Last week, I blogged on the infamous petition of 199 University of Colorado professors who demanded the termination of the Regents’ investigation of Ward Churchill–notwithstanding extensive evidence of academic fraud by Churchill, and of Churchill’s active promotion of domestic terrorism, in violation of his legally-required oath to uphold the Constitutions of the United States and of Colorado. The fine Denver weblog “View from a Height” has
posted the full text of the petition, and a list of the signers.
Our Independence Institute interns looked up the affiliations of most of the signers. Below is a Department-level breakout of the signers. These figures should be considered an approximate first draft, in part because some professors have cross-departmental appointments. As Derrida would have pointed out, some of these categories are subject to contestation. Even so, the figures give a rough guide to the areas of the school where Churchill’s support is strongest. Of course some departments are much larger than other departments, and these are raw figures, not “rates” for departments. In some cases, related departments or units are grouped together.
Language Arts. English/Writing: 30 signers. Communication: 2. French & Italian: 9. German: 2. Linguistics: 1. East Asian languages: 5. Spanish/Portuguese: 1.
Hard Sciences and Math. Biology/Physiology/Ecology: 16. Math: 8. Chemistry: 4. Geology: 2. Psychology: 3. Speech/hearing: 3.
Humanities and Social Sciences. Theatre: 5. Film: 4. History: 9. Art/Art History: 6. Classics: 2. Geography: 5. Anthropology: 3. Philosophy: 5. Religious Studies: 1. Political Science: 2. Economics: 1. Sociology: 4.
Professional Training. Education: 15. Journalism: 9. Business: 1. Law: zero!
Don’t read too much into these figures; the English Department is certainly dominated by post-modernists, but the fact that no Law professors signed the petition doesn’t mean than the Law faculty does not, on the whole, tilt very strongly left. Rather, the explanation may be that Law professors had a better understanding than did, say, the French professors, how foolish it was for the petition to claim that the investigation itself was a violation of Churchill’s First Amendment rights.
Comments are closed.