Via the Denver Post: CU weighs buyout for firebrand prof

CU regents have said they are bound by due process and authorized a review of Churchill’s writings and speech by a panel comprising the interim Boulder chancellor, the arts and sciences dean, and the law school dean.

Depending on the panel’s findings, due the week of March 7, CU president Betsy Hoffman could inform Churchill of the university’s desire to terminate his employment. Churchill would then have the right to appeal through a faculty committee.

Typically such dismissals - even if done by the book - result in years of expensive lawsuits that Hoffman told legislators last week the university would like to avoid.

Sources involved in the talks said if an arrangement could be made, it could get everyone off the hook, including Churchill, the subject of daily press revelations.

When he was in trouble for simply being a radial nut job, I was opposed to his firing, as I argued that it is wrong, and ultimately damaging to a far larger number of people, to fire professors for what they say or write.

However, at this rate there are serious questions of misrepresentation or even fraud vis-à-vis his hiring (although how provable in a legal sense is unclear at this point) and clearly he is a grandstanding con man even more than he is a hack academic. At a minimum he is an embarrassment to the university and a poster child for the evils of affirmative action at any cost.

A buy-out is likely the best option for the university, and probably for Churchill himself. And before anyone goes too ballistic on that procedure, consider that universities do it all the time for football coaches.

And this is a new one (to me, anyway):

Questions also remain about Churchill’s résumé. In a version provided to American Design by either Churchill or one of his publishers, he says he served with the 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam War. Military records, however, show he worked as a light-truck driver in South Vietnam.

And, gee, ya think?

Regents, who may one day be called upon to vote on Churchill’s job, are upset about the daily publicity over the controversial professor, saying it could cause long-term damage to CU’s reputation.

“The possible damage to the university this controversy has created will take years to recover from,” said Regent Peter Steinhauer.

Indeed.