Ward Woes (Churchhill)

[Okwes]

Ward Woes (issue update)



Jewish World Review May 4, 2006/ 6 Iyar, 5766

Ann Coulter

Tuition soars due to knowledge shortfall

www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Every sentient, literate adult knows
that the current spike in gas prices is 90 percent due to forces
completely beyond the control of Congress, the White House or even "Big
Oil" itself. The laws of supply and demand determine gas prices the same
way those laws determine the price of eggs, acid-washed blue jeans and
Kanye West downloads.

What determines the price of college tuition? It certainly isn't the
quality of the product as copiously demonstrated in David Horowitz's
new book, "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America."


The two big topics on CNN last week were (1) high gas prices and (2) the
high cost of college tuition. (Also a story about an angry Hispanic
lacrosse player who vanished from a cruise ship during Bush's low poll
numbers.)

CNN reports that college tuition has risen an astonishing 40 percent
since 2000. But the proposed solutions to the exact same problem high
prices for gasoline and tuition, respectively were diametrically
opposed.

The only solution to high gas prices considered on CNN was to pay oil
company executives less, perhaps by order of the president. But somehow,
no one ever suggested that the solution to the high price of college
far outpacing inflation was to pay professors less. In that case, the
solution is for the government to subsidize college professors' salaries
even more than it already does.

Based on CNN's special coverage of high gas prices, the unfolding crisis
in college tuition ought to be reported like this:

Coming up, soaring prices at the colleges. Who's to blame? How can you
keep your child in college and cash in your wallet? And Harvard outrage,
big education makes big bucks, but we pay the price. So should President
Bush limit prices? ...

To our top story now. It seems like a summer ritual. Rising professors'
salaries mean rising tuition prices. But this year, sticker shock at the
tuition window is fueling more concern than ever. And it has many people
asking where is it going to end?

JAMIE COURT, CONSUMER RIGHTS ADVOCATE: Every time you see the price of
tuition go up, you can hear "ka-ching, ka-ching" in the bank accounts of
the college professors.

That's how oil company profits are reported. Why not subsidize the oil
companies, which provide a product essential to allowing 300 million
Americans to live, and put a cap on the price of college, which seems
designed to turn out more liberal parasites on the productive?

As economist Richard Vedder of Ohio University has demonstrated, every
time the government subsidizes college tuition through tuition tax
credits, college tuition rises by the precise amount of the tuition tax
credit.

How about investigating the "shameful display of greed" by college
professors?

Liberals think hardworking taxpayers who can't afford gas should pay
more in taxes because it is vitally important that young people be
taught that America is the worst country on Earth and that the American
bond traders who were murdered on 9/11 deserved it.

Maybe with a little less subsidized tuition, colleges couldn't afford
luxuries like non-Indian of Indian studies professor Ward Churchill. He
makes $120,000 a year as a department head at the University of
Colorado, in addition to many speaking fees paid to him by other
institutions of higher learning all heavily subsidized by taxpayers.

In addition to providing a vital product, former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond
has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering.

Churchill doesn't have a Ph.D., not even one of those phony ones you
have to buy on the Internet before you can host your own show on Air
America Radio. He does not produce a product that allows New Yorkers to
eat without turning 90 percent of the city into an agricultural
processing plant.

His list of academic achievements consists of his majoring in
communications and graphic arts. That's the only part of his resume that
has not already been proved false, probably because no one would make
that up.

Churchill's written oeuvre consists of rants about how the Americans who
died in the World Trade Center on 9/11 deserved it: "Well, really. Let's
get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort.
But innocent? Gimme a break. ... If there was a better, more effective,
or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their
participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary
of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."

And thus, Churchill joined the ranks of Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Faulkner
and other great writers who use the phrase, "Gimme a break." Perhaps he
expresses himself better in "graphic arts."

American taxpayers subsidize the most cretinous, idiotic, hate-filled
lunatics in the universe and liberals are demanding that we direct our
hate toward people like Lee Raymond who allow us to go to the bathroom
indoors.

How about Congress having weekly hearings on the price of college and
the salaries of professors like Churchill? Horowitz has already provided
the witness list for the first two years.

[blackcrowheart]

Ward Churchill to speak in Eugene May 18th
portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/339030.shtml

author: Anarcho-typist extraordinaire [e-mail:] e-mail:
[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>
Fundraiser for accused eco-prisoners. Thursday May 18th 7 pm U of O
Campus. For more info about the event, email:
[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> , or call
[phone].

Does the current state of the world piss you off?
Are you tired of being pushed around by the government?
Do the recent "Greeen Scare" tactics targeting radical environmentalists
and eco-anarchists have you ducking for cover? Then don't miss....
Ward Churchill (Keetowah Band Cherokee) is Professor of American Indian
Studies at the University of Colorado/ Boulder. An uncompromising
indigenist activist, he has been a member of the American Indian
Movement for more than 30 years and currently serves on the Leadership
Council of the Colorado AIM. An insightful and eloquent author, his many
books include Marxism and Native Americans (1983), Agents of Repression
(1988, 2002), The COINTELPRO papers (1990, 2002), Struggle for the Land
(1993, 1999), Indians 'R' Us (1994, 2005), Since Predator Came (1995),
Pacifism as Pathology (1996), A Little Matter of Genocide (1997), Acts
of Rebellion (2003), Perversions of Justice (2003), On the Justice of
Roosting Chickens (2003), "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" (2004) and
Speaking Truth in the Teeth of Power (2004). Ward's writings and
lectures critically examine conquest and genocide in the Americas,
environmental destruction, political repression, cultural appropriation,
and the ongoing reistance to colonization.

Donations are encouraged. This event will be a fundraiser for the
accused eco-prisoners and projects supporting their human liberties.

For more info on Ward, check out:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill>

For more info about the event, email:
[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> , or call
[phone]. [phone:] phone: [phone]

[Okwes]

Ward Woes-The Final Chapter?



www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/16/churchill

The Ward Churchill Verdict

Ward Churchill committed multiple, “deliberate” acts of academic
misconduct, according to a review by a faculty panel, released today by
the University of Colorado at Boulder.
While the panel was unanimous in its findings about Churchill’s conduct,
it was divided about whether he should lose his tenured position as
professor — as politicians and many others have been demanding for more
than a year. Three of the panel’s five members believe that the
violations of academic standards are severe enough to make dismissal
“not an inappropriate sanction.” But only one of those three members
believes that dismissal is the “most appropriate sanction.” Two others
favor suspension without pay for five years.
Two other members of the panel said that they did not believe that the
violations were serious enough to merit dismissal. They recommend a
suspension of two years without pay and say that they fear dismissal
would “have an adverse effect on other scholars’ ability to conduct
their research with due freedom.”
Among the violations that the committee found Churchill had committed
were falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, failure to comply with
established standard regarding author names on publications, and a
“serious deviation from accepted practices in reporting results from
research.” The committee also found that Churchill “was disrespectful of
Indian oral traditions” in his writings about an 1837 smallpox epidemic.
Colorado administrators will now review the faculty panel’s reports and
any response from Churchill before making a final decision. Churchill
and his lawyers have repeatedly threatened to sue if he is fired.
The committee was created last year, after Churchill’s comments shortly
after 9/11, in which he compared victims in the World Trade Center to
“little Eichmanns,” set off a nationwide furor. A Colorado panel
concluded last year that however offensive those remarks may have been,
they were protected speech. The panel that reported today investigated
research misconduct charges that surfaced after the 9/11 comments made
Churchill so widely known. Churchill has consistently denied wrongdoing,
and said that the committee’s work is tainted because it was created by
those determined to see him lose his position because of his outspoken
views.
The faculty panel acknowledged that the allegations it examined surfaced
“in the wake of the public outcry concerning some highly controversial
essays by Professor Churchill” and said that committee members believed
that Churchill’s “right to publish his views was protected by both the
First and Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of free speech.” The essays
“played no part” in the panel’s work, the committee said, adding that it
wanted to “express its concern regarding the timing and perhaps the
motives for the university’s decision to forward charges made in that
context.”
Some critics of the university from the right have said that Churchill
never should have been hired and some critics from the left have noted
that Churchill never attempted to hide the views that eventually led to
so much scrutiny. The committee, in a nod to both sets of critics,
wrote: “We point out finally that when Professor Churchill was hired as
an associate professor with tenure in 1991 and promoted to (full)
professor in 1997, the university knew that he did not have a Ph.D. or
law degree, as commonly expected for faculty at this institution, and
was aware that he was a controversial public intellectual.”
Churchill has not commented on the report yet — he received it this
morning.
Prior to last year’s uproar, Churchill was a regular on the college
lecture circuit, frequently talking about and encouraging Native
American activism. His writings on 9/11 became more broadly known when
he was invited to speak at Hamilton College and some faculty members
there circulated his writings. From that point on he became — to the
distress of many in academe — one of the best known professors in the
United States.
A full article about the report and reaction to it will appear on this
site tomorrow.
— Scott Jaschik

www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=WARDCHURCHILL-05-16-06

Churchill investigation uncovers academic misconduct

By SARA BURNETT AND KEVIN VAUGHAN
Scripps Howard News Service
16-MAY-06

BOULDER, Colo. -- A University of Colorado investigative committee
reported Tuesday that it uncovered serious cases of misconduct in the
academic research of Ward Churchill, the professor who caused a national
uproar by likening some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi war criminal.

The committee said the misconduct by Churchill, an ethnic studies
professor, included plagiarism, fabrication, and "serious deviation from
accepted practices in reporting results from research."

It also noted Churchill was "disrespectful of Indian oral traditions"
when he wrote the U.S. government distributed blankets infested with
smallpox to Mandan Indians in 1837 on the Upper Missouri River.

Three of the five members of the committee said the transgressions were
serious enough that the university could revoke Churchill's tenure and
fire him. But two of those three said the most appropriate sanction
would be a five-year suspension without pay.

The other two committee members said they were "troubled by the
circumstances under which these allegations have been made," and
"believe his dismissal would have an adverse effect on other scholars'
ability to conduct their research." Those two recommended that Churchill
be suspended without pay for two years.

Research misconduct encompasses a spectrum of academic wrongdoing _
everything from plagiarism to fabrication to falsification.

The committee also said it was concerned about the timing and motives of
the investigation, which was launched amid public outcry over and essay
Churchill wrote about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The university knew Churchill was a "controversial public intellectual"
when he was given tenure in 1991, the committee said in the report.

Last year, as the Churchill inquiry gathered momentum, Joseph Rosse,
chairman of the standing committee on research misconduct, explained why
the allegations had to be taken seriously.

"Research misconduct is one of the most serious allegations that can be
brought against a faculty member," Rosse said, "because it strikes at
the very heart of integrity and public trust so crucial to the mission
of a university."

The five-member investigative committee was chaired by university law
professor Mimi Wesson. It also included two other faculty members,
history professor Marjorie McIntosh and sociology professor Michael
Radelet, as well as Jose Limon, professor of English at the University
of Texas at Austin, and Robert N. Clinton, professor of law at Arizona
State University.

The Churchill controversy erupted in January 2005 after the editor of
the student newspaper at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., published a
front-page article about a little-known essay the professor wrote
immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In it,
Churchill _ who was scheduled to talk at Hamilton _ wrote that the
attacks were retaliation for a U.S. foreign policy that had resulted in
the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi children.

"The most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is
that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has
dispensed to their people as a matter of course," Churchill wrote.

He then went on to say the terrorists did not strike "innocent victims,"
but "military targets, pure and simple."

And, in the phrase most widely repeated in the furor that followed,
Churchill described the white-collar employees killed in the World Trade
Center as "little Eichmanns" _ a reference to the Nazi war criminal
Adolf Eichmann, responsible for sending millions of Jews to
concentration camps.

News of the essay quickly spread, igniting criticism from everyone from
cable news host Bill O'Reilly to Gov. Bill Owens and the state
Legislature.

The media and some of the more outraged public turned a microscope on
Churchill, questioning everything from how he earned tenure and whether
he has the American Indian ancestry he has claimed.

They also began picking through Churchill's many books, essays and
speeches.

After an initial investigation, Phil DeStefano, interim chancellor of
the university's Boulder campus, said he disagreed with Churchill's
opinion about those who died on Sept. 11, but that it was protected by
the First Amendment. DeStefano said the statements weren't, by
themselves, enough reason for university to fire him.

But at the same time, the university launched an investigation into
allegations that Churchill fabricated material and may have copied the
work of others.

The university's 12-member Standing Committee on Research Misconduct
reviewed the case and decided there was enough merit to forward seven
charges to an investigative committee for further review.

(Contact Sara Burnett and Kevin Vaughan of the Rocky Mountain News at
http://www.rockymountainnews.com.)

[Okwes]

Ward Woes (timeline)



Boulder - University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill plagiarized,
fabricated and falsified material and seriously deviated from accepted
research practices in his writings, a report released Tuesday said.

The ethnic-studies professor's academic misconduct was serious enough
that CU could fire him or suspend him without pay, at least for two
years, the committee report said.

"Professor Churchill's misconduct was deliberate and not a matter of an
occasional error," it said.

Churchill's writings show an "indifference to the proper attribution of
scholarly work to its genuine author" and a "pattern of failure to
understand the difference between scholarship and polemic."

Four of the five scholars who examined Churchill's work for four months
thought CU should suspend him without pay - two suggested two years and
two suggested five years. The fifth committee member said the university
should fire him.

Two of the committee members who recommended suspension agreed the
misconduct was severe enough that CU could fire Churchill.

Churchill's fate is in the hands of provost Susan Avery, arts and
sciences dean Todd Gleeson and interim chancellor Phil DiStefano, who
are expected to announce a decision by mid-June.

Churchill, who received the report Tuesday morning, told 9News the
findings were false. He also said that no committee members were
competent in his field or any other areas discussed, except law, and
that people competent in his field were excluded.

Churchill took particular exception to a finding that he was
disrespectful of Indian oral traditions when he wrote about an 1837
smallpox epidemic. The committee was "a bunch of white academics" who
"overruled" what Native Americans have told him, he said. "I have
disrespected no one. They did," he said.

Churchill attorney David Lane told 9News he plans to take a case to
federal court if CU fires Churchill.

Churchill has two weeks to write a response to the report.

The committee investigated seven allegations against Churchill, finding
problems in six. They include his interpretation of Indian law and his
suggestion that the U.S. government intentionally spread smallpox to
Indians.

The committee said Churchill's tendency "is to attack" anyone
criticizing his work. The panel disagreed with his description of
scholarly process, calling it "impoverished."

The report quoted Churchill as saying this about his research methods:
"I've got this general understanding. You say, 'but can that general
understanding be confirmed?' Well, I'm looking to confirm it. I'm also
looking for information, and I told you this at the outset, I'm looking
to prove it's true."

The committee, consisting of three CU professors and two from other
universities, decided to keep secret the way each member voted.
Committee chairwoman Marianne Wesson, a CU law professor, said they had
been subjected to "a certain amount of abuse" from the public and wanted
the protection of confidentiality as they spoke with one another.

Politicians, including state Rep. Josh Penry of Grand Junction and state
Sen. Shawn Mitchell of Broomfield, both Republicans, called on CU to
fire the professor.

"The speech is free, but it doesn't mean he can enjoy it and maintain a
taxpayer-funded position," Mitchell said.

Gov. Bill Owens suggested Churchill resign, saying his "prolonged
presence ... besmirches the reputation of a fine university and its many
outstanding teachers."

The chairman of the university's regents, Paul Schauer, thanked the
committee for its work and declined to comment further, as did CU
president Hank Brown and other administrators.

If provost Avery and dean Gleeson recommend termination, Brown and the
regents will have the final decision, and they said they did not want to
influence the process.

Faculty council chair Rod Muth said the report shows that the Churchill
case is not the norm.

"Either the man is immensely sloppy or, as they indicate in the
findings, dishonest," Muth said. "For this many things to be
substantiated, it says the individual is not paying attention to
standards of scholarly practice."

The university has the legal right to suspend Churchill without pay for
two or five years, said J. Eric Elliff, counsel to CU's Standing
Committee on Research Misconduct.

The typical punishment in cases this serious is usually dismissal or
suspension of pay, said Jonathan Knight, director of academic freedom
and tenure at the American Association of University Professors.

Knight said Churchill has been given a fair investigation and is not
being pursued because of his controversial statements.

"From our point of view, there were requisite safeguards on his fitness
to continue," he said. "The report followed procedures."

The five-member ad hoc committee was formed by CU's Standing Committee,
which determined in September there was enough evidence against
Churchill for a full-blown investigation.

The Standing Committee now is looking into recent allegations against
Churchill by activist and author Ernesto Vigil.

Committee members have not announced whether Vigil's six accusations,
including that Churchill wrongly described Salvadoran peasants as
Indians and that he got the name of a village wrong, merit an in-depth
probe.

The investigation into Churchill's work began because of controversy
over his essay comparing some victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks to Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann, who managed plans to
exterminate European Jews. The essay surfaced in the public eye in
January 2005.

University administrators determined that free-speech rights prevented
Churchill from being punished for the essay, but regents voted in
February 2005 to review Churchill's work.

Staff writers Kevin Simpson, Arthur Kane and John Ingold contributed to
this report.

Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or
[e-mail].

[Okwes]

What happens next
Ward Churchill has two weeks to file a written response to the report
with the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct.

The committee will combine Churchill's response with the investigative
committee's report and write recommendations for action.

That document will go to Todd Gleeson, dean of arts and sciences, and
Susan Avery, provost, who will determine what sanctions, if any, will be
taken against Churchill.

The regents and CU president Hank Brown have the final say on whether
Churchill will be terminated.

Churchill can appeal to the Privilege and Tenure Committee.

Source: University of Colorado


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



The Churchill file
January 2005

Protests erupt over Ward Churchill's invitation to speak at Hamilton
College in New York because of an essay in which he called 9/11 victims
"little Eichmanns."

Churchill resigns as chair of the ethnic-studies department but retains
tenure.

February 2005

Gov. Bill Owens suggests Churchill resign.

University of Colorado regents apologize to "all Americans" for
Churchill's remarks.

In a fiery speech on campus, Churchill defends his writings.

Churchill's ethnic heritage is questioned, and he admits that he is an
"associate" of the Keetoowah Band of the Cherokee tribe, not a full
member, but says he is still part Cherokee.

Scholars elsewhere voice doubts about Churchill's work.

Regents form a panel to review his writings and speeches.

March 2005

CU president Betsy Hoffman resigns.

Regents consider a buyout offer for Churchill, but that shrivels after
accusations of plagiarism grow. They also find that the statements about
the 9/11 victims and advocacy of violence were protected by the First
Amendment. The University Standing Committee on Research Misconduct is
handed the investigation.

April 2005

Churchill submits a 50-page reply to CU questions.

Churchill admits he ghost-wrote under other scholars' names, stating the
scholars were colleagues who knew he had done so.

June 2005

CU begins examining its tenure- related procedures.

August 2005

The Standing Committee recommends investigating academic misconduct
allegations further.

September 2005

CU launches a full-blown investigation into seven allegations of
research misconduct against Churchill.

May 2006

The committee investigating the allegations hands over its report to the
University Standing Committee on Research Misconduct.

Churchill threatens to take the University of Colorado to federal court
if the "latest round of witch-hunting is not stopped."

Compiled by Jan Torpy and Vickie Makings of the Denver Post Research
Library


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Panel members
Chair: Marianne Wesson, professor of law, University of Colorado at
Boulder. Wesson specializes in criminal law, evidence, trial practice,
and law and literature.

Robert N. Clinton, professor of law, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law,
Arizona State University. Clinton is a co-author of case books on Indian
law and federal courts, and has written about federal Indian law,
American constitutional law and history, and federal courts.

José E. Limón, director, Center for Mexican-American Studies and
professor of American and English literature, University of Texas at
Austin. Limón, an anthropologist, has published widely about U.S.-Mexico
cultural relations, folklore, literature and popular culture.

Marjorie K. McIntosh, professor of history, University of Colorado at
Boulder. McIntosh has written four books and many articles about the
history of England, and has worked in Uganda and studied Yoruba women in
Nigeria.

Michael L. Radelet, professor and chair, Department of Sociology,
University of Colorado at Boulder. Radelet studies capital punishment
and racial biases in the death penalty.

Nonvoting members:

Linda Morris, Office of Research Integrity, University of Colorado at
Boulder.

J. Eric Elliff, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Denver, counsel to the
committee.


------------------------------

[Okwes]

The Footnote Police vs. Ward Churchill

By John K. Wilson

InsideHigherEd - May 19, 2006

www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/05/19/wilson

(John K. Wilson is the founder of the Web site College Freedom and the author of "Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies" forthcoming from Paradigm Publishers")

The University of Colorado committee investigating Ward

Churchill has found him guilty, guilty, guilty. And on some level, they're right: Churchill is guilty of occasionally shoddy

scholarship and the dubious practice of ghostwriting, and

perhaps even more. But we should be alarmed by the

investigative committee's report, and not merely because the

committee exists only because of a concerted effort to fire

Churchill for his obnoxious and idiotic comments about 9/11

victims.


By stretching the meaning of "research misconduct" far beyond its true definition, and by supporting the suspension and even dismissal of a tenured professor for his use of footnotes, the Colorado committee is opening the door to a vast new right-wing witch hunt on college campuses that conservatives could easily exploit across the country.


If you don't like a professor's politics, simply file a complaint

of "research misconduct." According to the Colorado

committee, if you can find a factual error made by the

professor with a footnote that fails to prove the contention, that

scholar is guilty of "research misconduct" and can be

suspended or fired.


The far right is already pursuing leftist academics for

expressing their views in the classroom. The American Council

of Trustees and Alumni just issued a report on "How Many Ward Churchills?,"

www.goacta.org/whats_new/How%20Many%20Ward%20Churchills.pdf

proclaiming that "professors are using their

classrooms to push political agendas." ACTA's alleged proof

that Ward Churchills are "common" on college campuses is a

survey of course catalogs and syllabi, objecting to classes that mention social justice, sex, or race. (The ACTA report

denounces a University of Colorado class on "Animals and

Society" because it "[e]xplores the moral status of animals.")


ACTA threatens that academic freedom will be revoked from

colleges unless they start censoring their professors and ban

such courses. Colleges "must also recognize that if they do not take swift and decisive action, they risk losing the

independence and the privilege they have traditionally

enjoyed." According to ACTA, "students, parents, trustees,

administrators, and taxpayers have a right to be concerned.

They also have the right to raise questions, demand answers,

and compel action."


Compelling action is also the goal of David Horowitz and his

Academic Bill of Rights legislation. In March, Horowitz testified

before the Kansas legislature. He denounced women's studies

programs as a violation of academic freedom and standards.

According to Horowitz, because the University of Kansas

Women's Studies program express a goal of educating students about "how and why gender inequality developed and is maintained in the United States and in our global society," it

should be banned. Since Horowitz thinks there may not be any gender inequality in the world, women's studies programs "can in no way be justified as taxpayer-supported programs."


Considering how effortlessly Horowitz misreads the meaning of

academic freedom under the AAUP standards, one can only

imagine how effectively he could distort "research misconduct"

to pursue his crusade against left-wing professors like those in

his book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. If Horowitz fails to get professors fired for talking about politics in their classes, he could try to have them fired for expressing controversial views in their research.

www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895260034/104-7034374-2407932?v=glance&n=283155

That's the harrowing possibility raised by the irresponsible

claims of the Colorado committee. They claim to be following

the University of Colorado's statement on Misconduct in

Research and Authorship, which defines research misconduct

as "fabrication, falsification, plagiarism and other forms of

misappropriation of ideas, or additional practices that seriously

deviate from


those that are commonly accepted in the research community

for proposing, conducting, or reporting research."


Because Colorado's policy explicitly exempts "honest error,"

the Colorado committee turned into a kind of character police.

Noting their dislike for Churchill's "attitude," the committee

members seem to have concluded without the slightest

evidence that Churchill intentionally deceived readers with his

footnotes.


For example, the Colorado committee concluded, "Professor

Churchill repeatedly and deliberately cited the General

Allotment Act of 1887 and once cited Janet McDowell's book for the details of historical and legal propositions that he advances.

Because both sources in fact contradict his claims, this is a

form of falsification of evidence." This logic is repeated in four

out of the seven charges against Churchill. The Colorado

committee's basis for the claim of fabrication depends upon a

fundamentally narrow-minded view of what a footnote should

be.


However, footnotes serve many purposes. A footnote is not

always definitive proof of the sentence being noted. It is

common practice for footnotes to be used in order to refer

readers to general works related to the period being discussed

(as Churchill does), and even to cite works which provide a

different or contradictory view of the era.


In my forthcoming book, Patriotic Correctness: Academic

Freedom and Its Enemies, I include a quote by former Bush

press secretary Ari Fleischer admonishing Americans to "watch what they say." I have a footnote listing a news report about the statement. But I also include in the footnote a reference to a letter to The New York Times by Fleischer explaining why he is being misinterpreted. I do not comment on this claim, because every word in my footnotes counts against the word limit for the book, and I don't want to waste precious space scrutinizing some political hack's line of bullmonkey. But I thought readers might want to look at a different view.


According to the Colorado committee, I have

committed "research misconduct." My footnote includes a

source contradicting my interpretation of the comment. On the

other hand, if I simply omitted the reference to Fleischer's

letter, and deprived readers of a chance to find a view

disagreeing with my perspective, I would be a perfectly fine

scholar in the committee's eyes.


There is no reputable source for the Colorado committee's

claim that footnotes cannot include sources who disagree with

the author. In order to evaluate the charge of research

misconduct, the Colorado committee proclaimed that it would

use the American Historical Association "Statement on

Standards of Professional Conduct" as "a general point of

reference." However, the AHA statement is not intended to be a basis for punishing professors. Indeed, if anything the AHA

justifies Churchill's approach by urging scholars to be "explicit,

thorough, and generous


in acknowledging one's intellectual debts." Nor does the AHA

statement include anything about the proper use of footnotes

which would justify a charge of falsification.


The Colorado committee provides a footnote quoting the AHA

statement that "historians pride themselves on the accuracy

with which they use and document sources. The sloppier their

apparatus, the harder it is for other historians to trust their

work." But there a vast difference between saying that lousy

footnotes will affect your credibility and claiming that lousy

footnotes can justify revocation of tenure.


In other words, the Colorado committee "proved" that Churchill

was guilty of research misconduct for providing footnotes that

did not support his claims by citing a footnote which did not

support its claims. It seems strange that a committee which

provides a thorough and fascinating account of the historical

minutiae surrounding an 1837 smallpox epidemic would

somehow fail to do any research on the meaning of fabrication

and research misconduct. The Colorado committee's shoddy

work on the meaning of fabrication and misconduct stands in

sharp contrast to its extensive research of the charges against

Churchill.


The problem is that when a policy largely developed to address

scientific misconduct is applied to the humanities, it must be

properly interpreted. For example, when the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology dismissed a professor last year for

research misconduct, it was because he literally fabricated

data. No one has ever accused Churchill of fabricating data

(such as making up historical sources). He is accused of

making broad claims, without adequate evidence, which are

probably wrong. That is lousy historical research, but it's not

research misconduct by any stretch of the imagination.


There is some evidence to find Churchill guilty on other charges of ghostwriting and plagiarism. But using footnotes as an excuse to fire Churchill makes the entire committee's findings look like political expediency to remove an embarrassment to the University of Colorado. By turning every case of bad research into research misconduct, the Colorado committee threatens to expose the entire academic system to a political witch hunt.

In an era when the right-wing is already targeting college professors for their extramural statements and political

comments in class, this radical revision of research standards

could mark the next step in the war on academic freedom.


=========

Further Thoughts on Plagiarism

In my essay here, I focused on the troubling definition of

research misconduct by the committee. I would be equally

troubled if David Horowitz took a massive pay cut and became

a tenured professor, and his errors in "The Professors" were

used to justify his dismissal. Bad research isn't misconduct.


I didn't address the plagiarism charges, which are somewhat

different. Churchill is found guilty of plagiarism for using

material from an article he co-wrote without crediting the

original organization that was the co-author. In another case,

he is found guilty of misconduct for ghostwriting an article. In

the final case, the Colorado committee finds him guilty of

plagiarism for an essay which does not bear his name and

which the committee acknowledges it cannot prove that he

wrote. None of these is a classic definition of plagiarism. The

question is, what is the common academic penalty for this?


I believe that many tenured professors should be fired for

research misconduct. I was outraged in 1996 when the

University of Chicago refused to fire history professor Julius

Kirshner who had taken a book review written by a graduate

student, and had it published solely under his own name, word

for word, in a scholarly journal. The University of Chicago

accepted Kirshner's explanation that he assumed he owned the ideas of his graduate assistant. The professor's punishment was that he would only be allowed to teach undergraduates, not graduate students, for five years.(see

eh.net/pipermail/eh.teach/1996-August/000104.html)


Compared to Kirshner, Churchill's crimes are minor. Churchill

deserves condemnation for his shoddy scholarship and

unethical practice of ghostwriting. And perhaps stronger

evidence might prove a claim of plagiarism. And this report

would certainly justify a refusal to hire or give tenure or

promotion to a professor. But suspending or firing a tenured

professor based on the shaky logic and inadequate evidence

provided by the committee is difficult to justify, and it is

doubtful that a less controversial professor in similar

circumstances would receive the same treatment.

[Okwes]

Churchill will not issue reply

Churchill will not issue reply
Attorney: Report indicates a 'looming dismissal'
By Vanessa Miller and Brittany Anas, Camera Staff Writers
May 18, 2006
www.dailycamera.com/bdc/buffzone_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2448_470
7989,00.html
University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill will not respond
formally to a panel's findings that he plagiarized and fabricated
research because administrators have predetermined they will fire him,
his attorney said Wednesday.
CU has given Churchill two weeks to respond to the panel's stinging
report, which found a pattern of blatant academic misconduct in his
written work. Four of the panel members said CU should suspend the
tenured professor without pay, and the other member said he should be
fired.
Attorney David Lane said administrators have not said directly they will
fire his client, but he said the report clearly indicates a looming
dismissal for Churchill.
The five-member investigative panel "already knows our response," Lane
said.
Churchill, who first came under fire for an essay comparing Sept. 11,
2001, victims to a Nazi bureaucrat, defended himself against the
academic misconduct allegations one year ago in a 50-page, single-spaced
report. The response filed with CU preceded the formation of the
five-member investigative panel.
"It seems like a big waste of time," Lane said of preparing another
formal response.
CU spokesman Barrie Hartman said Churchill doesn't have to send a
response to CU's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct, which will
make a recommendation on his fate after reviewing the panel's findings.
"At the end of the two weeks they will ask where his response is, but he
wouldn't have to write one," Hartman said.
Churchill has said he will fight for his job and sue the university if
he is fired.
He is not scheduled to teach any classes at CU next semester.
Albert Ramirez, chairman of the ethnic studies department, said
Churchill plans to take advantage of the "bank" time that he earned by
teaching extra classes in past semesters.
Wife slams CU
Churchill's wife, Natsu Saito, resigned from her tenured associate
professor position at CU on May 1 and said she will commute to Atlanta
during the fall semester to teach two courses at Georgia State
University.
Her resignation letter, which she shared with the Daily Camera on
Wednesday, heavily criticized CU's administration, saying it doesn't
support ethnic studies and is not committed to recruiting and retaining
faculty and students of color.
Saito praised the ethnic studies department and its students, but she
said CU treats the field of study as "cultural fluff" and is not
committed to establishing a graduate ethnic studies program.
She wrote that she was never promoted to full professor, despite an
assurance from the school that she would be.
Saito also wrote that Churchill and other members of the ethnic studies
department were inundated with racist threats after his essay drew
national criticism, but requests for support and added security went
unanswered by administrators.
"Much of this could have been averted had a responsible administrator
simply made a public statement condemning the racism and threats of
violence," Saito's letter says. "Instead, the administration encouraged
such expression of hate by repeatedly and publicly attacking Professor
Churchill."
Saito also raises concerns with CU's "treatment" of Churchill, saying
that the school tossed out his strong record of scholarship, teaching
and community service when he articulated a politically unacceptable
perspective.
"This has an obvious and, I believe, intended chilling effect on all of
us," Saito wrote. "People of color are particularly vulnerable."
Contact Camera Staff Writer Vanessa Miller at [phone] or
[e-mail].
Contact Camera Staff Writer Brittany Anas at [phone] or
[e-mail].


Cara Cowan Watts
Cherokee Nation Tribal Council
District 7 - Will Rogers
P.O. Box 2922
Claremore, OK 74018
F: 918 341-3753
C: 918 752-4342
Email: [e-mail]
Url: www.caracowan.com
American Indian Science and Engineering Society: www.aises.org
Important Cherokee Nation Links - Utilize these websites for job
opportunities, understanding services and more!
Cherokee Nation: www.cherokee.org
Cherokee Heritage Center: www.cherokeeheritage.org

Cherokee Nation Housing: www.hacn.org
Cherokee Nation Enterprises: www.cherokeecasino.com

Cherokee Nation Industries: www.cnicnd.com/
Talking Leaves Job Corp: www.tljcc.com
Sequoyah High School: www.sequoyah.k12.ok.us/

[blackcrowheart]

Ward Woes (issue update)



www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2006/06/04/news/columnists/jenkinson/115802.txt


The truth behind Ward Churchill's 'history'
(This is the second of two columns Clay Jenkinson has written on
University of Colorado ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill. The
first appeared May 21.)

The University of Colorado will decide this month whether to discipline
or fire embattled professor Ward Churchill, who gained national
attention for his essay, published just after the 9/11 attacks,
suggesting that the employees of the World Trade Center's twin towers
were "little Eichmanns," that is, banal agents of America's genocidal
agenda in the world. My purpose today is to examine Churchill's claim
that the 1837 smallpox epidemic among the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara
was deliberately initiated by the U.S. Army.

Because CU could not fire Churchill for his comments about 9/11, which
are protected both by the First Amendment and the principle of academic
freedom, it created a blue ribbon committee to investigate the quality
of his research. Although this seems unfair - the issue that sparked the
national controversy was not Churchill's general capacities as a scholar
- the fair-minded committee discovered that Churchill is guilty of
fabrication and falsification of evidence, and plagiarism.

The CU investigation team devoted most of its attention to one of the
most horrific events in North Dakota history - the 1837 smallpox
epidemic that reduced the population of the Mandan Indians from about
2,000 to something under 150. Churchill has repeatedly claimed that the
epidemic was an act of genocide.

Here are the most basic facts. In 1837 the steamboat St. Peter's
journeyed up the Missouri River from St. Louis to the mouth of the
Yellowstone. It was carrying trade goods and annuities for the Missouri
River Indian tribes. On April 17 the boat left St. Louis. Sometime
before April 29, when the St. Peter's reached Fort Leavenworth, someone
on board had become sick with what was soon determined to be smallpox.

An Indian agent on board urged the captain, Bernard Pratte Jr., to
remove the sick man from the boat at Leavenworth, but the captain
refused. By the time the boat reached Council Bluffs, others on board
were ill. Still, the St. Peter's continued to move up the Missouri, in
spite of the fact that everyone on board knew that it was carrying the
deadly disease. One of the Indian agents on board, Joshua Pilcher, sent
word upriver that smallpox had broken out on the boat and that Indians
should be instructed to keep away from the boat as it ascended the
river. This proved to be impossible.

On June 19, the St. Peter's stopped overnight at Fort Clark, near
today's Stanton. Even though by now a number of people on board were
either sick, recovering or carrying the killer disease, crew and
passengers went ashore to "frolic" with the Indians. At the same time,
three Arikara women who had boarded the boat near Council Bluffs
disembarked and returned to their homes near Fort Clark.

By mid-July smallpox was raging through the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara
villages. By the time the epidemic had run its course, an estimated 70
percent of the Hidatsa, 50 percent of the Arikara and more than 90
percent of the Mandan people were dead.

Just pause a minute to look up from your newspaper and think about that.
What if a disease swept through Bismarck beginning today, and 50,000 of
the 56,000 people here died within the next six weeks? Remember, too,
that this was the second smallpox epidemic to visit the Mandan people.
Back in the 1750s the Mandan population had been something like 20,000,
clustered in nine to 13 villages near the mouth of the Heart River. The
first great smallpox epidemic struck in 1781-82. The first epidemic
reduced the Mandan population to approximately 1,250, according to
census figures compiled by Lewis and Clark.

Churchill has written about the 1837 epidemic at least six times in his
prolific career. His argument varies a little from essay to essay, as do
his "facts," but the main point is epitomized by a statement in the
essay, "Bringing the Law Home." "At Fort Clark on the upper Missouri
River, for instance, the U.S. Army distributed smallpox-laden blankets
as gifts among the Mandan. The blankets had been gathered from a
military infirmary in St. Louis where troops infected with the disease
were quarantined."

There is no evidence that the Army played any role whatsoever in this
catastrophe. There is no evidence that U.S. troops were quarantined in
St. Louis in 1837. The St. Peter's was a purely commercial vessel,
plying the Missouri River because there was money to be made in carrying
goods from St. Louis to distant ports.

There is no evidence that individuals of the fur trade had any desire to
infect Indians with smallpox. From the time of Lewis and Clark on, the
Mandan always had been considered friendly Indians, and white
entrepreneurs understood that they played a positive, though by 1837
minor, role in the Indian trade.

All the available evidence suggests that the epidemic had commercial,
not military, origins, and that the epidemic was callously accidental,
not deliberate. It would be exceedingly unlikely that the Army or
commercial institutions would spread disease among Indians by infecting
their fellow white men with it first.

Nor would it be sane for a commercial trading company deliberately to
kill off its customers. The evidence suggests that smallpox broke out on
the St. Peter's early in its 1837 voyage, and the captain had an
opportunity to take action (turning the boat around, for example) that
would have reduced the chances of the disease spreading to the Upper
Missouri tribes. He chose to complete his voyage - for commercial
reasons - and the result was what some have described as "an American
holocaust."

The CU investigative committee concluded (May 16) that Churchill
falsified available evidence, ignored oral traditions among the infected
tribes, and fabricated "evidence" to bolster his argument.

The committee consulted two North Dakotans in its investigation: Marilyn
Hudson of the Three Tribes Museum at New Town and Mark Timbrook of Minot
State University. Hudson reported "that she is unaware of any oral
traditions among the Mandan that indicate that the source of the
epidemic was infected blankets from the U.S. Army." Timbrook agreed.

So why did Churchill deliberately distort the truth about an incident
that, all by itself with nothing but universally agreed upon facts, is
so horrible that it is almost impossible to think about it without
becoming sick to one's stomach? Answer: it is useful to his cultural
politics to "prove" that the United States government deliberately
engaged in a policy of Indian genocide.

That's what makes Churchill so dangerous. Instead of exploring the messy
flux of American history he prefers a simplistic picture in which
Indians are uniformly innocent and good, while the white conquerors are
uniformly evil and in this case genocidal.

Instead of accepting the fact that things are seldom as simple as they
can be made to seem, or embracing the fact that most things exist in the
gray zone, not in a morally crisp black and white universe, Churchill
prefers to write a kind of comic book version of history. It is a
caricature that does disservice to the majority of white people who
lived and worked in the American West, and disservice to American
Indians, whom Churchill dehumanizes by portraying as victimized saints,
always wronged, never wrongdoing.

The truth is more devastating than Churchill's revisionist myth. It
seems likely that the white traders who owned or operated the St.
Peter's knew they were endangering Missouri River Indians when they let
a smallpox-infected steamboat move upriver after the first case had been
diagnosed on board.

Apparently they regarded their mercantile schedule and their opportunity
for profits as more important than the health of the Indians who lived
along the Missouri. They weren't attacking an enemy. They were just
indifferent. They were more committed to making money than to human
welfare. Thank goodness that era of American history is over.

(Clay Jenkinson is the Theodore Roosevelt scholar-in-residence at
dickinson State University. He lives in Bismarck. E-mail Jenkinson at
Jeffysage@;aol.com.)


Comments

Richard Allen Morton wrote on June 04, 2006 1:04 PM:"Well-done and thank
you! Please keep up your expose of Churchill's rape of scholarly values
and historical truth. So glad this made the Yahoo news list and I hope
it finds additional national release!"

[blackcrowheart]

Prof. Ward Churchill Vows to Fight Efforts to Terminate Him From the
University of Colorado
[http://static.flickr.com/119/255963440_6414392767_m.jpg]
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/97892906@N00/255963440/>
Ward Churchill is Threatened With Dismissal as a Tenured Professor at
the University of Colorado
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/97892906@N00/255963440/>
Originally uploaded by panafnewswire
<http://www.flickr.com/people/97892906@N00/> . Ward Churchill Defends
His Academic Record & Vows to Fight to Keep His Job at University of
Colorado

Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
panafricannews.blogspot.com/2006/09/prof-ward-churchill-vows-to-f\
ight.html
<http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2006/09/prof-ward-churchill-vows-to-\
fight.html>