DENVER — Former University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman testified via videotaped deposition that Ward Churchill’s fiery essay sparked an “all-out” assault on the school by conservatives.
Churchill was fired on allegations of plagiarism and other misconduct in July 2007 after his essay comparing some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi caused a furor.
Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, sued to get his job back. Attorney David Lane said in the trial’s opening statements this week that Churchill was the target of a “howling mob” that had the school searching for a pretext to fire him.
Hoffman said in her videotaped deposition shown in court Friday that she would have resigned if the regents had fired the professor for his essay, which she viewed as protected political expression.
“It was an all-out assault on Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado, and me,” she testified, likening it to a modern-day version of McCarthyism.
Hoffman announced her resignation in March 2005 amid controversy involving the school’s athletics program and Churchill’s essay that compared victims at the World Trade Center to Adolf Eichman, the architect of the Holocaust. Churchill’s essay penned more than three years earlier, came to light in January 2005 shortly before he was to give a speech at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y.
Hoffman had served as president since September 2000. Part of her testimony included her recollection of a phone call, previously played in court, with then Republican Gov. Bill Owens.
“He said, ‘Fire Ward Churchill tomorrow,'” Hoffman said of the January 2005 call. “And I said, ‘You know I can’t do that,’ and he said, ‘Then I will unleash my plan,’ and it was very threatening. … It was a short but very threatening phone call.”
Owens denied making veiled threats or speaking to Hoffman in that manner during testimony Wednesday.
Hoffman said conservative media outlets and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a group with the goal of reducing left-wing bias on university campuses, orchestrated the attack.
Hoffman said that the prospect of a university examining a faculty member’s scholarship as the result of a controversial statement would have a chilling effect on free speech.
She also said typical mistakes, such as failing to footnote someone in an academic work, might result in a reprimand. Publishing someone else’s work as one’s own are far more egregious, she testified.
The trial could last up to three weeks.
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Information from: Daily Camera,
