Thanks to Diana Hsieh (NoodleFood):
TO: CU-Boulder StudentsHere's the Report and Recommendations of the [University of Colorado] Standing Committee on Research Misconduct Concerning Allegations of Research Misconduct by Professor Ward Churchill. Six of its nine members had recommended dismissal; two recommended suspension without pay for five years; one recommended suspension without pay for two years.FROM: Office of the President
SENDER: officeofthepresident@cu.edu
DATE: 07/24/07
SUBJECT: Communication from President Hank Brown on the Board of Regents Vote
Dear Students of the University of Colorado,
The Board of Regents today voted to accept my recommendation to dismiss Professor Ward Churchill from the faculty.
I made the recommendation for the good of the university. CU's success depends upon its reputation for academic integrity. A public research university such as ours requires public faith that each faculty member's professional activities and search for truth are conducted according to the high standards on which CU's reputation rests.
We are accountable to those who have a stake in the university: the people of Colorado who contribute $200 million annually in tax dollars, the federal entities that provide some $640 million annually in research funding, the donors who gave us more than $130 million this year to enhance academic quality, the alumni who want to maintain the value of their degrees, the faculty and staff who expect their colleagues to act with integrity, and the students who trust that faculty who teach them meet the high professional standards of the university and the profession.
Given the record of the case and findings of Professor Churchill's faculty peers, I determined that allowing him to remain on the faculty would cast a shadow on our reputation for academic integrity.
Throughout the case, we have adhered to shared governance procedures as determined by the CU Faculty Senate Constitution and Bylaws and adopted by the Board of Regents. During the course of two-plus years, Professor Churchill presented his position in writing, in person, with his attorney and with witnesses of his choosing. He was afforded full due process.
More than 20 tenured faculty members (from CU and other universities) on three separate panels conducted a thorough review of his work and found that the evidence shows Professor Churchill engaged in research misconduct, and that it required serious sanction. The record of the case shows a pattern of serious, repeated and deliberate research misconduct that falls below the minimum standard of professional integrity, including fabrication, falsification, improper citation and plagiarism. No university can abide such serious academic misconduct.
Professor Churchill fabricated historical events and sought to support his fabrications by manufacturing articles under other names. His publications show more than just sloppy citations or using the work of others without crediting them. The Investigative Committee of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct found multiple instances of falsification, fabrication and plagiarism. Any student engaging in such a wide range of academic misconduct would be seriously sanctioned. We should hold our faculty to a high standard of professionalism
While Professor Churchill's peers on the faculty panels were unanimous in finding research misconduct, views on the appropriate sanction varied. Some faculty recommended dismissal while others suggested a less severe penalty. My obligation as president is to recommend to the Board of Regents an appropriate sanction that is for the good of the university.
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. The prohibition against research misconduct extends to all faculty, regardless of their political views. We cannot abandon our professional standards and exempt faculty members from being accountable for the integrity of their research simply because their views are controversial.
Professor Churchill's activities not only run counter to the essence of academic freedom, but also threaten its foundation. Academic freedom is intended to protect the exploration and teaching of unpopular, even controversial ideas. But that pursuit must be accompanied by the standards of the profession. Academic freedom does not protect research misconduct. After his research misconduct was identified, Professor Churchill did not admit any errors or come forward to correct the record, as is expected in the profession.
CU's most important asset is its academic reputation. Professor Churchill's actions reflect poorly on the University of Colorado, but we will not let the research misconduct of one individual tarnish our reputation. Our faculty members take pride in their work and demonstrate their respect for the high standards of their profession and this university day in and day out. Professor Churchill's research misconduct is an affront to those who conduct themselves with integrity.
We will remain accountable to those who have high expectations of Colorado's flagship university. And our faculty will remain true to high professional standards to ensure our reputation for academic integrity remains intact.
Sincerely,
Hank Brown
President
I think President Brown's action is correct, for reasons I gave last year:
As best I can tell, from what press accounts I've read and from the Report itself, Churchill hasn't shown any contrition. His falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism (in the Committee's words), which the Committee quite plausibly found to be deliberate, are substantial.And these are falsehoods in his published work, which can readily be checked. How can his future students be confident that things he says in class are accurate? (Yes, we try to instill skepticism in our students, but they still rightly expect that they can count on our factual assertions, rather than double-checking every word.) How can his colleagues, and Colorado taxpayers, be confident that his students are learning things accurately? His work has been cited by over 100 times in law reviews alone, and law isn't even his main field; I assume that quite a few scholars are now wondering whether their reliance on his work led their own work to be in error. How can other scholars, and his other readers, ever rely on anything he says?
It seems to me that keeping him on the faculty would be a substantial disservice to Colorado students, Colorado taxpayers, and the academic fields in which he works. I hope that in its sympathy for a colleague, and its desire to avoid hassle or even litigation, the University doesn't lose sight of that.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Text of University of Colorado President's Letter About Ward Churchill:
- Dismissal Recommended for Ward Churchill
- The Punishment in the Ward Churchill Case:
- Real Misconduct, Uncovered By Politically Motivated Actions:
- Churchill and Sock-Puppetry:
- Ward Churchill:
Nice work, if you can get it.
Perhaps Churchill is delusional and truly believes all his fabrications. If that was presented and proven like an insanity defense, I'd agree that he wasn't morally culpable - but he still wasn't qualified for the job in the first place.
Because I've seen no evidence of anyone at CU saying his political beliefs are reprehensible or that he just went to far with his academic work.
And if it's just circumstantial evidence, then WHOI Jacket makes a good point. If Churchill could get out of legitimate charges of misconduct just because he recently made controversial political statements, then the key to ever dismissing such legitimate charges is to say something really controversial right before you get caught.
Presumably, the standard for stripping one of tenure is higher than for denying someone tenure in the first place. The recent Finkelstein case at DePaul involved the denial of tenure to another angry Leftist with many supporters. In the end, the school said "no" to Finkelstein and his purported "scholarship," though unfortunately not in nearly so clear and unequivocal manner as UofCO has finally bounced Churchill. I think the limits of "academic freedom" are not much better delimited after either Churchill or Finkelstein, since in the former case who would ever think that "academic freedom" give one cover to lie in all the ways he did about supposed "scholarship." In the latter case, it was a matter of not granting tenure and the reasons were not as clearly articulated, e.g., his oeuvre couldn´t be counted as "scholarship" as that is understood for tenure purposes.
Interesting that when Brown cited all the money received from different sources by the school, he didn´t bother to put a number to student tuition.
He certainly has free legal help. And if the university or state makes the slightest mistake it may be forced to reset the procedure and take another two years to fire him.
Meanwhile he can try to negotiate a settlement to go away. Or elections may bring in people with other ideas.
His termination is not politically motivated. Or, more precisely, there's plenty of reason to terminate him, regardless of his extra-curricular opinions.
But the attention he garners is politically motivated - a couple years ago some right wing bloggers dug up an irrelevant unimportant nobody that no one had ever heard of and held him up as an example of their cartoonish idea of lefty academics.
(former) Prof. Churchill is completely irrelevant, except as a strawman. If he didn't exist, someone would have to invent him.
I have no idea whether the misconduct charges were trumped-up. It seems to me that falsification, sock puppetry and plagiarism are pretty difficult to "trump up:" one just needs to pull his articles and see. But I have to admit that on some level, Churchill's attorney is correct. Lazy and/or unethical faculty frequently abuse tenure and academic freedom rules. Although E.V. is too much of a gentleman to talk about such matters, I'm sure he could think of any number of UCLA faculty (in the university as a whole--I'm not talking about his law prof. colleagues) who pull all manners of shenanigans without fear of retribution.
But as the "due process" procedure CU had to go through to fire Churchill shows, disciplining a tenured faculty member is a difficult, expensive, and time-consuming thing. So as an administrator, you're not going to bother doing it unless you're really motivated. Professional ethics alone isn't going to cut it. But having CU turned into the laughing stock of major American universities just might have.
Who the hell is Ward Churchill and why is the right obsessed with him?
I wonder if he'll land at the American Enterprise Institute next to fellow fraudster John Lott [1, 2, 3]? Nah, that's a home for conservative liars!
How is this a first amendment issue at all anyway? That professor can say whatever he wants, to whomever he wants, in whatever medium, so he's got his free speech. He can go on the radio, on TV, stand on a soap box, shout at strangers at a bus stop, etc. and say the people who died in 9/11 deserved it, the US is satan, etc etc ad nauseum. But the first amendment doesn't guarantee him a cushy academic job for life with abundant benefits. What a scoundrel who was deeply infested into the academic establishment.
his scholarship was a fraud. he plagiarized. he lied.
of COURSE, much of the investigation into him was initially motivated by what he said. so what?
the saying is true. if you're entire existence is a fraud, then don't draw attention to yourself.
assume that none of this would have come to light if he hadn't made the "little eichmann" statement. it's still irrelevant.
Churchill shouldn't (and probably couldn't) be fired for the "little Eichmann's" comment --- although, having lost friends in that building, I don't claim I mightn't have taken great umbrage if he were to say it to me. But that's the way tenure is supposed to work, and for every Ward Churchill it protects, it protects ten or a hundred faculty members other places who say things like "evolution and natural selection are the best scientific explanation of speciation," and at least a few who follow that with "but I see a grand design in it from which I infer a Designer."
But Churchill wasn't fired for being an ass: he was fired for falsification, misconduct, and plagiarism. Whatever the reason for it originally being noticed (and remember that this wasn't the first time Churchill had been caught at it) there's no question that it's a fireable offense.
To the extent that it has any political content, it's probably "if you are a plagiarist, it's best not to call attention to yourself by being a divisive and contentious plagiarist."
Whit, many of Churchill's supporters argue for an extension of the exclusionary rule to such cases. If we wouldn't have learned of Churchill's many frauds absent the controversy surrounding his controversial, but protected, speech, we should not consider his frauds in judging his fitness to serve as a professor. I don't accept this approach, but the argument is not wholly without support.
look at the effects if it were true. any public (or private) servant/employee who has committed fraud/crimes (in some states falsification of a resume is a crime as ridiculous as that may sound) merely need make controversial statements and all of a sudden he is "untouchable" for those offenses.
this reminds me a lot of pretext laws for law enforcement. you KNOW a guy is a drug dealer. arrested him for it 10X. now, he just speeds by you at 50 in a 25 zone. if you stop him for speeding, the defense attorney is going to argue that speed was the pretext for the stop. so, what's the result? similar.
the issue one has to ask oneself is if churchill was just "joe blow" academic and had committed the same pattern of offenses - would he be fired? the answer is clearly yes. at least at any reputable institution.
i find it also possible that if he never made his comments, he might never have been found out. oh well.
if it could be shown that the UNIVERSITY engaged in extraordinary measures to uncover his fraud that they would not have done if ward hadn't been WARD CHURCHILL the rabble rouser (tm), this exclusionary rule thing MIGHT have some merit. but what are you going to do? RETAIN the guy that everybody knows is a fraud?
actually, the exclusionary argument might make sense if (as above) it was the university that engaged in the extraordinary investigation. if it was people NOT associated with the university that did it, and brought the facts to light, it would be even more irrelevant. the exclusionary rule (the actual one) doesn't apply to citizens not acting as police agents who bring evidence to police's attention.
i think the legal terminology for that is "tough beans"
Um, where do you get off using the term "many" in the context of Ward Churchill supporters?
It's like saying "many people who believe Mickey Mouse is the Pope argue for an extension of the exclusionary rule."
It is entirely appropriate for a University to focus on the quality of the research, as that is how it gets grant money. If the University loses its reputation, the grant money will dry up.
It was Churchill's own ego and stupidity that drew attention to his academic "record"; he has no one to blame but himself.
Links to articles about the prof in question are here and here.
I've heard this line before, and I don't know what it means. The only 'someone' who invented Churchill was Churchill. And thus his trouble: He was not who he said he was.
The right is correct about the general slant of college faculty--on average far more liberal than off campus, and a minority of genuine radicals. Churchill is not the only professor who made outrageous, blame-the-victim comments after 9/11. (We have a couple on this campus. Doesn't everyone?)
The nasty underside of this hateful contingent bubbles up at odd times. If this draws attention to current malfeasance on the part of a professor, don't blame Bill Buckley.
You are, of course, correct. The original draft was "...both of Churchill's supporters argue...", but my editor made me change it. He said we couldn't know for sure whether Churchill might have as many as three or four supporters. We agreed on the use of the word "many" as accurate in the sense it means and a large percentage of Churchill's supporters, however few in number they may be. I should have stuck to my guns. I bowed to the pressures of the posting deadline and hope you'll forgive this lapse of integrity on my part. It won't happen again until it does.
Obviously, I have no idea of the actual numbers of Ward Churchill supporters. From what I've seen, however, they don't seem to be anywhere near as close to zero as I'd like.
There were, naturally, many on the right who criticized Churchill. But more importantly, there were just as many who noted that Churchill was, indeed, an irrelevant crackpot. As they pointed out, the real scrutiny should be directed not toward Churchill but toward the University that not only hired him, but granted him tenure. Who made the decisions? Given the scarcity of tenured positions, what kind of people would grant one to a crackpot like Churchill? What due diligence was performed? If the diligence was not very, well, diligent, then why is that?
These are tough questions, which I note the university president assiduously ignores. But man, if I was a Colorado legislator, I'd demand answers.
- Alaska Jack
Diana, I agree. I wish it were true that the number of Churchill's supporters could be counted on one or even two hands. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Too many do not believe in objective truth, or, if they do, they don't place too much value on such truth. For too many, the fact Churchill got the narrative right, even if his facts were made up, is the important thing. "Fake but accurate" is not a view held only in some newsrooms; it's also the attitude of too many academics.
Returning to my original point, too many confuse the 1st amendment guarantee of "free speech" with "speech without consequences". Some have an oversensitivity to speech issues and oppose any criticism of (or other bad consequences stemming from) someone's remarks. Since the public (as opposed to the government) had no legitimate basis for objecting to Churchill's remarks, any evidence of Churchill's frauds should be ignored by both the public and the government because the motives of those looking at Churchill were impure. Rather than risk chilling a future Churchill's speech, the argument goes, we should be willing to forgo disciplining Churchill for his non-speech related foibles.
What this argument ignores is that part of free speech is the ability to disagree -- sometimes loudly -- with the speaker. The 1st amendment should only be viewed as limiting government's ability to regulate speech. It shouldn't insulate a speaker from adverse reactions to what's been said. Otherwise, the 1st amendment would only protect the first speaker, never the second. That's a prescription for one sided, not robust, debate. Part of debating what Churchill said about 9/11 is a review of his standing as an academic -- which brings his prior work under proper scrutiny.
Obsessed may be overstating it. Would youm describe the left as 'obsessed' about Alberto Gonzales' quetionable office administrative skills?
Churchill is not a loner. I don't know how many other fake academics have used race to bludgeon their way into tenured jobs, but I know of at least one other one.
There is quite a bit of evidence that the school shamefully ignored reports of his academic dishonesty for years. [FN: If there was some statute of limitations on this dishonesty, it would certainly have started to run years ago when the school received ample inquiry notice. However, I doubt any form of limitations or laches could apply, as I do not think one could reasonably rely on either the school's continued indifference, nor get around the "continuing violation" of his teaching his own materials as well as continued publication in reliance on previous dishonest work.] From there, it is not a long stretch to argue that the controversy not only precipitated the firing, but also caused it.
I am no expert on selective prosecution law, but I understand it is quite difficult to prove. It would seem to me that at a minimum, he would have to show that the school did not fire other professors for equally serious misconduct, or perhaps, that it had never made a serious attempt to enforce academic honesty as a general rule. I don't think he can rely solely on their neglect or even recklessness in failing to pursue previous accusations against him.
In my own view, it was political considerations that caused the school to ignore his thin credentials in the first place, and quite possibly the accusations in the second. So "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword" seems to summarize the fact that his firing is at least poetic justice. Hopefully, CU has not been so academically lax that it has ignored other cases of similar dishonesty. If so, it may very well end up settling the case. In the meantime, its new, supposedly tightened scrutiny of its professors is hopefully sincere. Perhaps, by the time any trial occurs, any allegation of selective prosecution may be easily dealt with. That is, however lax its previous enforcement of academic honesty was, if, as a matter of fact the severity of Churchill's violations were a wake-up call rather than a selective prosecution, his suit should fail.
I don't remember all the specifics, but do remember that the Rocky Mountain News, as well as several talk show hosts ran with this for months. I can remember a time when Caplis and Silverman at 630 KHOW hit this almost every day for what seemed like months. Both are litigation attorneys and used some of their skills bringing it together and sorting through it. Caplis is reliably conservative, but Silverman is usually not. But what I think incited and united both of them on this quest was that they were both CU alums. RMN reporters also did a lot of valuable work in building the case against Churchill.
Because of all the outside work done before the CU investigation even got started, I think that any question about the exclusionary rule is moot - it is much more similar to the case where private citizens provide the police with the evidence to convict some wrongdoer, and the police run with it and get a conviction. Of course, they probably had to verify a lot of the evidence against Churchill, but when the groundwork was well done, as it was here, it was likely fairly easy to verify that, yes, he plagiarized here, and cited himself there.
You are the 1st Amdt. expert here (or at least the most prominent one, given that it is your blog). What are your thoughts on any 1st Amdt. claims by Churchill?
My amateur thoughts are that if outside interests were able to spoon feed CU and make at least a prima facie case of professional misconduct, and if, as appears likely from what we have seen, CU went out of its way to not look at his non-academic speech when investigating him, wouldn't they be in pretty good shape in defending against a 1st Amdt. claim?
Which is an indictment of Churchill in itself.
If "being an intellectual fraud" in that sense --- holding silly and apparently counter-factual views --- we a firing offense, the English, Philosophy, and Humanities Departments of most universities would be empty.
His books are used as textbooks at over 100 colleges, and he's certainly not going to be hurting for cash in the future (he'll probably make more money since he no longer has to schedule around his teaching duties).
But the "he's nobody" slant is to be expected. A lot of folks are useful for the left - until they become an embarrassment. See Cindy Sheehan, for example. Or those "military protesters" who are wondeful truthy sorts (until we find out that they weren't actually in the military and were lying about everything they said).
Now? They're non-people.
The university then determined that because less than one half was plagiarized, they would not revoke the degree.
I wonder what effect that decision had on Boston University grad students?
good point, I thought the same thing myself. It is at least a freudian slip not to mention the duty of the university to the students who pay tuition. Of course some might think that implicit, but these days so is the 'duty' of the federal and state government to support these establishments.
This is the best I could find and it vaguely jibes with what the President said as the "restricted funds budget" is grants for specific things, probably mostly federal and it shows almost $600 million. Tuition is included in the "State funded appropriations" part of the budget. I gleaned this from another page that was just for the Boulder campus. So if you take out the $200 million in aid Brown recognizes then tuition which is the bulk of the remainder is about $550 million. Of that some 70% at the Boulder campus, couldn't find a global figure, comes from out of state tuition.
This reflects the salutary trend that high profile state research institutes are becoming more 'self-funding' vis-a-vis state support. Once this concept trickles down I'll be happier, although this tend doesn't address the cunard or at least the unrebutted proposition, that only the government, esp. the federal government, can fund basic research. This concept holds true for public and private institutions with regards to the funding of research.
Finally on Churchill, we were talking about Churchill weren't we -- I probably have mentioned this in some other context or one of the other posts but never tire of pointing to 'his' body of work which itself rebuts his little eichmanns moment. Churchill, presumably, wrote this article for Z magazine published in 1996 where he distinctly associated himself with the school of thought that loose analogy to the holocaust was an immoral assault on the truth. This is the nub of his argument citing Lipstadt (who I believe actually exists although I haven't confirmed it):
and to engage in the evil of quoting myself -- I guess it's not half so evil if I admit it (from an essay I wrote juxtaposing the treatment of Churchill's Eichmann moment and Larry Summers purportedly intemperate musings on a gender basis for scientific apptitude and before widespread discussion of Churchill's flouting of scholarly standards, although I'm still think it applies):
Brian (pseudonym of Occidental Tourist)
Assaults on Truth and Memory: Holocaust Denial in Context
(The Saga Continues)
Churchill had a friend, Ruben G. Mendoza, a teaching assistant at the University of Colorado, Denver. Ruben’s department Chair Dr. Moore, for abusing students, booted him from the university, against which Mendoza promptly filed suit. Ruben, an ersatz Chicano, resurfaced as an activist, and got fast-tracked to tenure through one Steven F. Arvizu, at CSU Monterey Bay. Mendoza became the nosebleed of the fledgling university. Churchill was invited to CSUMB by Ruben to speak at a weeklong gathering of the clan. Mendoza also engages in academic misconduct, so far without consequence. The Duke lacrosse team fiasco shows that liberals have created a phony cultural paradigm that distorts reality. And, no one exploits phony paradigms, obfuscates truth, or games the system like the Clintons. Point being, miscreants like Churchill and Mendoza have powerful political backers: the fish rots from the head.
The Taliban might as well as run the university. -David Horowitz
Set the Wayback Machine for 23 August 1995: a hot day in the nation’s capitol. But 3000 miles due west on California’s Central Coast, a constellation of events was unfolding that would have a profound effect on Western civilization; plunge it into decades of war. Yet, this cataclysmic upheaval was only part of the plan. Bill Clinton picked up the telephone. It was his Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, calling from a payphone in Monterey. Bill held the receiver at arms length and gazed at the tasteful floral arrangement that adorned the Oval Office. Leon’s disembodied voice filled the room. What now, asked Hillary. It’s that damn college, mouthed Bill. There was, no getting out. Hillary nodded, just tell Leon he’ll get whatever he needs: http://theseedsof9-11.com