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