president
Hank Brown and other administrators.
If provost Avery and dean Gleeson recommend termination, Brown
and the regents will have the final decision, and they said they did not want
to influence the process.
Faculty council
chair Rod Muth said the report shows that the
Churchill case is not the norm.
"Either the
man is immensely sloppy or, as they indicate in the findings, dishonest," Muth said. "For this many things to be substantiated,
it says the individual is not paying attention to standards of scholarly
practice."
The university
has the legal right to suspend Churchill without pay for two or five years,
said J. Eric Elliff, counsel to CU's
Standing Committee on Research Misconduct.
The typical
punishment in cases this serious is usually dismissal or suspension of pay,
said Jonathan Knight, director of academic freedom and tenure at the American
Association of University Professors.
Knight said
Churchill has been given a fair investigation and is not being pursued because
of his controversial statements.
"From our
point of view, there were requisite safeguards on his fitness to
continue," he said. "The report followed procedures."
The five-member
ad hoc committee was formed by CU's Standing
Committee, which determined in September there was enough evidence against
Churchill for a full-blown investigation.
The Standing
Committee now is looking into recent allegations against Churchill by activist
and author Ernesto Vigil.
Committee members
have not announced whether Vigil's six accusations, including that Churchill
wrongly described Salvadoran peasants as Indians and that he got the name of a
village wrong, merit an in-depth probe.
The investigation
into Churchill's work began because of controversy over his essay comparing
some victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to Nazi bureaucrat Adolf
Eichmann, who managed plans to exterminate European Jews. The essay surfaced in
the public eye in January 2005.
University
administrators determined that free-speech rights prevented Churchill from
being punished for the essay, but regents voted in February 2005 to review
Churchill's work.
Staff writers
Kevin Simpson, Arthur Kane and John Ingold
contributed to this report.
Staff writer
Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
WARD
CHURCHILL: INDIAN???
Churchill has long been a divisive and somewhat feared
figure in Indian country, especially among his former colleagues in the
American Indian Movement. Some prominent activists involved in earlier
confrontations have devoted a great deal of energy to investigating his claim
to be an American Indian himself and have found no evidence to support it.
At various times, according to press reports, Churchill has described himself
as Cherokee, Keetoowah Cherokee, Muskogee, Creek and most recently Meti. In a note in the online magazine Socialism and
Democracy he wrote, ''Although I'm best known by my colonial name, Ward
Churchill, the name I prefer is Kenis, an Ojibwe name bestowed by my wife's uncle.'' In biographical
blurbs, he is identified as an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of
Cherokees. But a senior member of the band with access to tribal enrollment
records told Indian Country Today that Churchill is not listed. G! eorge Mauldin, tribal clerk in
According to Jodi Rave, a well-known Native journalist and member of the
Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara Three Affiliated Tribes,
Churchill was enrolled as an ''associate member'' of the Keetoowah by a former
chairman who was later impeached. The one other known member of the same
program, since discontinued, was President Bill Clinton. Rave said that she
made this discovery as a student in a journalism class at the
Suzan Shown Harjo, a columnist for ICT who has
tracked Churchill's career, said that aside from the in-laws of his late Indian
wife, he has not been able to produce any relatives from any Indian tribe.
The
ANNOTICO Reports are Archived at:
Italia
Italia Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com
Annotico
Email: annotico@earthlink.net