Ward Churchill - NOT a Native American? Fire him.
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 03:59
VIEWED: 16391
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Never mind issues of 'free speech', this clown seems to have used fraud and deception to attain a position that wasn't ever meant for him. If can be verified that this 
not only got his job but also his tenure from Colorado under the premise of his minority status.... shouldn't he be fired ?
Quote:
Churchill attacks essay’s critics
University of Colorado president calls for calm
By Craig Gima
cgima@starbulletin.com
Ward Churchill, the outspoken Colorado professor who created a national uproar by comparing 9/11 victims to Nazis, told an overflow crowd at the University of Hawaii last night that he is the target of a right-wing strategy to attack academia.
"I was targeted because they thought I would be an easy target," Churchill told the crowd of about 800. "That was a mistake.
"It's not just an attempt to purge me," he said. "It's a purge of the academy."
The crowd was mostly sympathetic to Churchill, a University of Colorado ethnic studies professor. He was applauded more than a dozen times and was greeted at least three times with standing ovations.
Before the speech began, about a dozen members of a UH college Republican group protested.
"I never wanted to be a poster boy for academic freedom," Churchill said. "You can't give an inch. If you let this one down, you've lost it all."
Much of Churchill's speech was devoted to explaining and expanding on his essay written on Sept. 11, 2001, that called 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns."
He said the theme of his essay and a later book was that the United States has been involved in violating international law and killing innocents and should not be surprised that some people would want to kill Americans -- the "chickens coming home to roost," as his essay is titled.
He argued that the World Trade Center could be considered a legitimate target because it is a symbol of the financial power that allows the United States to flex its military might.
He said if you read his essay, he called the "technicians" in the World Trade Center "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who actually did not kill any Jews but made it possible for the trains to run on time and for the Holocaust to take place.
It's obvious, Churchill said, that he did not mean to say children, janitors, firefighters and innocent bystanders were part of that group. Instead, he said, he was referring to investment bankers and others who make the killing of innocents by the U.S. military and U.S. policy possible.
Churchill did address the issue of his ethnicity, admitting that he is not Native American.
"Is he an Indian? Do we really care?" he said, quoting those he called his "white Republican" critics.
"Let's cut to the chase; I am not," he said.
His pedigree is "not important," Churchill said: "The issue is the substance of what is said."
He went on to explain that the issue of whether he is Native American has been blown up by sloppy reporting and reporters quoting other reporters.
His speech drew mostly positive reaction from those who attended. But Tyrone Hogenauer said he was disappointed.
"I thought he was going to talk on free speech," Hogenauer said.
Instead, Churchill talked about himself and attacked his critics the way they are attacking him, Hogenauer said: "It's a sad thing."
UH student Kirsten Chong said her professors assigned her to listen to the speech.
"He was humorous and he certainly didn't pull any punches," she said, adding that because she is native Hawaiian, she agrees with much of what he said.
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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And the point is....? UCo would not give a position OR a tenure to someone just bc of their "minority" status. If you belive that, then you don't know nothin'.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
And the point is....? UCo would not give a position OR a tenure to someone just bc of their "minority" status. If you belive that, then you don't know nothin'.
Thats avoiding the issue. Did he get his positon on false pretenses ? Yes or no? It doesn't have to be solely on his minority status, but any favoritism he might have received which he didn't deserve warrents investigating. And lets be fair here. Anyone so naive to think that, all things being equal, a white man stands on equal footing w/ a Native American in a job interview for the Dept of Ethnic Studies .... don't know nothin. That is, unless the white man lies about who he is.
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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Maybe you should take that up with U of Colorado and let us know their hiring policy. I've prolly interviewed and ranked over 500 people in my career (and will prolly interview a few hundred more before I'm done) so I KNOW something about hiring and promoting. All I'm hearing from you is a lot of VERY UNSUPORTED suppositions verging on slander.
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I totally believe they could have hired this guy based purely on his supposed Native American background. Considering the idiotic things this clown has said, I find it hard to believe that he could have made it through the system without considerable hand waiving. Higher education in this country is pretty damn Left-wing, but I can’t believe it’s this stupid.
Although I could be wrong, but if this clown is a fair representation of American Academia, we just need to shut down the colleges and start over from scratch, because there’s no fixing something that broke.
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One of the achievements of liberals during the sixties and seventies was the creation of Ethnic Studies Departments/Programs and tenured faculty positions for researchers in those related fields. Historically, these Departments are underfunded and understaffed.
What we have here is a more overt form of attack against tenure in Ethnic Studies programs in particular and academic freedom in general. The only question that should be asked is: does the professor in question conduct quality research that advances the level of understanding of his/her particular field?
Make no mistake, this is a test case for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (a rightwing organization), the National Association of Scholars (a group created by ACTA), and Republican student groups nationwide pushing for an Academic Bill of Rights - like all good marketing (probably focus group tested) it's got a wholesome great sounding name.
It's based on the inability of people to acknowledge things they do not agree with. It goes further than that. It's an attempt to silence research that the dominant political party disagrees with.
The movement conservatives (not real conservatives) are attacking liberal successes. Social Security. Tenure for Ethnic Studies. Ethnic Studies programs themselves.
Ward Churchill is the first. He's an ideal target for all the groups who are behind this astroturf swelling.
Here's a list of some of his publications:
"Agents of repression : the FBI's secret wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement"
"Perversions of justice : indigenous peoples and angloamerican law"
"The COINTELPRO papers : documents from the FBI's secret wars against dissent in the United States"
"Struggle for the land : indigenous resistance to genocide, ecocide and expropriation in contemporary North America"
"Fantasies of the master race : literature, cinema, and the colonization of American Indians"
"A little matter of genocide : holocaust and denial in the Americas, 1492 to the present"
"Since predator came : notes from the struggle for American Indian liberation"
"Indians are us? : culture and genocide in native North America"
That is the real reason why he is a target.
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bologna 
He's a fruitcake.
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But does he conduct quality research?
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I guess that depends on what you mean by quality research. My intern does quality research, but that doesn’t mean she can do the kind of work that the modelers do. If she could, she wouldn’t be an intern; we'd hire her on full time as an engineer or scientist. It doesn’t make any difference how many papers you cite, or write or how many hours you spend in the library, if at the end of the day you draw completely fallacious conclusions.
I’m sure Mr. Churchill would make a good intern.
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If your intern is conducting quality research that advances the level of understanding in your particular field than I think you're getting a great deal. If she has also published multiple books than I'd say you're getting a fantastic deal.
* editted to add: I am not an expert in the particular field that Ward Churchill writes in. All I can say is that he has published a substantial body of work. The tenure review process is designed to address the issues I bring up. That is why I find it highly amusing that a bunch of people who are not experts in his field are calling for his dismissal.
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