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<font size=4><b>Ward's response follows<br><br>
</b></font>
<dl>
<dd><font size=3>Panel recommends firing Colo. professor <br>
<dd>By DAN ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer<br>
<dd>Tuesday, 6/13/2006<br><br>
<dd>
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060614/ap_on_re_us/embattled_professor&printer=1;_ylt=AgVOMP5TdGj_5x85Zg8ItXFH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE">
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060614/ap_on_re_us/embattled_professor&printer=1;_ylt=AgVOMP5TdGj_5x85Zg8ItXFH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE</a>
<br><br>
<dd>A University of Colorado committee recommended on Tuesday firing a
professor who called some of the World Trade Center victims "little
Eichmanns," citing repeated research misconduct.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>The panel's recommendation now goes to university officials for a
final decision.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, denied the
allegations. He has vowed to fight his dismissal with a lawsuit.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>"Baloney. That's my one-word-response," he said. He noted
there have been previous calls for his removal, "whether or not it
was legal."<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>The school's investigation focused on allegations that Churchill
committed research misconduct and plagiarism.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>In a written statement, Churchill dismissed the investigation as an
attempt to silence him. He said he "could have done it better"
in minor areas on some of the research in question but said he was being
held to higher standards than most academics.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>"This process has not demonstrated that I engaged in any serious
research misconduct but that, after more than a year of painstaking
review, those charged with firing me could find nothing more than a few
footnotes and questions of attribution to quibble over," he
wrote.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>The panel did not address his essay relating the 2001 terrorist
attacks to U.S. abuses abroad. The essay referred to some World Trade
Center victims as "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf
Eichmann, who carried out Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate European
Jews during World War II.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>The essay was largely ignored until January 2005, when it came to
light before a scheduled speech at a college in upstate New York.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>Churchill's case has been cited by conservatives as an example of how
universities have overstocked their faculties with leftists. Others
raised concerns about academic freedom.<br><br>
</font>
</dl><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>June 14, 2006<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5><b>Turning Quibbles
Over Footnotes into Academic Felonies<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">My
Trial By
Media</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>By WARD
CHURCHILL<br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><i>Bolder,
Colorado.<br><br>
</i></font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">O</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>n February 2, 2005, Colorado Governor Bill
Owens called for me to be fired because of statements I made about U.S.
foreign policy that were clearly protected by the First Amendment. It
would have been illegal to do so then, and it is just as illegal today.
<br><br>
More than 16 months ago Governor Owens informed then-CU President Betsy
Hoffman that his office would "work closely with her and the Board
of Regents to terminate" me. A few weeks later President Hoffman
expressed her fears of a "new McCarthyism" to the Boulder
faculty, and a few days later she resigned. Apparently this message was
not lost on the remaining CU administrators.<br><br>
The fact that CU has spent over a year and a great deal of money
conducting a sham investigation of "research misconduct" does
not convert an otherwise illegal action into a legitimate one. In its
determination to fire me, the University has continuously violated its
own rules, the Regents' laws on academic freedom, and the U.S.
Constitution's guarantees of due process and equal protection. As today's
press release illustrates, CU
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1902593790/counterpunchmaga">
<img src="cid:6.2.5.6.2.20060614110123.02abeb20@freedomarchives.org.0" width=146 height=230 alt="[]">
</a>administrators have conducted a "trial by media," not a
confidential personnel investigation. Today's report is but the latest
step in this process. <br><br>
After encouraging malicious and frivolous allegations to be made, Interim
Chancellor DiStefano, as complainant, submitted the resulting media
stories as if they were his own allegations of research misconduct. These
were then investigated by a committee which, over my objections, was
dominated by CU insiders. That committee's report has now been rubber
stamped by the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct (SCRM), and
SCRM's approval will proceed back up the internal hierarchy to Interim
Chancellor DiStefano for his approval.<br><br>
Anyone who bothers to read the investigative committee's unnecessarily
long and obfuscatory report will see that the committee both deviated
from and far exceeded its mandate to served as an unbiased,
non-adversarial, fact-finding body. Instead, it functioned as prosecutor,
jury and judge. Despite the availability of outside experts in my field,
no one on the committee had expertise in American Indian Studies and the
committee included no American Indians. <br><br>
The investigative committee artificially constricted the time and manner
of my responses and then disregarded the evidence I was able to present.
It did not measure my work against the accepted practices of my
discipline; instead it invented and applied a secret set of standards.
Even so, it was unable to provide the required evidence that I violated
relevant norms and, in the end, resorted to recommending harsh sanctions
because I did not have the "right attitude." <br><br>
This process has not demonstrated that I engaged in any serious research
misconduct but that, after more than a year of painstaking review, those
charged with firing me could find nothing more than a few footnotes and
questions of attribution to quibble over. <br><br>
University of Colorado administrators have simply confirmed that they
will shamelessly cater to political pressure, discarding the most basic
principles of academic freedom in their attempt to silence me and
discredit my work. <br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
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