From today's New York Times: Jury Says Professor Was Wrongly Fired:A jury found on Thursday that the University of Colorado had wrongfully dismissed a professor who drew national attention for an essay in which he called some victims of the Sept. 11 attacks “little Eichmanns.”
But the jury, which deliberated for a day and a half, awarded only $1 in damages to the former professor, Ward L. Churchill, a tenured faculty member at the university’s campus in Boulder since 1991 who was chairman of the ethnic studies department.
…[T]he month long trial mostly focused on Mr. Churchill’s academic work. The jury had to decide whether he had plagiarized and falsified parts of his research, particularly on American Indians, as the university contended in dismissing him. His lawyers described the search for professional misconduct as simply a pretext for a foregone decision to get rid of him….
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7 comments:
Ever want to know the definition of putz? Then take a real good look at Ward Churchill.
Wow he won $1. Keep saving your money Ward and take it down to Supercuts and get 'em to trim that mop you call hair.
I really want to kick him. Seriously just looking at him makes my toe itch. Society really let Ward down by not correcting his idiotic actions. When he was a kid I know Ward's daddy didn't beat his ass enough. You can tell by the way Ward acts.
Those are some really insightful comments on a complex and interesting and matter. Those folks can really think, can't they?
Lyn could use a good ass whipping, I bet.
Ward Churchill: A jury of likeminded peers has now confirmed it. You can dig up a coprolite, put sunglasses, an ugly gray wig, and clothes on it, give it a job, even paint it. But it’s still a rigid, unyielding, unsightly, and worthless piece of coprolite.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Could we raise the level of discourse here folks? @ If you don't support Mr. Churchill, that's fine, but please have something to say beyond calling him a piece of fossilized excrement. @ There are at least two distinct issues here: (1) Did Churchill's dismissal occur ultimately because of his not-ready-for-prime-time views? (2) Is Churchill a good scholar/thinker? Feel free to take any view re these issues, but please do provide reasons, not labels and self-indulgent chest poundings. @ My own view is that (i) the action taken against Churchill was inappropriate (a disregard of academic freedom) because it was fueled by political pressure coming mostly from the right--especially the anti-intellectual, "red meat"-happy right). (ii) Churchill is at best a sloppy (and, at worst, an unreliable and dishonest) scholar (whatever his worth as an activist). (iii) The essay that initiated this firestorm was largely defensible and became a target of the right in part owing to ignorance of such background facts as the meaning of "Eichmann" (e.g., that Eichmann is associated with the "banality of evil"--the evil of ordinary people, following orders, becoming a tool of luridly wicked persons; see Hannah Arrendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem). @ I would defend the central points of the original essay (though not all of it). But I think that Churchill has done some things as a scholar that are highly worrisome and should give us pause. It is entirely possible that his intellectual sins are of such a magnitude that he should be disciplined and even dismissed. --Roy
Churchill may have been awarded attorney's fees in addition to the nominal damage award, which could be substantial. He may also be able to be reinstated based on the verdict, which would be a reasonable outcome.
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