Former University of Colorado president Hank Brown called the notion that the school formulated a grand scheme to fire Ward Churchill “absurd” during court testimony Thursday.
Brown made his remark in response to questioning by CU attorney Patrick O’Rourke, who asked the former Republican senator whether he thought CU had managed to get dozens of faculty members, serving on various committees, to conspire over a period of years to unseat the controversial professor.
“All of that is absurd,” Brown said.
“Would you participate in a scheme to railroad a professor out of the university on false pretenses?” O’Rourke asked.
“Absolutely not,” Brown replied.
It was Brown who, as CU president, recommended to the regents in May 2007 that Churchill be fired for engaging in pervasive academic misconduct, including falsification, fabrication and plagiarism.
The regents dismissed the professor two months later.
Churchill denies that he cheated in his scholarship and contends CU really fired him for an essay he wrote about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in which he was harshly critical of U.S. foreign policy and likened some workers in the World Trade Center to Nazi operatives. The essay caused a national media firestorm when it came to light four years ago.
He sued the school in Denver District Court to get his job back, and the trial to resolve the civil suit is coming to the end of its first week.
Brown told the jury he felt a moral obligation to recommend Churchill’s dismissal, in large part because he couldn’t expect students to follow the university’s academic code if the school couldn’t hold the faculty to the same standards.
