University of Colorado regents will discuss whether to terminate suspended ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill in a closed session July 24 that Churchill’s attorney wants opened to the public.
“This is a matter of public concern, and CU’s done enough politicking behind closed doors,” Churchill attorney David Lane said. “It should be done in the light of day.”
Lane and Churchill have asserted that the investigation that led to a finding of academic misconduct was retaliation for an essay he wrote comparing some World Trade Center victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack to Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann. University officials have said they were obligated to investigate allegations that later surfaced of Churchill’s falsifying and plagiarizing research.
After months of reviews, CU President Hank Brown formally requested June 7 that the Board of Regents fire Churchill.
CU spokeswoman Michelle McKinney said it is university policy to discuss personnel matters in private session. However, she said, regents afterward could make statements and would vote in open session on whether to fire Churchill for academic misconduct.
“The dismissal-for-cause policy was developed for the protection of faculty, and there is no exception,” McKinney said.
The hearing, which Churchill requested, will take place at the University Memorial Center on the Boulder campus, she said.
Lane said that unless the regents choose to reinstate Churchill and forgo all forms of discipline, Churchill will sue the university in federal court for violating his free-speech rights.
On July 5, four tenured CU faculty filed a formal grievance challenging Brown’s recommendation for dismissal as a “violation of faculty rights and privileges” because a majority of an appeal panel of the Privilege and Tenure Committee had voted for a one-year suspension rather than dismissal.
Former CU interim chancellor Phil DiStefano began the process of firing Churchill in June 2006 after an investigation by CU’s Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. Churchill was suspended with pay at the time.
The university’s confidential hearing July 24 will provide time for Lane and Churchill to make a statement, as well as hear from counsel for the university, McKinney said. The regents can ask questions, but no new evidence will be heard, she said.
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
