will someone think of the children?

Ooh, the days of the millions of Coloradians being victimized by false ethnic studies literature will soon be over. I wonder what will become of the children who were mislead by reading his popular works that were not properly researched. Can they be saved? Will Colorado ever regain its status as a multi-ethnic studies powerhouse with the large TV contracts that come with nationally-ranked MES lectures?

Larry, at 6:25 am EDT on June 27, 2006

Sarcasm & Critical Thinking

It is a little difficult to know just exactly what Larry & LL are saying, except that they do not approve of Churchill & of those that have defended his rights under long-established procedures. I’m no fan of Churchill’s. I have said in the forum previously that his violations of academic standards warrant dismissal. But to insist that dismissal be for cause and that the causes themselves be determined by competent judges. The best judges of academic misconduct are other academics. That, as I understand it is the AAUP position. It is doctors who determine when the medical license of a colleague should be revoked; it is lawyers who vote to disbar a colleague who has committed a serious offense. This is standard practice and completely unsurprising to most people, but to LL & others it is apparently an affront to reason. I suspect that the real motive for Larry’s & LL’s sarcasm is an irrational hatred of the tenure system itself. Clearly, both would prefer a system in which academics could be fired at the whim of a dean or president, or because of political pressure from outside the university. As if the mayor of my town could shut down the law or medical practices of attorneys and physicians she didn’t like, or who opposed her politically.

Joseph Duemer, Professor at Clarkson University, at 8:15 am EDT on June 27, 2006

clearing things up for Joseph

Joseph, First of all, without exception, anyone that invokes the term “critical thinking” is not addressing an argument on the merits, but rather declaring their opponent to be stupid in a “nice” way. Second of all, in other posts I have been very clear: 1) I do not take a position on Churchill’s scholarship (or lack thereof); 2) I do not think the actual committees engaged in any malfeasance (though the initial charges may be politically motivated); 3) I am not against tenure, in fact I think it is a very important thing, and institutions and academics should understand its value (by the same token, I think it is hypocritical to assume that life-tenured judges are political hacks); and 4) in the last post I was mocking all the people who think that somehow they were defrauded or injured by Churchill. At the very worst, he committed a form of academic misconduct. Not fraud. It is very difficult to point to someone that was actually injured by him. Certainly not people in the state of Colorado. It is also unlikely that other scholars relied on the works in question, anyway.

Thomassowellfan, For better or worse, having an MA is, one of the most “basic” of standards to teach in a field. If you go through the bios of faculty at most school you will, I guarantee you, find at least a few people with less than terminal degrees teaching in some fields (e.g. journalists teaching in political science.) I don’t necessarily approve of this but these people will prattle on and on about “life experience” and maturity.

Larry, at 9:20 am EDT on June 27, 2006

response to DaveS

DaveS, Since you concede that the proceedings were not based on his heritage (and I seriously doubt that he was hired simply because he was an “Indian”) you are left with your argument he committed a fraud because he didn’t engage in “quality” scholarship. As I understand it, it his misconduct did not include writing under a pseudonym, so that part doesn’t matter. Assuming (as I do) that he plagiarized or didn’t throughly research (an unfortunate trait of many academics) he still did not affirmatively mislead people into paying him money, and nobody has shown that they relied on his representations to their detriment.

In another post, I provided the elements of fraud in a commentator’s home state.

If you are interested, in your state, the elements of civil fraud are thus: (1) the defendant made a false representation to the plaintiff; (2) the falsity of the representation was either known to; the defendant or the representation was made with reckless indifference to its truth,; (3) the misrepresentation was made for the purpose of defrauding the plaintiff; (4) the plaintiff relied on the misrepresentation and had the right to rely on it, and (5) the plaintiff suffered compensable of the misrepresentation. Hoffman v. Stamper, 385 Md. 1, 28 (2005).

As you can see, fraud generally requires an actual victim, and actual, calculable damages, together with actual reliance. I find the whole situation humorous because I don’t think that anyone actually relies on anything that anyone teaching MES says.

While Mr. Churchil’s conduct l is disturbing to me for a number of reasons (which most people here don’t seem to care about), his conduct was simply not, as a legal matter, fraudulent. Perhaps if he had misrepresented his credentials (which, as you admit, nobody alledges), or falsified travel vouchers it would be fraud.

Finally, I seriously doubt that he was getting paid “big bucks.” He was never a superstar, and therefore he probably earned someone near the lower-middle of academic salaries. My guess is that most computer programmers his age earn more than him (though they may lack tenure.)

Larry, at 11:15 am EDT on June 27, 2006

Clarifications

Larry, thank you for clarifying your positions. I was unable to read them through the sarcasm of your earlier post. But I reject your assertion that calling for critical thinking is a nice way of calling someone stupid: I ask my students to think critically all the time & I don’t think they are stupid. They are, however, often moved to argue from an emotional response rather than an examination of the evidence. You will forgive me if I have not committed your previous posts on these matter to memory, or saved them to disk for future reference.

Thomassowellfan, you seem to assume that Churchill is somehow typical of academics, who, according to you, “to demonstrate greater skill and maturity.” I suggest that you & other critics of higher education who have fastened on the Churchill case are generalizing from a single case in an attempt to demonize academia & the tenure system. This is not only logically fallacious, but intellectually dishonest. Which are exactly the sins Churchill has been found guilty of by his peers.

Joseph Duemer, Professor at Clarkson University, at 11:15 am EDT on June 27, 2006

Mr. Duemer, As to critical thinking, it is probably better to simply point out a logical flaw in an “emotional” argument, then to dismiss it as “uncritical” or lacking “critical thinking.” I realize this probably dignifies unworthy things with a response, it is a more effective means to influence 3d parties who might be on the fence. For example, I know and you know that many people are just yelping about Churchill because they see him as a way of scapegoating people they politically disagree with. They have little interest in MES, and probably see the entire field as a flaky subject that their daughters will study until the find a “man.” (That was almost a direct quote from an MES parent.) Since they are so offended by 1) the fact that Churchill had a plum job and they didn’t; and 2) Chruchill (despite being a veteran) made some strange remark (that I don’t understand) that indicates a distaste for New Yorkers, they have drummed up all sort of exaggerated arguments about why he is the most evil of evils to infect academe. I think we need to simply pretend that we don’t care about their motivations, and address their arguments as if they even purported to be logical. This way, perhaps, others may be inspired to put him into perspective, take academic freedom seriously, and perhaps devise a coherent boundary between political speech and academic speech.

LL, For what it is worth, in many places 80% or more doctors and lawyers work for tax-payer funded entities (especially if you include work done for these entities, or work compensated via government programs).

Larry, at 1:35 pm EDT on June 27, 2006

Churchill down and out

Despite the tortured logic and pathetic misspellings in edgy Michael’s comment, the effort to dismiss phony Indian Churchill are rooted in his own failures, deceptions and lies.

The guy is a fool, a fraud and a rank ideologue. He confirms all the stereotypes about ethnic race baiters that conservative critics have lodged at universities.

It is hard to imagine a worse poster boy for the absurdities and irrelevance of ethnic studies than Ward Churchill.

Shannon, at 1:50 pm EDT on June 27, 2006

Academic freedom and Full Range of Scholarly Views

Ward Chruchill and his dismissal re a move in the right direction. As a proponent of free speech, we must be sure however, that our children, the future of this country are getting an education that allows academic discourse, and to have intellectual debates surrounding the issues taught. Ward Churchill is getting fired for his statements made that do not properly represent his background and his plagerism. Teaching bad history is not against the law, but allowing it to proliferate, so that each generation of students to be subject to these views is a shame. I am glad to see that the University is acting out of ijts repect for academic credentials and truth.

Allyson Rowen Taylor, Assoc. Director at American Jewish Congress, at 3:05 pm EDT on June 27, 2006

A few facts

Since there’s a lot of comment here about whether or not Ward Churchill “defrauded” anybody, here are a few facts: Churchill is paid $110,000 annually — this is AFTER he resigned the directorship of the Ethnic Studies Department last year. As Department Director, he was making almost $130,000. This is based on local newspaper reports.

Churchill most definitely used his declared status as a Native American to get tenure at CU. He told his superiors at the time that although he did not have a PhD, the California University system was begging him to come there because of his status as a tribal member. CU bought his story and granted an early tenureship in order to keep him. He never finished the PhD.

Churchill has been credibly accused of plagiarism and fraud not just in his academic writings, but in his painting. Yes, he has a side business — he’s been representing himself as a Native American painter for years. The family of a well-known Native American painter (now dead) has been accusing Churchill of blatant copying of their relative’s work. He sells it for big bucks at galleries in the southwest.

Churchill’s response to this accusation has been that the original painter told him verbally that it would be all right for Churchill to copy his work and sell it as his own. Whatever. Do you think the people who bought the work of the “renowned Native American artist, Ward Churchill” are feeling a little defrauded?

Do you think that someone who has shown over years of behavior a consistent disregard for truth or ethics should be a professor? Of anything?

Disagree over the way CU finally came to uncover the dirty laundry. The fact is, legitimate academics should recoil from Churchill and his career-long con.

LeeAnn, at 5:10 pm EDT on June 27, 2006

Now back to Ward Churchill. I’ll have to admit it was stupid of him to claim to be Indian, but I’m not all bent out of shape about it. After all, I live in a country in which the president claims to have served in the National Guard, the vice president claims to have no interest in Halliburton, and one of its most revered (76-year-old) evangelists claims to leg bench press 2,000 pounds on a regular basis. Their God works in strange and mysterious ways.

Prof. Churchill has little or no Amerindian ancestry.

The President served two years on active duty in the National Guard, learning to fly fighter jets; he appeared for obligatory musters for an additional three years before being honorably discharged.

Does Mr. Cheney own stock in Halliburton, or does he not? If not, he has no formal interest in that company.

Pat Robertson has a following, but it is largely limited to Charismatics and Pentacostalists, who are a small minority in the country in which you live (a minority which does not include evangelicals of the fundamentalist or generic stripe).

Art Deco, garden gnome at Whatsamatta U, at 8:30 pm EDT on June 27, 2006

LeeAnn, Just because someone is accused of something doesn’t mean that they did it. Mr. Churchill is not being disciplined for his painting or even for fraud. You did not provide specifics on how “Churchill most definitely used his declared status as a Native American to get tenure at CU.” Perhaps if you provided specifics about how he would not have gotten tenure had he not been an Indian, you would have an argument, but until then, I think that you are just repeating some propaganda written by people who really don’t like him. Also, you don’t seem to even bother to define “fraud” on your own or used the state law definition I provided earlier.

They all hired Prof. Churchill, who has no doctoral degree, whose master’s degree was earned in a curious and less than eminent locale, because............

Anyway, I would really like to see someone sue Churchill for damage to them, and assert actual damages that would make it past summary judgment. This would be one awesome lawsuit.

Perhaps a disgruntled Colorado taxpayer might bring suit against the people who hired Mr. Churchill and in so doing disregarded what are almost universal minimum standards for academic employment in the liberal arts. Alternatively, an enterprising prosecutor might persuade a judge and jury that these state employees were not licensed and priveleged to make use of state facilities for academic instruction as a patronage program for harlequins, and are thus guilty of misfeasance.

Art Deco, at 5:35 am EDT on June 28, 2006

Can’t Argue With Art Deco …

Art Deco says …

“The President served two years on active duty in the National Guard, learning to fly fighter jets; he appeared for obligatory musters for an additional three years before being honorably discharged.” Please read …

http://web.archive.org/web/200101...Bush_s_service_as_Guard_pilot+.shtml

Professor Deco asks “Does Mr. Cheney own stock in Halliburton, or does he not? If not, he has no formal interest in that company.” Please read …

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005...ock_options_rose_3281_last_1011.html

And about Pat Robertson pumping iron, please read …

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/26/D8HRMIQG0.html

Mr. Deco claims “Professor Pat Robertson has a following, but it is largely limited to Charismatics and Pentacostalists, who are a small minority in the country in which you live (a minority which does not include evangelicals of the fundamentalist or generic stripe).”

I’m not certain what his point is there, but I remind him that before Robertson withdrew from the Republican presidential primary races in 1988, he won caucuses in Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Washington and he made respectable showings in Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota. According to his web-site, “… [we] shocked the political world in the early maneuvering by scoring a resounding victory in Michigan. Then in the crucial preliminary straw balloting in Iowa — which had broken Jimmy Carter out of the pack in 1975 — [we] beat all the candidates and gave me resounding victory over a sitting vice president and the minority leader of the United States Senate. Excluding Michigan, which frankly, was stolen from [us, we], had won four states, scored second in about eight more, and had brought me a third place finish out of a field of six with 1.9 million votes.”

Anyone inclined to discount the importance of Pat Robertson and the “religious right” in American NATIONAL politics, should spend the next few days reading Kevin Phillips, “American Theocracy.”

Finally, Professor Deco wrote “Prof. Churchill has little or no Amerindian ancestry.”

To that I can only reply …

http://indianz.com/News/2005/006365.asp

RWH, at 11:00 am EDT on June 28, 2006

I Love To Gossip!

I have just had one hell of a lot of fun.

It started yesterday when I was sitting out on the lanai reading Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” (which is great) when the tennis pro where I play when I’m out here on vacation called to ask me if I’d like to hit with one of the club members, someone I had never met. I was there within fifteen minutes, and we had a great match.

Afterwards we’re sitting there having a drink and shooting the breeze when, out of the blue, he asked me if I knew anything about Ward Churchill. One thing led to the other and he asked me if I had read that book (he couldn’t remember the title) by David Horowitz. Frankly I was floored. I have been reading all of these responses to essays in InsideHigherEd that essentially say, “Oh, that’s just the intellectual masturbation of a bunch of academics, and no one else even knows who those guys are … and they’re certainly not influenced by them.” And here is this orthopedic surgeon from the mainland who has been living on the Kailua-Kona Coast overlooking Kealakekua Bay for the past twenty years and he’s quizzing me about Churchill and Horowitz.

But the fun was just beginning. It turns out that my tennis opponent grew up in Springfield, Illinois, wanted to play small-college football and tennis, and ended up at Sangamon State (now the University of Illinois at Springfield) at precisely the same time that guess who, Ward Churchill, was getting his BA and MA there. My new friend said Sangamon State had a richly deserved reputation for being a “degree mill” at which, according to him, “you pays yer money and you gets yer degree.” Since one of my hobbies is “knowing about” colleges and universities and visiting campuses wherever I go, we chatted on about his alma mater.

When I got home I went straight to Churchill’s web-site, and, sure enough, he owns up to being a graduate of that esteemed university, but right there in a very prominent spot (and God knows how long it‘s been there) he misspelled the name of his double alma mater (Sangaman) …

http://www.colorado.edu/EthnicStudies/faculty/churchill.html

One day — and only for the purpose of proving to the world that I don’t have a life — I actually read two of his research papers, and whew … those two are best read while wearing nose clips. Nevertheless, I happened to notice that all of the papers in his short list were published between 1991 and 1996 … and I suppose the Common Courage Press must be big in the ethnic studies field. One paper is titled “Indians Are Us? …” I imagined Churchill must have been influenced by Pogo who surely must have said, “We have met the Indians, and they are us.” But it’s not whether they are us but whether we are them that got him into hot water.

What I think is either hilarious or tragic — depending on my mood — is that the University of Colorado can get away with boasting that it is “a world class university … CU-Boulder is recognized as one of the outstanding public universities in the United States” (see the “Academics” cover page on its web-site). I would like anyone — and I mean anyone — to explain what decision processes preceded their (1) giving this guy a tenure-track position in the first place, (2) granting him tenure, (3) promoting him to professor, and (4) making him a department chair.

I am telling this story, not as a criticism of Ward Churchill. Indeed, I think he is a marvelous example of an over-achiever who has done his level best with only very meager tools for the job. That “world-class university,” on the other hand, has a great deal for which to apologize. They must have breathed a sigh of relief when they discovered he is guilty of plagiarism. Firing him for plagiarism most assuredly distracts attention from the intellectual prostitution, professional timidity, and mind-bogglingly inept decision-making of more than a few CU decision-makers who have rewarded Churchill for whatever at various stages of his career. Indeed, if I were the author of that “world-class university” quote I would prostrate myself in reverence every time I strolled past the CU physics department where a couple of Nobel Prize winners reside, all the while praying this Ward Churchill stuff will just blow over.

I don’t want to close on a negative note, so let me recommend “From ‘Radical University’ to Handmaiden of the Corporate State,” a brief history of Sangamon State by Ron Sakolsky and Dennis Fox …

http://www.dennisfox.net/uis/state-agent.html

It’s worth reading. For me, it’s back to “Collapse.”

RWH, at 8:05 pm EDT on June 28, 2006

Now you have done it

RWH, Something tells me that by sundown, after people read your post, there will be lots of negative reviews of his books, insisting that they are all lies and such.

Larry, at 6:30 am EDT on June 29, 2006

Hitler and Academic Freedom

Dear Governor Owens, The students of Hamilton College, Prince Harry and you Governor would do well to review the facts of German Nazi history. Start with Werner Heisenberg’s conversation with a National Socialist student and the father of German science Max Planck in his “Revolution and University Life (1933)” one of a set of essays under the title of Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations. Jewish professors are summary being removed from their tenured positions and so Werner Heisenberg is reduced to asking Max Planck whether or not he should stay or flee Germany. Max replies that, “I see no hope of stopping the catastrophe that is about to engulf all our universities, indeed our whole country.” On his assessment of his last attempt to converse with Hitler Planck laments that, “All the time, one has the fatal impression that he believes all the nonsense he pours forth, and that he indulges his own delusions by ignoring all outside influences. He is so possessed by his so-called ideas that he is no longer open toargument. A man like that can only lead Germany into disaster.” Bush is leading America into a disaster not unlike the Nazi German past Mr. Owen. And if you are with him, then in my mind you practice what John Stuart Mill refers to in From on Liberty as “a peculiar evil.” Say Professor (as in profess) Ward’s opinion is right, we are robbed of the “opportunity of exchanging error for truth.” Supposing that Mr. Ward were wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in “its collision with error.” You seem to suppose only your own side of the argument, and so I hardly know even that; it becomes stale, that you appear to have learned only by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth. The trustees would do well to ignore your malicious defamation and recommendation and give a full and fair airing of the arguments in order to avoid the “evil” you want to practice. That would help avoid a catastrophe Governor. Our so-called President’s, “Shut up and color” doesn’t begin to cut it. Better to “think of the time after the catastrophe,” as Max Planck advised Werner. The students should be applauded for the concerns and support for academic freedom and free speech in American society. Praise be for President Joan Hinde Stewart but get Ward back to Hamilton. Ignore the jackels and the Governor of Colorado.I am Citizen Michael John Keenan

post script....apparently fascism is alive and well in Colorado academia.

Michael John Keenan, Citizen, at 8:35 pm EDT on July 21, 2006