What pissed you off so much? Dennis
On Wed, Aug 12, 2026 at 2:39 PM Michael Kowalski via groups.io <[email protected]> wrote: > I had to read his book before all this came out. Wish I could get my money > back. > Mike K > > > Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS > <https://aolapp.onelink.me/eG2g?pid=NativePlacement&c=US_Acquisition_YMktg_320_EmailSignature_AttributionDL&af_sub1=Acquisition&af_sub2=US_YMktg&af_sub3=&af_sub4=100002473&af_sub5=SentFromNewAOLApp__Interstitial_&af_ios_store_cpp=ce85ce34-ad0f-4811-a92b-a172743b064e&af_android_url=https%3A%2F%2Fplay.google.com%2Fstore%2Fapps%2Fdetails%3Fid%3Dcom.aol.mobile.aolapp%26listing%3Demail_signature_attribution> > > On Wednesday, August 12, 2026, 2:22 PM, Alan Ginsberg via groups.io > <[email protected]> wrote: > > https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/us/ward-churchill-dead.html > > > His inflammatory essay about the Sept. 11 attacks prompted his dismissal > by the University of Colorado for unrelated research misconduct. A jury > later found that he had been wrongfully terminated for his views. > > > Ward L. Churchill, a professor whose firing by the University of Colorado > in 2007 inspired a lawsuit that became a landmark case about academic > freedom and free speech, has died. He was 78. > > The death was confirmed by his former lawyer, David Lane. No further > details were provided. > > When he was dismissed, Mr. Churchill had been a tenured professor at the > university’s Boulder campus since 1991 and had served as chairman of its > ethnic studies department. In 2007, a faculty panel found that he had > plagiarized and falsified parts of his research on Native Americans, > prompting his dismissal. > > He filed a wrongful termination suit against the university, claiming that > the real cause for his firing was to punish him for an essay he had written > on Sept. 12, 2001, and published online a few days later, in which he > argued that the United States had brought on itself the Sept. 11 terrorist > attacks. > > In the essay, he compared office workers who had been killed to Adolf > Eichmann, a Nazi official whose later defense that he was merely “following > orders” helped inspire the writer Hannah Arendt to develop the concept of > “the banality of evil.” > > > In Mr. Churchill’s essay, titled “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of > Roosting Chickens,” he wrote that the financial workers who died at the > World Trade Center were not innocent bystanders, but “little Eichmanns” who > were part of “a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global > financial empire.” > > The essay garnered little notice at the time of its release, nor when it > was expanded and published as a book in 2003. But when Mr. Churchill was > invited to speak at Hamilton College in New York in 2005, it resurfaced and > caused > an uproar > <https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/education/college-cancels-speech-by-professor-who-disparaged-911-attack.html>, > and the organizers canceled the event. > > Under pressure, including from Governor Bill Owens > <https://www.denverpost.com/2005/06/08/more-radical-comments-by-prof-weighed/> > of Colorado, the university formed a panel to investigate Mr. Churchill’s > conduct. It concluded that he had committed serious academic misconduct, > including falsifying and fabricating historical details and plagiarizing > work by an environmental group and another scholar. > > The panel was divided about whether he deserved to be dismissed, with > three of the five members in favor, and two recommending a two-year > suspension. > > > The university’s leaders decided to fire him > <https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/us/25professor.html>, prompting Mr. > Churchill to start his legal challenge. When the lawsuit went to trial in > March 2009, Mr. Churchill’s lawyers described the university panel’s search > for professional misconduct as a pretext for a foregone decision to dismiss > him. Mr. Lane, his lawyer, said at the time that Mr. Churchill was the > victim of a “howling mob” of university administrators, conservative media > and politicians “falling over themselves” to secure his removal. > > In April 2009, the jury found that Mr. Churchill had been wrongfully > dismissed, awarding him a symbolic $1 in damages. It found that his > political views had been a “substantial or motivating” factor in his > dismissal, and that the university had not shown that he would have been > dismissed anyway for his academic misconduct. > > “The jury’s award is some vindication,” Mr. Churchill said. “I didn’t ask > for money, I asked for justice.” > > A Denver District Court judge ruled that the university did not have to > reinstate or compensate Mr. Churchill, a decision which was upheld by the > Colorado Court of Appeals. In 2012, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed > the lower courts’ rulings > <https://law.justia.com/cases/colorado/supreme-court/2012/11sc25.html>. > > Ward LeRoy Churchill was born on Oct. 2, 1947, in Urbana, Ill., to Jack > LeRoy Churchill and Maralyn Lucretia Allen. They divorced when he was a > year old. In a 2003 essay > <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08854300308428341> in an > academic journal, he claimed to be of Muscogee Creek descent through his > father, and an enrolled member of the United Keetowah Band of Cherokee > Indians through his mother. > > The Cherokee tribe said > <https://www.denverpost.com/2005/05/19/tribe-shifts-stand-acknowledges-churchills-alleged-cherokee-ancestry/> > in 2005 that he was an associate member rather than a full member. A former > member of the tribe’s enrollment committee said that Mr. Churchill could > not prove his eligibility by blood but was granted associate status based > on his advocacy work. > > Mr. Churchill grew up in Elmwood, Ill., and graduated in 1965 from Elmwood > Community High School, where he played football and basketball. Former > classmates told The Denver Post in 2005 that he liked to debate politics, > even as a teen. > > He joined the United States Army in 1966, training as a light-truck driver > and projectionist, then served in Vietnam. He told The Denver Post in a > 1987 interview that he had attended paratrooper school and was assigned to > an elite reconnaissance patrol unit, details which did not appear on his > Army record. > > He was discharged from the Army in 1968. He said in the 1987 interview > that he became active in antiwar leftist circles in Chicago after he > returned from Vietnam. > > He received a bachelor’s degree in technological communications from > Sangamon State University in Springfield, Ill. (now the University of > Illinois Springfield), in 1974, and a master’s degree in communications > theory from Sangamon State in 1975. > > He was hired by the University of Colorado in 1980 to be the acting > director of its American Indian Equal Opportunities Program. In 1991, he > became an associate professor in the communications department and received > tenure. He became a full professor and transferred to the ethnic studies > department in 1997. > > His classes were popular enough that up to 60 students would be on the > wait list, Arturo Aldama, a professor in that department, told The Denver > Post in 2005. > > Mr. Churchill was married four times. His first wife, Dora-Lee Larson, > filed to end their common-law marriage in 1984 and accused Mr. Churchill of > “past violence and threats.” His second marriage, to Marie Annette Jaimes, > a colleague at the University of Colorado, ended in divorce in 1995. That > same year, he married Leah Kelly, who was struck and killed by a car while > crossing a street near Boulder in 2000, at the age of 25. > > Mr. Churchill’s fourth wife, Natsu Saito, was a fellow professor in the > University of Colorado’s ethnic studies department. In 2006, while he was > being investigated by the university, Ms. Saito resigned > <https://www.summitdaily.com/news/wife-of-embattled-professor-resigns-cu-post/> > to teach at Georgia State University. > > Information about his survivors was not immediately available. > > In 2017, Mr. Churchill returned to speak at the Boulder campus, and he > remained defiant. “Academic freedom in America is dead,” he told the crowd. > “I had my identity before I was a professor, I had it while I was a > professor, and I have it now.” > > Alexandra E. Petri contributed reporting. > > Francesca Regalado <https://www.nytimes.com/by/francesca-regalado> is a > Times reporter covering breaking news. > > > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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