Former CU professor files lawsuit after firing
The Ward Churchill scandal, which started with his notorious comparison of 9/11 victims to “little Eichmanns,” reached a new height this summer.
On July 24, the CU Board of Regents voted to accept President Hank Brown’s recommendation to dismiss Ward Churchill, 60, a tenured ethnic-studies professor.
Churchill said he considers the case to be an issue of academic freedom based on his controversial 9/11 comparison, and the university has violated his First, Ninth and 14th Amendment rights.
With his attorney, David Lane, Churchill has filed suit against CU. Dates for further proceedings have yet to be set.
When asked what he hopes to achieve through the lawsuit, Churchill said, “I want the university to acknowledge that their accusations of research misconduct are fabrications.”
In a memorandum sent from Brown to CU students on July 24, Brown cited evidence implicating Churchill’s involvement in research misconduct as the reason for firing the professor.
“The Investigative Committee of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct found multiple instances of falsification, fabrication and plagiarism,” Brown wrote.
Brown said Churchill’s controversial 9/11 comparison was not part of the decision for dismissal.
“Some on the Boulder campus and beyond claim Professor Churchill was singled out because of public condemnation of his writing about September 11, 2001. They see this case as a referendum on academic freedom. The university determined early in the process that his speech was not at issue, but that his research was,” Brown wrote in the memorandum.
Churchill said he is not only singled out by the university because of his comments about 9/11, but “the investigation of my research misconduct by the faculty is fraudulent — they have based their investigation and placed scholarly scrutiny on non-scholarly works.”
CU spokesperson Michele McKinney said CU stands behind the board’s decision to dismiss Churchill.
“There is not a distinct definition of scholarly. The university does consider Churchill’s works scholarly because he wrote them under an umbrella of research,” McKinney said.
Thomas Mayer, professor of sociology at CU, said he disagrees with the board’s decision to fire Churchill.
“I am very distressed about Churchill being fired. I believe it was an unjust political firing disguised in an academic camouflage,” Mayer said.
Mayer also said he is less comfortable working at the university because he feels his academic freedom is now in jeopardy.
Paul Campos, professor of law at CU, supports the university’s decision about Churchill’s research misconduct.
During an interview on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Jan. 31, 2005, Campos said, “Standards are going to be enforced. And we’re not just simply going to shrug our shoulders and say First Amendment, free expression.”
In his column for the Rocky Mountain News on May 23, 2006, Campos further expressed his opinion of Churchill’s misconduct.
He wrote that the report evaluating fraud charges against Churchill is “a profoundly disturbing experience for any academic, and especially for anyone associated with the university that hired, tenured and promoted him.”
Churchill had some advice for CU students and challenged them to bring him to campus as a speaker or for a public debate.
“I would be more than willing to have a public debate with David Horowitz or even Hank Brown,” Churchill said. “Students should be aware of the facts. And they should not rely on only the facts given to them by Hank Brown.”
If the lawsuit’s outcome would allow his reinstatement as a professor at CU, Churchill said he might come back to work.
“I would consider and feel that I am entitled to work at the university again,” he said.
Campos said he finds Churchill’s denial of research misconduct the most astonishing aspect of the scandal.
“Even now, after he has been caught in the most egregious frauds imaginable, he continues to deny any wrongdoing,” Campos wrote in his opinion column.
Contact Campus Press editor Ashleigh Oldland at ashleigh.oldland@thecampuspress.com.
