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<font size=3>Ward Churchill and Death of Academic Freedom (part I) <br>
09.07.2009
<img src="http://newsfromrussia.com/img/ar_gr.gif" width=6 height=9 alt="[]">
<b>Source:</b> <a href="http://english.pravda.ru/">Pravda.Ru</a>
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<b>URL:</b>
<a href="http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/108027-Ward_Churchill-0" eudora="autourl">
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/108027-Ward_Churchill-0</a>
<br><br>
<i>By David R. Hoffman <br><br>
</i>There is a popular adage that states: “Only two things are
certaindeath and taxes.” <br><br>
Now there is a third: “It is certain that the constitutional rights of
the individual will always be sacrificed to appease a governmental and/or
economically powerful entity.” <br><br>
In a recent <i>Pravda.Ru</i> article entitled
“<a href="http://newsfromrussia.com/opinion/columnists/17-06-2009/107786-academics-0">
A tale of two academics</a>”, I analyzed the diametrical situations faced
by two tenured university professors: Ward Churchill and John Yoo.
<br><br>
Churchill was fired from his position at the University of Colorado
(hereinafter CU) after writing a controversial essay shortly after the
9/11 attacks, comparing some of those killed in the World Trade Center to
Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann. <br><br>
To avoid the appearance that Churchill was terminated for exercising his
first amendment right to freedom of speech, CU instead accused Churchill
of engaging in plagiarism and other forms of “research misconduct.”
<br><br>
Yoo, by contrast, remains a tenured law professor at another university
even though, while serving in the “Justice” Department during the
dictatorship of George W. Bush, he authored controversial memoranda that
endorsed the use of torture, extraordinary rendition, and the denial of
due process of law, while also claiming that Bush, as president, had the
authority to void the Constitution and Bill of Rights, deny Americans
their fundamental freedoms, and detain them without charge or trial.
<br><br>
In “A tale of two academics”, I argued that even though Churchill’s
actions seemed to cause more outrage in America than Yoo’s, there are
three reasons why Yoo is more deserving of condemnation: 1). Yoo’s
memoranda possessed the power to influence governmental policy.
Churchill’s essay did not; 2). Churchill expressed his views openly,
while Yoo hid behind a wall of government secrecy and bureaucracy; 3).
Yoo was surreptitiously working to murder the Constitution and Bill of
Rights, while Churchill was breathing life into them by exercising the
very rights these documents were created to protect. <br><br>
Shortly before I finished writing “A tale of two academics”, a Colorado
jury concluded that Churchill had been fired from CU for expressing his
political views, and not because of any alleged “research misconduct.” In
San Francisco, around the same time, federal district court judge Jeffrey
White ruled that Yoo could be sued by Jose Padilla, an American citizen
who was victimized by Yoo’s policies of torture and detention without
charge or trial. <br><br>
Thus, for a brief time, it appeared that American justice was working.
But, having witnessed throughout my legal career how fleeting this
so-called “justice” really is, and how the American power structure tends
to reward those who promote injustice while penalizing those who fight
against it, I also wrote that “anyone familiar with American
jurisprudence knows that such victories are fleeting in a legal system
that labors harder to rationalize injustice than it does to produce
justice.” <br><br>
It appears my statement was prescient: Two significant developments are
now underscoring the sociological ramifications of the Churchill/Yoo
dichotomy. <br><br>
First, the world of academia recently embraced another war criminal and
torturer when Texas Tech hired Alberto Gonzalesattorney general of the
United States under the Bush dictatorshipto teach political science.
<br><br>
This is the same Alberto Gonzales who allegedly used the “Patriot Act” to
illegally spy on American citizens; who so zealously sought to continue
this spying program that he attempted to dupe his predecessor, a
hospitalized and disoriented John Ashcroft, into signing an extension
order; who tried, while serving as attorney general, to present a public
façade of “morality” while he privately endorsed the use of extraordinary
rendition and torture; who answered “I do not recall” at least seventy
times when testifying before Congress about the circumstances that led to
the politically motivated firings of eight United States Attorneys; who
was suspected of committing perjury when the Senate Judiciary Committee
questioned him about the illegal spying program; and who resigned in
disgrace in 2007. <br><br>
I hope that others, besides myself, can appreciate the hypocrisy of Yoo
and Gonzales teaching law and politics when the foundations of these
subjects are the Constitution and Bill of Rightsthe very documents they
made every effort to destroy. <br><br>
Second, despite the jury’s finding that Ward Churchill was wrongfully
terminated from CU, Denver district court judge Larry J. Naves refused to
reinstate Churchill to his professorship position or award him any
financial compensation for lost wages. <br><br>
In reality, such an outcome was predestined. Blaming American foreign
policy for spawning acts of terrorism automatically made Churchill a
pariah in the eyes of the legal system, just as Malcolm X’s “chickens
coming home to roost” statement in the wake of the John F. Kennedy
assassination made him an outcast during the early 1960s. <br><br>
So, despite Judge White’s ruling in the Padilla case, it is a sure bet
that Yoo will never have to pay Padilla a penny in damages, largely
because of the same specious reasoning used to deny judicial relief to
Churchill. <br><br>
Not surprisingly, CU’s president Bruce Benson lauded Naves for
“appropriately applying the law.” But what “law” did Naves actually
apply? Obviously the only one that truly matters in the United States:
the “law” decreeing that the rich and powerful must always work to
protect the interests of the rich and powerful.<br><br>
<i>To be continued...<br><br>
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