Professor fired at Colorado...
 

Controversial Professor Ward Churchill has been fired by the Colorado Board Of Regents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/us/25professor.html

CU President Hank Brown (University of Colorado Delt and former US Senator) made the announcement today.

Churchill was fired because of allegedly falsified academic credentials and plagerism claims that the firing was really because of an article he wrote shortly after 9/11 calling some of the casualities "little Eichmans," in reference to Adolph Eichman, one of Hitler's top henchmen.

A spokesman for the Board of Regents said that Churchill's claimed rights to Free Speech were not germain to the reason for his dismissal.

Finally. Took them long enough.

-Rudey

Was thinking the same thing. What comes around, goes around.

Boy, you guys are fast. I was finishing up an edit and you had already posted...

Impressive.

I got word on my blackberry that you posted and anything you post is critical enough for me to offer an opinion within seconds.

-Rudey

Kidding aside, I agree.

Here's (from the link) is part of the reason this thing got so drawn out:

"In June 2006, Professor Churchill filed an appeal with the university’s Privilege and Tenure Committee, three of whose members recommended that he be suspended without pay for a year and demoted to assistant professor, while two others thought he should be fired. Soon after, Mr. Brown, the president, recommended that the board dismiss Professor Churchill."

I suspect, knowing Brother Brown even as little as I do, that this would have been over long ago if it had been up to him and hadn't been for the above.

Don't you think that some of slowness of response has to do with genuine concern about academic freedom?

Churchill didn't actually earn tenure but instead misrepresented his scholarship to receive it, so he deserved to be fired, no doubt.

But because this dishonestly was only brought to light in response to his controversial statements, I think there was some fear of a slippery slope with lose of true academic freedom. So there was a temptation to err on the side of leniency that wouldn't have existed his dishonesty had been brought to light under different circumstances.

Or you think they'd be this slow with anyone with tenure?

I think they had to do due diligence...and I think they are now properly prepared for the lawsuit he will likely bring.

The suit was filed today in Denver.

I'm not real sure how tenure works, but even if he misrepresented himself and his credentials, tenure was "granted." I wonder if the former voids the latter?

Hank Brown is a JD, so I'm sure he wanted the university in the best position for the suit.

Well I think he received tenure, and there's no easy way to void that. But I think in other cases with academics when it comes to light that they've misrepresented themselves or plagiarized, they get dumped pretty quickly.

But the Churchill situation is different because of his other statements unrelated to his actual "scholarship" such as it was. The fact that he's a household name with all of us changes the circumstances too. He's also shameless about his errors in the past in a way that seems exceptional. (I don't think it's typical that most people would even fight; they'd hope to go quietly and be employable elsewhere. None of that applies with Churchill.)

I think the university and the board of regents did the right thing to do things very carefully, but it's still surprising that it took this long to resolve.

That's why the call Boulder, "twenty-five square miles surrounded by reality."

Or perhaps even better, "The People's Republic of Boulder."

Actually, look outside the university and it's a pretty conservative community.

From what I understand after taking higher education law, tenure is not a guarantee of employment forever; it is basically a guarantee that a professor will be afforded due diligence and that any firing would be for cause.

And if I remember correctly, if you misrepresent your scholarly activities and that is what the decision to grant tenure is predicated on, that is a reason to void the tenure. As long as the university has documented EVERYTHING, they should be ok.

Someone else may know more or may be able to explain it better....

Oh yeah. I didn't mean to suggest that they were stuck with him forever. I was just trying to clarify something I expressed badly earlier when I said he hadn't really "earned" tenure. Well, he didn't really earn it, but since it was granted, the burden was still on the school to prove that it needed to be taken away.

It took them long enough to fire this wacko! Seriously, though I respect people's opinions even when they vary greatly from my own, but this guy was out there!!! I saw him on an interview once with Glenn Beck (Yes, I watch his show, and I am an evil conservative! lol!) and he was totally rude and was so disrespectful the victims of 9/11 I had to turn the tv off completely. There is a fine line between free speech and the crap he was teaching.

It's not a conservative community. You had said on here before that there were a lot of yuppies. That part is true. But it's a bizarre left wing yuppy and similar to Northern Cali/Marin County. These people are well-to-do upper-middle-classers that drive Audis and Landrovers and then smoke the pot and side with the extreme left on everything. CU is actually pretty conservative compared to Naropa...now that's a fricking nutjob school if there ever was one. I think it's Boulder, but they have this great Shelby Cobra museum.

And I wouldn't say Boulder is surrounded by reality. Outside of the satellite suburbs like gunbarrel, it's surrounded by some heavily conservative Christian towns on the other side of the spectrum. Colorado is actually a really fricking strange place the more I think about it. You guys don't like anything in moderation.

-Rudey

Countdown until he's offered position at UC-Berk?

Politically yes, but I honestly think his "scholarship" is too weak and corrupt. You really can't hire the guy who is widely know to plagiarize and misrepresent his sources even if you love his politics.

One of the things that I think is so interesting about this is it points out how some college professors trade on their academic standing to present opinions completely unrelated to their field of study and some people eat it up. Why would I care what Churchill thinks about 911 or what Chomsky thinks about economic or social policy?

(I'm sure it happens on the right too, but I can't think of anyone right away. I don't think people on the right care that much about college professors as experts, and if the recent hype is true a about ideological imbalance in higher ed, there'd be few right wing college profs to quote. The few right wing college household name that I can think of all seem to be history or sociology folks who write about race, ethnicity and class.)

Umm Berkeley's administration isn't the most liberal, unless you consider John Yoo (a big shot in the Federalist society and one of the big authors of the PATRIOT act and a high level supporter of torture) to be a real left winger.

-Rudey

Mike Adams is the only real rightwinger that comes to my mind. There are others, but he's the only one who is borderline fringe that I know of.

Boulder is conservative? I visited there for the first time in 1995 and when I returned I told my husband that all our missing friends and their 1966 VW vans were right there, still on a Rocky Mountain high.
And no one had the balls to tell them that it was not 1968 anymore.

Funniest line I've heard as to Churchill came from Dennis Miller - he was talking to Bill O'Reilly and said that out of this whole thing he hoped that CU would begin offering a good dental plan to future faculty members.

Have you SEEN WC's choppers??!!

The university community certainly isn't conservative, but the rest of the town tends to be. Of course the university is so overwhelming, the whole area gets labeled as The Peoples Republic of Boulder.

Do boalt profs make UG hires now? Interesting.

Boalt is a school at UC Berkeley, which was the university you mentioned, right? Interesting times two.

-Rudey

You're right, Berkeley isn't a liberal school. One conservative law professor indicates this.

And just to be absolutely clear, in addition to one conservative making a faculty, support of the Patriot Act and Torture are fundamental principles of conservatism.

I've personally never understood the utility of law school, let alone lawyers, but generally you all tend to be great at reading details. I'm shocked you aren't.

To be repeated I never said Berkeley wasn't a liberal school. Not only does that have no relevancy to what we were discussing, but I also don't think you can even elucidate what makes a "liberal school".

I made a point regarding the administration which is composed of professors. You did follow that detail correct? I mean it's really simple. We were discussing professors.

I pointed out a professor in the university that is extremely conservative and has been one of the architects of the Bush Administration's conservative legislations as well as a prominent member of the Federalist society (along with Antonin Scalia), which "hopes to transform the American legal system by developing and promoting conservative positions and influencing who will become judges, top government officials, and decision-makers."

I hope your reading skills improve.

-Rudey

My reading skills are fine, thanks. Additionally, I highly doubt that Boalt professors have any impact on undergraduate hires, as I originally questioned. Hope that helps.

Your reading skills are not fine. I just detailed exactly why they were lacking.

Additionally, your post "Countdown until he's offered position at UC-Berk?" has no mention of undergraduate hires. You lose that argument as well.

-Rudey

Haha, trust me, I manage.

If I had referenced the possibility of him being hired by the law school, which is likely the only situation in which Yoo would impact such a decision, I would have mentioned the law school, or Boalt. Good try, however.

Perhaps you were just referencing the art school. I should have known that too right?

Perhaps Ward Churchill even taught grad classes (I don't personally know) and perhaps you were only referencing that one department right?

Again, we were discussing professors at a university. Clearly you are wrong. Wouldn't it just be easier to admit you were wrong and leave it at that?

-Rudey

No, I'm not wrong.

I made a comment (which was sarcastic, but I think you realize this) about the fired professor being hired at Berkeley. Given that he is not a law professor, your reference to a conservative law professor had nothing to do with Cal's hiring him. I'm not knowledgeable about the finer points of university operation, but I would imagine he would be hired by a specific department. Given that said department is not the law school, I don't think Yoo would have any impact on on the potential hire.

Thus, your original response was irrelevant, similar to my assumption that your comment was about the political leanings of the institution.

I got the sarcasm, but let me repeat that we were discussing the hire of a professor by a university. You did not remark on undergraduate hires. You did not remark on his specific department (I'm not even sure either of us know what department that is unless we google it).

Judge Judy called and said I won the case.

-Rudey

I think you have to submit to Judy prior to "trial".

I guess we're speaking on different wavelengths. Law schools are generally somewhat detached from the institution, and I often refer to law schools by name. Thus, I still don't think your comment was in anyway relevant, but I doubt there is anywhere this discussion can go from here.

Churchill wasn't a law professor before. Why would we have expected him to become one at Berkeley? Rudey, your points are idiotic. (which I feel a lot more comfortable saying knowing that he has me on ignore.)

This has been an awful lot of work for a joke hasn't it, Shinerbock?

No doubt that Woo is a conservative, but the Patriot Art and support of torture that you mentioned early as two thirds of his "conservative" bona fides are as distasteful to many conservatives as they are to anyone else along the spectrum.

True conservatism doesn't equate with fascism anymore than true liberalism equates with totalitarian communism.

Maybe if He got a haircut and wasn't a dick it would not have happened?