Make no mistake (as Ward Churchill often does), the case against the University of Colorado professor is not about freedom of speech or political correctness or the reprehensible things he said in a 2001 essay about Sept. 11 victims. It’s about academic misconduct.
Members of two panels have pored over his writings and research and found “serious, repeated and deliberate misconduct,” including plagiarism and outright fabrications.
Most of them think he should be fired.
Churchill can avoid that fate, and should, by resigning his tenured position at CU and leaving academia.
A majority of CU’s research misconduct committee this week called for Churchill to be fired, agreeing with a group of academic investigators who concluded that the ethnic studies professor intentionally falsified research, plagiarized and ghost-wrote articles that he used as references to prop up his own shoddy research.
The review panels have managed to separate unpopular speech (which is protected) from academic malfeasance (which isn’t).
Churchill is in denial, trivializing his offenses and disparaging his critics.
It fogs CU’s case that a few high-profile figures called for Churchill’s head as a result of his outrageous opinions rather than his faulty scholarship. The first sentence of Churchill’s statement this week captures his thinking: “On February 2, 2005, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens called for me to be fired because of statements I made about U.S. foreign policy that were clearly protected by the First Amendment. It would have been illegal to do so then, and it is just as illegal today.”
Yet while plenty of us bridled at Churchill’s chilling contempt for the Sept. 11 victims, CU understood from the outset that he should not be punished for challenging public opinion. Then-President Betsy Hoffman was a fierce defender of academic freedom, worrying about “a new McCarthyism” that could silence academicians. “We are in dangerous times again,” she told the faculty.
The review panels properly avoided the perils and kept to the matter at hand: the integrity of Churchill’s work. Their meticulous research should give everyone confidence in CU’s process.
Churchill’s job status now rests with interim CU-Boulder Chancellor Phil Stefano, acting on recommendations from the provost and a dean.
In calling for his dismissal, the standing committee on misconduct gave voice to why Churchill can’t stay at CU. Since he won’t admit his failures, the committee said it was “pessimistic that he is likely to change his behavior.”
Surely Churchill must know that he doesn’t belong in acadamia. He should acknowledge the judgment of his work by these two faculty reviews and step down.
