Book publishers who continue to reprint Ward Churchill’s works should be told that some of the University of Colorado professor’s writings contain “problematic materials” that could be corrected, a CU research-misconduct committee recommended Tuesday.
At issue are a handful of books printed on the East and West coasts that deal with American Indian land rights and genocide, among other subjects.
Peers in the past have questioned some of Churchill’s work, and a formal inquiry found earlier that the professor plagiarized or misrepresented statements in his writings. While the request to a handful of publishers is highly unusual because of academic-freedom issues, publicity from the ongoing Churchill saga made it “ethically incorrect not to raise concerns,” said David Longanecker, executive director of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.
“This is fairly new territory, and it’s fairly rare that you’d see a request like this in academia,” Longanecker said. “It’s a tough position for publishers because they want to make money, but they also want to have credibility with their readers.”
Though the research-misconduct committee initially “considered steps that would allow the correction of the research record” in all of Churchill’s works, the group wrote Tuesday that the committee “concluded that the national attention this case has garnered … has largely accomplished this objective.”
Still, the group recommended that an initial investigative committee report “be sent to those book publishers whose works were implicated, so that we can be sure that they are aware of the concerns that have been raised.”
Churchill, in a statement, took issue with the committee’s work: “This process has not demonstrated that I engaged in any serious research misconduct but that, after more than a year of painstaking review, those charged with firing me could find nothing more than a few footnotes and questions of attribution to quibble over.”
Mark Bradburn, a doctoral candidate who was part of the 11-member misconduct committee, declined to comment on particulars of the report but said the committee “spent a lot of time” on the recommendations.
“I think the report speaks for itself,” he said.
An investigative committee said in May that the professor had plagiarized from a Canadian environmental organization and committed research misconduct regarding writings of two other professors; that Churchill “created myths under the banner of academic scholarship” about the spread of smallpox among American Indians; and that he misrepresented or inaccurately portrayed federal laws.
In an e-mail from Common Courage Press in Maine – which published Churchill books in the past – an official wrote that none of the professor’s writings would have addenda because those books are out of print.
Staff writer Robert Sanchez can be reached at 303-820-1282 or rsanchez@denverpost.com.
