Though Ward Churchill’s lawyers have not finished presenting his case against the University of Colorado, the university took its first steps today toward advancing the position that academic misconduct is the real reason for Churchill’s firing.
Robert Clinton, a law professor at Arizona State University, who sat on the panel that investigated Churchill, testified for CU out of turn to avoid a scheduling conflict. He said that he was less concerned about the content of Churchill’s scholarly writings about American Indians than the sources that were cited in the works.
“The general theme of his scholarship was correct. The problem was in the embellishment and the details,” Clinton said. “The General Allotment Act was awful for Indian tribes. I am not against his thesis that it was bad for Indians.”
Churchill, 61, was fired for academic misconduct by CU Boulder in 2007.
He sued the university claiming that he was retaliated against for exercising his First Amendment rights in writing an essay about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that caused political outrage.
The trial is underway in Denver District Court.
CU’s defense is that while the Sept. 11 essay cast a spotlight on the ethnic-studies professor, it was information they received in the aftermath — that some of his work had been plagiarized or falsified — that prompted a review of his work.
Churchill wrote an essay that said the General Allotment Act of 1887 for the first time imposed a “blood quantum” on American Indian tribes, which meant that in order to gain membership in a tribe and attain land, that they had to be at least half Indian.
Clinton testified that the act — as Churchill cited it — does not say anything about a blood quantum.
“We could not find any reference to that quoted material within the provisions of the act,” Clinton said.
“Why is that research misconduct?” CU Counsel Patrick O’Rourke asked.
“It would be like inventing data for a medical treatment,” Clinton said. “I don’t think any of us would like medical treatment by a scientist who invented the data.”
But what was even more disturbing, Clinton said, was that Churchill cited essays by professors Rebecca Robbins and Annette Jaimes in his writings about blood quantum, and it turns out that he later told CU that he ghostwrote those essays when he was accused of plagiarizing those writings.
“By citing works that you wrote under someone else’s name as if they were forms of independent, third-party work without disclosing you are the author is like fabricating your own data,” Clinton said. “The fact that he, in fact, wrote those claims himself is precisely why it is research misconduct.”
Both Robbins and Jaimes did not answer inquiries about the essays from the investigative committee.
“We saw no evidence of consent from the actual people themselves who refused to talk to us, nor did he submit any written consent or any other evidence that he had their consent, and that too caused questions for us,” Clinton said.
O’Rourke asked Clinton about allegations that CU’s investigative panel had a bias against Churchill before beginning its inquiry, and he pointed out that Clinton works at Arizona State University and was one of the panelists not affiliated with CU.
“What pressure did the Colorado governor, regents or University of Colorado president have in pressuring you in reaching conclusions against Mr. Churchill?” O’Rourke asked.
“None, whatsoever,” Clinton said.
“What would you do if members were trying to railroad Mr. Churchill?” O’Rourke asked.
“I would do my utmost to protect Mr. Churchill’s right to make sure he was treated fairly and try to look at the record as objectively as I could,” Clinton said.
