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June 30, 2006
A Lesson From the Churchill Inquiry
Ward Churchill should be fired for academic misconduct — that’s the decision made by the interim chancellor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, after receiving a report from a faculty committee concluding that Churchill is guilty of falsification, fabrication and plagiarism. That report shows that, even under difficult political conditions, it’s possible to do a good job dealing with charges of research misconduct. The Colorado report on Churchill provides a striking contrast to the flawed 2002 Emory University report on Michael Bellesiles, the historian of gun culture in America, who was found guilty of “falsification” in one table. The contrast says a lot about the ways universities deal with outside pressure demanding that particular professors be fired.
Related stories
- American Studies on Offense and Defense, Oct. 15, 2007
- Changing Geographies of American Studies, Oct. 12, 2007
- The Footnote Police vs. Ward Churchill, May 19, 2006
- Truth and Consequences, May 17, 2006
- A Meeting of Humanistic Minds, May 15, 2006
Churchill is the Native American activist and professor of ethnic studies at Colorado who famously declared that some of the people killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 were “little Eichmanns.” In the furor that followed, the governor of Colorado demanded that the university fire Churchill; the president of the university defended his right to free speech, but then — facing a series of controversies — resigned. Churchill’s critics then raised charges that his writings were full of fabrications and plagiarism, and the university appointed a committee of faculty members to evaluate seven charges of specific instances of research misconduct. Their 124-page report, released on May 16, concluded that Churchill’s misconduct was serious and was not limited to a few isolated cases, but was part of a pattern. The panel divided on an appropriate penalty: one recommended revoking his tenure and dismissing him, two recommended suspension without pay for five years, while two others recommended that he be suspended without pay for two years.
One key instance of “falsification and fabrication” was Churchill’s writing about the Mandan, an Indian tribe living in what is now North Dakota, who were decimated by a smallpox epidemic in 1837. The Mandan, Churchill argues, provide one example of how American Indians were the victims of genocide. In an essay titled “An American Holocaust?,” he wrote that the U.S. Army infected the Mandan with smallpox by giving them contaminated blankets in a deliberate effort to “eliminate” them. Churchill footnotes several sources as providing evidence for this claim, including UCLA anthropologist Russell Thornton’s book American Indian Holocaust and Survival. But Thornton’s book says the opposite: the Army did not intentionally give infected blankets to the Mandan. None of Churchill’s other sources provide support for his claim. Nevertheless Churchill repeated his argument in six publications over a period of ten years, during which his claims about official U.S. policy toward the Mandan “generally became more extreme.” He refused to admit to the committee that his claims were not supported by the evidence he cited. Therefore, the committee concluded, Churchill was guilty of “a pattern of deliberate academic misconduct involving falsification [and] fabrication.” The panel members came to similar conclusions regarding five other charges.
The five-member Colorado committee worked under a cloud: The only reason they were asked to look at his academic writing was that powerful political voices outside the university wanted Churchill fired for his statement about 9/11. After the university refused to fire him for statements protected by the First Amendment, his critics raised charges of research misconduct, hoping to achieve their original goal. What are the responsibilities of an investigating committee in such a highly-charged political situation?
In this respect the Ward Churchill case has some striking similarities to the case Michael Bellesiles, who was an Emory University historian when he wrote Arming America, a book that won considerable scholarly praise when it first appeared — and that aroused a storm of outrage because of its argument that our current gun culture was not created by the Founding Fathers. Pro-gun activists demanded that Emory fire Bellesiles, raising charges of research misconduct. Historians too sharply criticized some of his research. Emory responded by appointing a committee that found “evidence of falsification;” Bellesiles then resigned his tenured position.
Although the cases have some striking similarities, starting with the political pressures that gave rise to the investigations and concluding with findings of “falsification,” the differences are significant and revealing. The Emory committee concluded that Bellesiles’ research into probate records was “unprofessional and misleading” as well as “superficial and thesis-driven,” and that his earlier explanations of errors “raise doubts about his veracity.” But the panel found “evidence of falsification” only on one page: Table 1, “Percentage of probate inventories listing firearms.” They did not find that he had “fabricated data.” The “falsification” occurred when Bellesiles omitted two years from the table, which covered almost a century — 1765 to 1859. The two years, 1774 and 1775, would have shown more guns, evidence against his thesis that Americans had few guns before the Civil War.
But the Emory committee failed to consider how significant this omission was for the book as a whole. In fact the probate research criticized by the committee was referred to in only a handful of paragraphs in Bellesiles’s 400 page book, and he cited the problematic Table 1 only a couple of times. If Bellesiles had omitted all of the probate data that the committee (and others) criticized, the book’s argument would still have been supported by a wide variety of other relevant evidence that the committee did not find to be fraudulent.
The Colorado committee, in contrast, made it a point to go beyond the narrow charges they were asked to adjudicate. They acknowledged that the misconduct they found concerned “no more than a few paragraphs” in an “extensive body of academic work.” They explicitly raised the question of “why so much weight is being assigned to these particular pieces.” They went on to evaluate the place of the misconduct they found in Churchill’s “broader interpretive stance,” and presented evidence of “patterns of academic misconduct” that were intentional and widespread.
The two committees also took dramatically different approaches to the all-important question of sanctions. At Emory the committee members never said what they considered an appropriate penalty for omitting 1774 and 1775 from his Table 1. They did not indicate whether any action by Emory was justified — or whether the harsh criticism Bellesiles received from within the profession was penalty enough.
The Colorado committee members, in contrast, devoted four single-spaced pages to “The Question of Sanctions.” They insisted that the university “resist outside interference and pressures” when a final decision on Churchill was made. Those favoring the smallest penalty, suspension without pay for two years, declared they were “troubled by the circumstances under which these allegations have been made,” and concerned that dismissal “would have an adverse effect on the ability of other scholars to conduct their research with due freedom.” These important issues needed to be raised, and they were.
Finally, the Colorado committee explicitly discussed the political context of their work, while the Emory committee failed to do so. The Colorado report opened with a section titled simply “Context.” It said “The committee is troubled by the origins of, and skeptical concerning the motives for, the current investigation.” The key, they said, was that their investigation “was only commenced after, and perhaps in some response to, the public attack on Professor Churchill for his controversial publications.” But, they said, because the claims of academic misconduct were serious, they needed to be investigated fully and fairly.
The basic problem with the Emory report was that it accepted the terms of debate set by others, and thereby abdicated responsibility to work independently and to consider the significance of the findings. Their inquiry should have been as sweeping as the stakes were high; instead they limited their examination to a few pages in a great big book. Colorado shows how to avoid the kind of tunnel vision that marred the Emory report. The report on Ward Churchill demonstrates that charges of research misconduct that arise in a heated political environment can be addressed with intelligence and fairness.
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Comments
Inconvenient issues
1. If, in the gun control controversy, the alleged issues were so “minor” — why did the professor resign?
2. Regarding Great White Phony Indian (GWPI) — having actually read the interim CU chancellor’s reports —
The interim chancellor asserts that CU did not OFFICIALLY receive a written complaint about GWPI until AFTER his vile, disgusting comments about Japanese, British, German, U.S., and other workers murdered on 9/11 were publicized.
That is, for 15 years previous, numerous complaints about GWPI had been vocalized. But it was not until his “scholarship” was unmasked that an official, written complaint was filed with CU administration.
For those Churchill apologists who attempt to mitigate his (and CU’s) sloppy waste of public resources on “politics” —
Would you have officially-filed complaints and investigative results summarily dismissed based on “politics?”
Please — the public’s had enough of that kind of bull. Such as: Chappaquiddick, the Texas Air National Guard, Monica, the U.S. Capitol Police, $500 slot machines, $2 billion in unaccounted Katrina funds, etc.
A.D., at 8:00 am EDT on June 30, 2006
Churchill A Native American?
The way you worded the start of the second paragraph, it seems you are saying Ward Churchill is a Native American. The tribe he claims to be related to has denied his claim. Check your facts
Craig C, political pundit at http://blogresponder.blogspot.com, at 8:00 am EDT on June 30, 2006
The Spurious Definition of Research Misconduct in CU Report
The operational definition of academic misconduct used by the [CU] investigating committee is so broad that virtually anyone who writes anything might be found guilty. Not footnoting an empirical claim is misconduct. Citing a book without giving a page number is misconduct. Referencing a source that only partially supports an assertion is misconduct. Referencing contradictory sources without detailing their contradictions is misconduct. Citing a work considered by some to be unserious or inadequate is misconduct. Footnoting an erroneous claim without acknowledging the error is misconduct. Interpreting a text differently than does its author is misconduct. Ghost writing an article is misconduct. Referencing a paper one has ghost written without acknowledging authorship is misconduct. . . .The charges of fabrication and falsification all derive from short fragments within much longer articles. The report devotes 44 pages to discussing the 1837-1840 smallpox epidemic. One might think that Ward had written an entire book on this subject. In fact this issue occupies no more than three paragraphs in any of his writings.
In each of the six essays cited in the report, all reference to this epidemic could have been dropped without substantially weakening the argument. To be sure, the account given by Ward is not identical to that found in any of his sources, but it is a recognizable composite of information contained within them. The committee peremptorily dismisses Churchill’s contention that his interpretation of the epidemic was influenced by the Native American oral tradition. This is treated as no more than an ex post facto defense against the allegation of misconduct. The committee also discounts Native American witnesses who support Churchill’s interpretations as well as his fidelity to oral accounts. The centrality of the oral tradition is evident in many of Churchill’s writings. His acknowledgments frequently include elders, Indian bands, and the American Indian Movement. He often integrates Native American poetry with his historical analysis. Three of his books with which I am familiar, Since Predator Came (1995), A Little Matter of Genocide (1997), and Struggle for the Land (2002) all begin with poems. As a thirty-year veteran of the intense political struggles within the American Indian Movement, Ward Churchill could not avoid a deep familiarity with the oral tradition of Native American history.
From Tom Meyer
AB, at 9:10 am EDT on June 30, 2006
Why the U. of Colorado report was so “objective”
I think the usually astute Jon Wiener is missing the point. It would have backfired if the investigating committee had been composed entirely of yahoos from the U. of Colorado law school who had been after Ward’s scalp for years now. By adopting the discourse of the touchy-feely humanities world, the committee made it easier for people like Jon Wiener to swallow a bitter pill. There never should have been an investigation to begin with, not as long as the U. of Georgetown is hiring people like Douglas Feith.
Louis Proyect, at 9:30 am EDT on June 30, 2006
Churchill and American Indian Oral Tradition
1. Churchill is not a “Native American activist", and Jon Wiener is wrong to introduce him as such. There is not the slightest evidence that he has any American Indian ancestors, and that is going back to the 18th century. Churchill was for a time an honorary member of the Cherokee Nation, on the grounds of his activism not his ethnicity (Bill Clinton received the same honor)—this honorary membership was later revoked. His claim to be an Indian is a fake; he’s a very clever huckster who manipulated his claim to be an Indian into hiring and continuous promotion up the academic ladder. When the American Indian Movement complained about this very point in the 1990s, the response of the Chanceller of CU was, incredibly, that “ethnicity at CU is self-defined.” If the investigation of Churchill was political in origin, one must also remember that the continuous protection and promotion of Churchill at CU for more than 10 years was political as well, and the Chancellor’s respone to AIM is a grotesque example of it.
2. In his written work, including the three books to which Mr. AB refers, there is not the slightest reference to American Indian oral sources in the Mandan Smallpox case. All the references regarding the smallpox epidemic are to traditional published sources in English, and to modern commentary by professional historians. The investigatory commission found her a continuous pattern of distortion in order to support his thesis. The thesis was that the Army, including evil Army surgeons at Army posts on the Upper Missouri, intentionally gave poisoned blankets to the Mandans. But there WERE no Army posts or Army surgeons (or any doctors at all) on the Upper Missouri in 1837, and the private trading posts there had no reason to try to destroy the people who were their primary customers and the source of their profits.
ONLY when presented by the investigatory commission with his persistent pattern of distorting the traditional evidence and modern scholarship in order to arrive at an INVENTED intentional “Holocaust” of the Mandans did Churchill, beginning ONLY in Feb. 2006, claim that he had relied on Indian oral tradition of the Three Affiliated Tribes for his claim of Army involvement. But in the months that followed, he was never able to bring forth an Indian informant who directly supported the existence of such an Indian tradition.
Those, as I read it, are the facts.
Arthur Eckstein Professor of HistoryUniversity of Maryland
art eckstein, at 11:35 am EDT on June 30, 2006
Two points.
1. Three of the five CU panelists concluded that dismissal would not be an improper sanction.
2. The Emory report is more critical than Wiener suggests:
“Question 5. Did professor Bellesiles engage in “other serious deviations ‘from accepted practices in carrying out or reporting results from research’” with respect to probate records or militia census records by:(a) Failing to carefully document his findings;(b) Failing to make available to others his sources, evidence, and data; or© Misrepresenting evidence or the sources of evidence."We have reached the conclusion with reference to clauses “a” through “c,” that Professor Bellesiles contravened these professional norms, both as expressed in the Committee charge and in the American Historical Association’s definition of scholarly “integrity,”which includes “an awareness of one’s own bias and a readiness to follow sound methodand analysis wherever they may lead,” “disclosure of all significant qualifications of one’s arguments,” careful documentation of findings and the responsibility to “thereafter be prepared to make available to others their sources, evidence, and data,” and theinjunction that “historians must not misrepresent evidence or the sources of evidence.” We have interviewed Professor Bellesiles and found him both cooperative and respectful of this process. Yet the best that can be said of his work with the probate and militia records is that he is guilty of unprofessional and misleading work. Every aspect of hiswork in the probate records is deeply flawed. Even allowing for the loss of some of his research materials, he appears not to have been systematic in selecting repositories or collections of probate records for examination and his recording methods were at best primitive and altogether unsystematic. Bellesiles seems to have been utterly unaware of the importance of the possibility of the replication of his research. Subsequent to the allegations of research misconduct, his responses have been prolix, confusing, evasive and occasionally contradictory. We are surprised and troubled that Bellesiles has not availed himself of the opportunities he has had since the notice of this investigation to examine, identify and share his remaining research materials. Even at this point, it is notclear that he fully understands the magnitude of his own probate research shortcomings.”
Publius, at 11:35 am EDT on June 30, 2006
de-nativizing?
Craig, Whether or not he is a native American did not matter for the purposes of the report. Moreoever, whether a tribe disonwed him wouldn’t change, as an objective, matter, whether he a “native American” or not. I am sure that if my people were organized they would disown me, but that wouldn’t change who my parents are.
Larry, at 11:35 am EDT on June 30, 2006
To the Point
How do we break it to A.D. and Louis Proyect that Chappaquiddick and Douglas Feith are not at issue here?
Ralph Luker, at 11:35 am EDT on June 30, 2006
Ward Churchill
If we, as educators, believe that the comments Ward Churchill made were the rantings of a small percentage of educators then then higher education is in trouble. While I disagree with the statements of Ward Churchill in principle, terminating him is not the answer. Open and honest scholarly debate is. If we have issue with the teachings of a professor offer a strong opposing view and let the academic population decide who to believe.
Personally, I am tired of hearing about Ward Churchill. There are more important issues for my students and I to deal with.
Allan Silberstein, MAEd
Allsn Silberstein, MAEd, at 12:25 pm EDT on June 30, 2006
why churchill is being terminated
Dear Mr. Silberstein,
You are confused. Ward Churchill is not being terminated for his statements about 9/11. He is being terminated because a faculty investigatory commission found a persistent pattern of plagiarism and dishonest scholarship in his historical work.
The origin of the investigation which revealed the enormous extent of Churchill’s intellectual corruption was certainly political, and that is disturbing.
On the other hand, the persistent effort of the CU Administration to protect and promote Churchill over the past 10 years, despite a flow of serious complaints about his plagiarism and the incredibly shoddy nature of his scholarship, was also political. That should not be forgotten.
Meanwhile, Churchill’s “scholarship” has done serious damage to ethnic studies as far away as Australia, where his accusations of “government-engineered genocide” on the Upper Missouri in 1837 are employed by, e.g., scholars of the Australian and Tasmanian aborigines to prove that “British-derived” colonial states habitually engage in genocide. Those scholars who employed Churchill in their work (including in leading journals of ethnic studies) are now faced with the fact that their arguments are based on totally-invented history. Conservatives have not been slow to point this out. Churchill’s persistent dishonesty thus is working to delegitimize the entire field.
Given that many prominent scholars in ethnic studies must have written letters of support for Churchill and his scholarship both at the time of his promotion to associate professor with tenure (1992) and later at the time of his promotion to full professor (1997)—that’s the way the promotion-process works—one can also understand why the scholarly standards employed in the entire field can be called into question.
Art Eckstein
art eckstein, at 1:40 pm EDT on June 30, 2006
Identity Politics
If plagarism is truly the underlying factor that is involved in this debate then much of America has lost its direction regarding “Little Eichmann” comment by Churchill and the politic climate in America. I think the University of Colorado was politically motivated on their witch hunt, regardless if they would or wouldn’t have found substantiated evidence of intentional plagarism. CU Boulder is a state school and when you have the state’s governor calling for the termination of a professor the witch hunt becomes ipso facto politically mandated. I think American media is quilty of creating the misfortunate spectacle that this issue has become. In the eye of media, it wasn’t about plagarism, it was about the “Little Eichmann” comment, which continues to pervade America after the plagarism claims, not about higher education.
Torry, at 3:10 pm EDT on June 30, 2006
To Larry
Since you didn’t write the piece, I don’t see how your answer can be justified. the way you worded your comment you act as if you wrote it.Getting to the issue, the Indian tribe he claimed to be a member of didn’t “disown” him. He was never a member of the tribe or a descendant of any Native American tribe.
Craig C, political pundit at http://blogresponder.blogspot.com, at 8:20 pm EDT on June 30, 2006
LCD action
Anything that I would honestly have to write about Ward Churchill would fall below “lowest common denominator” language, and would fall into vernacular and vulgar categories. This honest but unprintable assessment of “Mr.” Chruchill’s character and “scholarship” must, of necessity, be relegated to the Western oral tradition. Noble savage? Yaaaa.....smoke antoher pack, Ward. I hope you get the pulmonary and respiratory payoff, and soon.
Reed Wade, at 9:15 pm EDT on June 30, 2006
What about all the other plagiarists?
We continually read in the Chronicle of Higher Ed and in insidehighered.com about plagiarists and data-fabricators being caught in academe, including the guys who made up “cold fusion” a few years ago.
Are these people all fired? Are they stripped of tenure? Are they punished at all?
I get the impression that many of them are not. I’d like to see an article on “Do Academic Offenders Get Punished?”
Especially since we’re having an epidemic of plagiarism by students, thanks to the Internet, do we even really punish anyone beyond those who, like Ward Churchill, stick their heads up?
I do think he’s being singled out for a whipping because he made himself famous.
Fiona, at 5:45 am EDT on July 1, 2006
Craig, While I am unsure of what it means to be a “member” of a tribe (in many instances this is a relationship defined by federal law, and/or a shareholder-corporation relationship), it does not change whether or not he is a “native American” or the nature of his ancestry. I appreciate your zealous non-political pursuit of truth, and I know you would never say anything for political effect, so I know that the decision to reframe the question was a semantic decision on your part, and not an political act.
Fiona may have a good point. There are other people who engage in research misconduct. There are other people that think it is accept to put political rants on CVs. When are we going to ruin their careers?
When are the 30% or so of students that admit to cheating going to be expelled (with no second chances).
Larry, at 9:55 am EDT on July 1, 2006
To Fiona
You meant Infamous, right?
Craig C, political pundit at http://blogresponder.blogspot.com, at 9:55 am EDT on July 1, 2006
Larry, you started off by saying you are unsure of what it means to be a member of a tribe and yet you went on to tell your audience exactly what you think the qualifications are! Yet, do some research buudy. You are dead wrong on the two ways you listed on how someone is a member. Membership is set by the individual Native nations (tribes) only and no one else—no, not federal law or a corporation. As far as his ancestry is concerned. Exhaustive research has been conducted into his geneology, and he has no “Indian blood.”
Meg, at 11:15 am EDT on July 1, 2006
Churchill’s delicts—and others’ delicts
Dear Fiona (and others),
Yes, Ward Churchill engaged in a persistant pattern of plagiarism, but he ALSO did far more (and far worse) than plagiarize. By consistently distorting both the primary evidence and modern historical commentary,he, a person who claims to be a historian, invented events that did not happen—in particular, U.S. atrocities that did not happen. These he published in several books which are widely used. Most obviously he invented U.S. Army involvement in the terrible Mandan epidemic of 1837. The true story is terrible enough, but there was no intentional spreading of the epidemic by anyone, and there was no Army involvement in the epidemic at all (there was no Army presence on the Upper Missouri in 1837). Yet Churchill’s persistent lies here have been employed by careless scholars as far away as Australia.
What the Churchill case shows, as someone has said, is that if you are going to make outrageous statements that make you a public figure, you better not be a plagiarizer and an inventor of non-existent history while holding a full professorship.
Moreover, a friend of mine who was up for a position at CU a decade ago told me that when he visited the campus at that time (1996) the faculty in the humanities and social sciences at CU already KNEW that Churchill was an imposter (as far as being an Indian went) as well as a fraud (as far as being a scholar), and that the administration knew this as well. Nevertheless, Churchill was later promoted to full professor, and then to chair of his department. Those were political decisions: Churchill was politically protected for more than 15 years at CU. In part this was because of his professed ethnicity (the false claim to be an Indian); in part it was because of his radical politics—with which administrators either agreed, or (far more likely) which they feared. That is: administators generally don’t want trouble, and they knew Churchill was capable of whipping it up, and so he wasn’t touched, and was indeed promoted. Thus Churchill parlayed his false ethnic-identity claim and his radical politics into quite a prestigious academic career. A brilliant performance in its own way. But he who lives by the sword (politics), sometimes dies by the sword (politics)—and it should do Churchill no good to complain about politics now.
The real culprits are those CU administrators who protected Churchill for 15 years despite knowing what a fraud he was: THEY are the people who have really injured CU. Other culprits include those prominent scholars in ethnic studies who vouched for his scholarship twice during his promotion, when 15 minutes on the Net would have shown that he didn’t know what he was talking about. None of these people, of course, will ever be investigated.
Art Eckstein
art eckstein, at 4:30 pm EDT on July 1, 2006
What about the other academic miscreants?
Does the fact that other academics found guilty of misconduct have received lesser sanctions automatically mean that Churchill’s sacking is inappropriate? Not at all.
Take the time to read the CU investigative committee’s report on Churchill. They researched the sanctions given to offenders such as Churchill, and found that sacking is a common outcome. A perpetrator who is caught in one offense and who repents may escape firing. But a repeat offender such as Churchill—who is also loudly proclaiming that he did nothing wrong and that he intends to keep on doing what he’s doing—can expect to be dismissed.
Just this week, a UNC-Chapel Hill professor was given a year in prison for research misconduct. Churchill should consider himself lucky that he’s only getting fired.
As to the political context of the situation, I think that Prof. Eckstein put it rather succinctly. Live by it, die by it.
Thomas Brown, at 11:35 pm EDT on July 1, 2006
Cites?
“While I am unsure of what it means to be a “member” of a tribe (in many instances this is a relationship defined by federal law, and/or a shareholder-corporation relationship)”
This is a very mysterious contention. How do you think federal law could *possibly* reach the question of sovereign tribal affiliation?
Can you post some cites?
JBM, at 7:35 am EDT on July 2, 2006
oh to be an Indian
Even though my last post on how I doubt that people have seriously research Mr. Churchill’s background didn’t make the cut, the Supreme Court in United States v. Antelope, 430 U.S. 641, 647 n. 7, n.8 (1977) provides an description of the means that membership in a tribe, for purposes of federal law can be terminated, and also notes that while enrollment is a common way of determining whether someone is an Indian, it isn’t the only way. For example, in United States v. Heath, 509 F.2d 16, 19 (9th Cir. 1974) ("While anthropologically a Klamath Indian even after the Termination Act obviously remains an Indian, his unique status vis-a-vis the Federal Government no longer exists"), an Indian argued that because her tribal recognition was dissolved by act of Congress, she was no longer entitled to claim Indian status (the 9th Circuit, in the context of reviewing a criminal conviction held this to be harmless error.). See, also, Ex parte Pero, 99 F.2d 28, 30 (7th Cir. 1938) cert. denied, 306 U.S. 643 (1939) ("enrollment” in an official tribe has not been held to be an absolute requirement for federal jurisdiction, at least where the Indian defendant lived on the reservation and “maintained tribal relations with the Indians thereon.").
Larry, at 3:40 pm EDT on July 2, 2006
Churchill proof there are no real standards
The great Joni Mitchell once wrote, ” .. and round and round/In the circle game.”
So it is with Mr. Churchill and “controversies” in publicly-funded academia. This person gets insulted, then controversy erupts; repeat-loop process until public money supply appears endangered (at point, somewhere before eternity).
Great White Deceiver (GWD) has indicated that the only truth, the only standards, are individually determined.
Standards? Explain how, by some form of randomness, out of all the U.S. National Merit Scholars at time zero, somehow 92% become non-Republicans by age 25. For that matter, explain how standards manage to select one job candidate out of 350.
GWD never going to admit that he ever did anything but the best work ever produced by a faux-Indian. And his lawyer gets paid by taxpayers to file appeals until eternity.
Indian wanna-be with Cracker Jack-box Indian tribe membership card has suckered working-class this time.
But will working-class will be suckered again by another GWD? I doubt it — we’re smarter than they are.
B.J.S., at 8:25 pm EDT on July 2, 2006
Supreme Court’s view of Indian status
United States v. Antelope does NOT describe “the means that membership in a tribe, for purposes of federal law can be terminated,” as Larry erroneously suggests.
Rather, the relevant sentence from footnote 7 in the Antelope case reads as follows:
“Moreover, members of tribes whose official status has been terminated by congressional enactment are no longer subject, by virtue of their status, to federal criminal jurisdiction under the Major Crimes Act.”
The Supreme Court is referring to instances in which a TRIBE’S status as federally recognized “has been terminated by congressional enactment,” NOT instances of federal termination of an individual’s enrollment in a tribe.
In any event, Churchill is not enrolled in any Indian tribe, federally recognized or not.
And all the genealogical research indicates that he has no discernible American Indian ancestry.
His claim to being an Indian is thus demonstrably fraudulent.
No surprise there, of course.
Anonymous, at 8:25 pm EDT on July 2, 2006
Thank you “anonymous” for the clarification on the Antelope case. I don’t know how Larry came up with those citations to try to back up his argument. As a federal Indian law student, there is no relevancy on what he has cited to his previous argument of how a person has membership in a sovereign Indian nation. Give it up Larry.
Melanie, at 4:40 am EDT on July 3, 2006
I suggest re-viewing of the 1999 Pierce Brosnan movie Grey Owl, based on a true story of a white guy who fooled the world into thinking he was an Indian, because he wanted to be one. Churchill is our century’s Grey Owl.
Meg, at 4:45 am EDT on July 3, 2006
Since you didn’t show who he defrauded by claiming to be an Indian, and how much (nor did the committee so find) I don’t know where you are going on this fraud allegation. I never claimed that a tribe’s termination of an individual’s “status” in a tribe was dispositive, but I did claim that an such a status (i.e. enrollment) is one way, but not the only way of determining membership. (I don’t know the specifics in Churchill’s case, and I don’t think anyone cares since it is obvious everyone is in it for the politics.)
Larry, at 4:45 am EDT on July 3, 2006
Clinton’s an Indian, too?
Lar, ol’ bud .. that Cracker Jack-box Indian ID card that Phony-Indian Churchill used to scam and deceive CU (and, BTW, which has been withdrawn by the tribe involved), was also given to William Jefferson Clinton.
So .. does that also make Mr. Clinton, an Indian? Just wondering.
Lar, de jure, Psycho Ward may not be guilty of specifically deceiving CU about being an American Indian.
De facto, reasonable persons of all political colors have convicted him of specifically deceiving CU, IMHO.
Millions of adjuncts would love to pull off what Mental Ward did — scam directly to tenure, with any dismissal taking years (decades?) and millions. CU clearly failed to exercise prudent management of public resources, in this matter.
B.J.S., at 7:40 am EDT on July 3, 2006
Many of you continue to argue about blood quantum as if it is the singular way to determine whether someone can identify themselves as a certain race. In reality, there are 4 recognized ways to identify race. Blood quantum is only one of these methods. Arguing as if it were the only way to identify race could in itself be research misconduct based upon the CU committee criteria. All of those here who have falsely argued that Ward Churchill cannot call himself “Indian” based just on blood quantum should immediately revise their statements to take into account all 4 methods of racial identification. Failing to do so could equate to the same type of academic misconduct that Ward Churchill is being charged with.
In 1994, Colorado University recognized Ward Churchill’s claim of Indian racial identification based on self-identification. No matter what is said about Churchill’s actual blood quantum, CU has already ruled on this matter and accepted Churchill’s claim of self-identification. Only one of the four methods are required, and Churchill has already proven to the satisfaction of his employer that he fits this criteria. For those on this forum to now continue to argue that only blood quantum can be used to determine ethnicity in the face of CU’s own acceptance of self-identification could also be committing research misconduct under the criteria that Ward Churchill was judged.
The facts are that a 10 year old boy, growing up in a broken home, was told by his mother and grandmother that he was part Indian. This was family lore passed down to every member of the family. This 10 year-old, growing up in a single-parent home, grabbed a hold of this piece of family lore and began to self-identify as Indian. Whether his mother or grandmother contained a certain blood quantum is irrelevant. There was no fraud from a 10-year old self-identifying as Indian based upon family lore he had no reason to distrust. There is no fraud in a Professor self-identifying as Indian to his University when the University itself agrees with the professor’s self-identification.
There are 2 other criteria under which Ward may claim to be Indian which I have not addressed due to space constraints. If you are not familiar with them, then perhaps you should stick to commenting on topics you are familiar with instead of this topic.
If you do not agree with self-identification as a criteria for determining race, don’t blame Ward Churchill. He didn’t invent it. If you want Indians to prove their race with blood tests, then be prepared to live in a world where everyone is blood tested to determine their race and live with the consequences.
Pablo B, at 1:55 pm EDT on July 3, 2006
Native American vs. Native American Activist
The article identifies Churchill as a “Native American Activist", which he clearly was. One doesn’t have to be a member of a particular group to be an activist on their behalf. Homeless activists are seldom homeless, and most activists for the mentally ill are not themselves afflicted. He seems to have gone a step further, though, claiming membership in a cynical bid for the ‘benefits’ to be gained.
Claiming to be an activist for a group to which you don’t belong also implies that the members of that group are not able to do the work for themselves. While this may be commendable on behalf of the homeless or the (seriously) mentally ill, in this instance it strikes me as another symptom of arrogance and self-aggrandizement by someone who thought he knew better than everyone else.
JadedOptimist, at 2:10 pm EDT on July 4, 2006
Pablo and truth
I think Pablo’s comment should be taken to heart, since he has more familiarity with the subject than most. The key point being: just because someone has been excommunicated by a tribe, or a tribe denies their heritage is not, and never was dispositive of the matter. But, on the other hand, Pablo needs to understand that the subject of Ward Churchill will not be debated along legal lines, and therefore it is perfectly acceptable for academics who would normally never form an opinion without informing themselves to comment on ANYTHING (including the findings of the committee) without reading it. This is politics, and it needs to be respected as an alternative means of determining truth and justice.
Larry, at 8:30 pm EDT on July 4, 2006
Re Churchill’s claim to being an Indian
In a section named “Definition of Indian,” Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law explains that a proper definition for legal purposes requires a person to meet “two qualifications: (a) that some of the individual’s ancestors lived in what is now the United States before its discovery by Europeans, and (b) that the individual is recognized as an Indian by the individual’s tribe or community.” Although failing either of these requirements would disqualify a person from being legally qualified as an Indian, Churchill in fact fails both. Self-identification of course is NOT a legally acceptable definition of Indian for purposes of federal (or tribal) law, because it obviously invites the very kind of fraud represented by Churchill’s false claims to being an Indian. CU’s post hoc explanation in 1994 that it did not question Churchill’s claim to being an Indian when it hired him due to the fact that CU accepted self-identification is thus tantamount to the University’s admission that it used a grossly inadequate and legally unacceptable criterion of racial/ethnic identity in its hiring practices. Of course, the University’s unquestioning acceptance of Churchill’s false claim to being an Indian in the employment process is somewhat understandable, since back then Churchill’s now-infamous academic dishonesty, in all its breathtaking scope, could hardly have been anticipated by University administrators.Undoubtedly CU has learned a hard lesson in the Churchill matter and is now making due efforts to replace its standardless practice of accepting self-identification with criteria that entail a measure of objective reliability, such as the criteria laid out in Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law.
Anonymous, at 3:15 pm EDT on July 5, 2006
Indian identity debate
Pablo complains that “Many of you continue to argue about blood quantum as if it is the singular way to determine whether someone can identify themselves as a certain race.”
But in fact not a single commenter to this article or any of the other Churchill-related articles published by Insider Higher Ed has argued that Indian blood quantum is “the singular way to determine” whether someone is truly an American Indian.
The problem is not that Churchill has failed to show a particular blood quantum in claiming to be an Indian. Many tribes — most notably the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma — have no minimum blood quantum requirement at all for tribal membership.
The problem is (1) that Churchill has never shown that he has a single Indian ancestor and (2) that not a single tribe has ever recognized him as a tribal member.
And, of course, neither “self-Identification” nor “family lore” comprises an objective, verifiable criterion of Indian status. This explains why neither the federal government nor any Indian tribe accepts such a standardless measure of Indian identity.
In any event, it would be helpful if commenters would address arguments actually raised in this debate rather than to attribute to others arguments never actually asserted.
Anonymous, at 3:25 pm EDT on July 5, 2006
chilling political speech
Ward Churchill became the target of a political campaign to fire him for the 9/11 comments. He was targeted for investigation and firing for academic misconduct (no matter how real the misconduct was) as a consequence of and in the context of the campaign to fire him for the 9/11 comments. This will have a chilling effect on political speech by professors in a similar way as a politically motivated IRS investigation.
David Tabachnick
David Tabachnick, at 8:30 pm EDT on July 5, 2006
Judicial choices in the Churchill controversy
The Churchill controversy certainly raises the interesting question whether a professor’s insulting, unpopular, constitutionally protected speech immunizes that professor from investigation and sanction for having engaged in an extensive pattern of deliberate and egregious scholarly misconduct in the form of plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, and misrepresentation of cited authorities.
If a court ever addresses this interesting question, it will have to grapple not only with the potential chilling effect on academic freedom if the court upholds the university’s sanctions, but also with the likelihood that a ruling favoring Churchill could inspire other academic wrongdoers to engage in offensive political speech in order to gain a shield of immunity from punishment for their scholarly misconduct.
Any opinions as to which of these judicial options represents the wisest social policy choice?
Anonymous, at 9:30 pm EDT on July 5, 2006
I am amazed with you all.
I am astonished that the obvious hasn’t been pointed to: an 18 year old undergraduate who did what Ward Churchill did would face expulsion. A repeat offender would be almost guaranteed it.
How can academia retain any stature if it allows full professors to get away with things an undergraduate can’t do? Yes, the reason people looked at Churchill’s footnotes is that he annoyed them over politics. But if not for things like that nobody would have looked at his writings. That is why plagiarism and academic fraud are supposed to be punished severely. Since the probability fo getting caught is low, the punishment has to be harsh or else there would be a lot more of this going on in academia.
Well, I suppose at this point there is...
Omri, at 4:40 am EDT on July 7, 2006
Tribal recognition is a geo-political tool for implementing treaties between the United States, and the collection of sovereign Indian Nations. It is not a method of determining race.
You are confusing the requirements to be a member of a federally recognized tribe with an individual’s racial identification. The two are not synonymous.
There are 4 criteria commonly recognized for identifying anyone’s race. These apply to Caucasian, Indian, or any other race. Some on this board have attempted to impose the qualifications used to determine tribal membership on Indians as if qualifying for tribal membership was the only way to be of the Indian race. This is a false limitation that no other race is subjected to. Self-identification is one of these criteria, and I have not heard any argument that Ward Churchill does not self-identify as Indian.
All of the arguments made here based upon tribal membership are erroneous because tribal membership and racial identification are not synonymous. Examples are plentiful, but consider the case of a Hispanic being given full tribal membership. Is he/she Indian by race? Or of Peruvian Indians who move to the US who wouldn’t qualify for membership in any US recognized tribes. Are they not Indian by race?
Pablo B, at 6:10 pm EDT on July 7, 2006
OK, four ways to determine race. Who recognizes these four ways? Blood and legal adoption makes sense of course but how far beyond textbooks does self identiy go?
Would a contractor with Irish ancestors only qualify for minority business enterprise set asides for federal contracts if he checks the ‘AA’ box? If my mother tells me that I’m a Pequot can I get a slice of the casino gold mine? Was John Kennedy really German (Ich bin...)?
Self identity is great and really should be the only basis (if I suddenly discovered that I had two Navajo grandparents it would not make me an Am-Ind in any way that I can think of other than perhaps for any medical specific reasons). However, when there are benefits or penalties connected to racial identity, then self identity is a little weak.
MTS, UConn, at 5:50 am EDT on July 8, 2006
Wiener writes, falsely, that:"The only reason they were asked to look at his academic writing was that powerful political voices outside the university wanted Churchill fired for his statement about 9/11.” This is incorrect.
Churchill’s “Little Eichman’s” omments were publicized in Boulder newspapers in the months after 9/11, but most people had other worries at the time, and the Boulder Public Library had its own anti-American scandal to deal with.
This false impression regarding Churchill stems from the fact that Republican governor Owens made the statement that Churchill ought to be fired in the winter of 2005. — but only through proper channels But the story became a national one only after a student group at a New York college went rifling through Churchill’s work because he had been invited and paid to speak there. This background then caught the attention of FoxNews in NYC. A subsequent multi-part Rocky Mountain News investigation showed that there was indeed lots of “there” there in term of plagiarizing, fraud, and multiuple threats against women.
But even this recounting would be remiss, since the most energetic and indeed daily braking source was the lawyer talk show duo of Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman on 630KHOW in Denver. This conservative and liberal team made getting rid of Churchill their mission on day one after FoxNews went national, filing FOI requests, posting Churchill speeches online, airing and discussing them, and covering Churchill’s appearances live.
What got Churchill fired wasn’t the Little Eichman’s remark, or even a governor’s wish, but Churchill himself. Simply by looking closer at him, too many queations were raised. Even knee-jerk First Amendment freedom agitators were soon quelled.
Orson, University of London, at 9:20 pm EDT on July 15, 2006
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Not too Much Credit For CU
For another view of the University of Colorado’s “integrity“ vis- -vis their handling of the Ward Churchill affair — although I have no complaints about the faculty committee — open “Colorado Moves to Fire Churchill” in the InsideHigherEd archive (June 28) and read the posts titled “I Love To Gossip” and “I’m Sorry to be a Pest.”
A general contrast between the University of Colorado and Emory University based on their handling of the Ward Churchill and Michael Bellesiles affairs, respectively, is ludicrous.
RWH, at 6:15 am EDT on June 30, 2006