For those who followed this story, this was expected (via the Rocky Mountain News: CU regents fire Ward Churchill
The first, very long chapter of the Ward Churchill saga ended this afternoon as just about everybody — including Churchill — had predicted: He was fired from his job as ethnic studies professor at the University of Colorado.The next chapter is set to begin Wednesday, when the controversial academic and his civil rights attorney, David Lane, sue the university in Denver District Court.
Churchill warned that his dismissal is the beginning of a wider attack on scholars with unpopular political views.
“If you think I’m the endgame, you’re wrong,” Churchill told supporters. “This is the kickoff.”
He raised his fist and smiled defiantly when the school’s board of regents voted 8-1 in public, following three hours of private discussions, to fire him.
The Churchill story started as a public controversy over an essay about 9/11, but his firing is over the gravest of academic offenses:
He was accused of plagiarism, inventing historical incidents and ghostwriting essays which he then cited in his footnotes in support of his own views.
To me, systematic fabrication and plagiarism is the unforgivable sin in academia, and CU did the right thing in firing him. This Chronicle piece discusses some of the findings. One of the odder examples of fabrication is here (although that one isn’t academic, per se, but is telling).
Now, I will point out to those who weren’t reading PoliBlog at the time, I defended Churchill’s right to proffer his theories in print (probably my most comprehensive post on that topic is here). I never thought his 9/11 essay was something for which he deserved firing or any other kind of punishment.
I also noted that Churchill was under qualified for the position for which CU hired him in the first place, and therefore the University bears some responsibility for the problems that Churchill caused (see here and here).
July 25th, 2024 at 12:06 pm
The real issue for academics is that for the general public he will be the answer to the “Name one living professor” for some time to come. Not a good face of the profession.
July 25th, 2024 at 2:27 pm
[...] As PoliBlog notes in the case of Churchill, but could have said for Finkelstein: Churchill was under qualified for the position for which CU hired him in the first place, and therefore the University bears some responsibility for the problems that Churchill caused. [...]
July 25th, 2024 at 8:57 pm
It amazes me that the discussion continues to be framed around the “little Eichmanns” reference when the evidence of his scholarly misconduct is so substantial. I couldn’t believe it when I heard he was ghost writing essays to create reference sources for his other writings. It doesn’t get much more brazen than that.