A new book on the “101 Most Dangerous Academics in America” stars University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill and attacks five other professors in the state.
Los Angeles conservative David Horowitz starts his book, “The Professors,” by calling Churchill a “figure of national revulsion” because of his essay comparing some Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center victims to a Nazi bureaucrat.
Horowitz, who failed to get Colorado lawmakers to pass an “Academic Bill of Rights” in 2004 to protect students from political bias, said in an e-mail interview that Churchill is “an emblem of what’s wrong with universities in Colorado and across the country.”
Churchill is the book’s 101st most dangerous professor, Horowitz said.
“The only reason Churchill is not one of the actual profiles is because I wrote so much about him in the introduction that it would have been redundant,” he said.
Churchill said the book is full of errors, including wrong names and incorrect facts about Churchill’s education. Churchill, under investigation on allegations of plagiarism, also charges Horowitz didn’t write the book on his own.
“The style is erratic,” he said. “The facts change from place to place. They need to withdraw the book, correct it, give proper attribution to the co-authors and ensure that the index entries are correct.”
The book deserves no press coverage, Churchill said.
Other profiled professors also said Horowitz was out of his league.
“It’s totally distorted, out of context and has nothing to do with his concern for classroom performance,” said Oneida Meranto, a political science professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver. “I think he’s outside of his expertise. I’m not sure what his expertise is, besides making trouble.”
Horowitz also spoke out against Meranto in 2003 after a student accused her of political bias.
University of Denver anthropology professor Dean Saitta, who defended Churchill’s right to free speech and has written about Marxism, said he believes he was included because he was an outspoken opponent of Horowitz’s “Academic Bill of Rights.” He makes light of the list on his DU profile.
“I live in the Park Hill neighborhood of Denver with my particularly dangerous wife Martha (an architect) and our especially dangerous young son, Joe,” he writes.
Three other Colorado academics made the list – Robert Dunkley, who taught criminology at the University of Northern Colorado, CU-Boulder women’s studies professor Alison Jaggar and CU-Boulder ethnic studies chairwoman Emma Perez. They were unavailable to comment or did not return calls Sunday.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
