Corollary incident: His wife resigned her position @ CU:
http://cbs4denver.com/topstories/local_story_136115605.html
Language in the report itself suggests that Churchill — in his
dealings with the panel — did not acknowledge any serious errors,
although in some cases he suggested that others may have made mistakes
that contributed to the writing that led to the plagiarism
accusations. In some instances as well, the committee said that
Churchill appeared to change his story on key points — saying, for
instance, that when he could not find written sources to back some of
his points, he was relying on American Indian oral traditions. The
committee, while taking care to say that American Indian oral
traditions were a valid source for scholarship, questioned the
legitimacy of citing such traditions after the fact.
Also, on the research discrepancies:
Both books covered some of the same ground, looking at the schools
many American Indians were forced to attend. Child said that not only
did Churchill use her photograph — of a cemetery outside of a one-time
Indian boarding school in Kansas — but he added a caption saying that
half of those who attended such schools suffered a similar fate as the
occupant of the grave shown. Child said that while many did die, there
is no definitive number and it is a “tremendous exaggeration” to say
that half died.
I don't know about the particular boarding schools in question, but many
were run by so-called christians that felt that the 'savage children'
would be better off dead than "unsaved", and what I've read in "In a
Barren Land : The American Indian Quest for Cultural Survival, 1607 to
the Present" by Paula M. Marks
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0688141439/102-0725325-8072924
would seem to validate, if not prove Churchill's contention that 50% or
more died from various causes.
It all depend's on WHOSE telling of Native American history one chooses
to believe, whose grandmother saw what... whose great-uncle knew who,
and was told what. It's an extremely important, albeit difficult to
calculate consideration because the ones using written language to
record events, even in the early to mid 1900s tended to be... non-native.
~~~~
Inside Higher Ed
May 17 2006
Truth and Consequences
http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/05/17/churchill
In the end, the faculty panel assigned to look into the Ward Churchill
mess at the University of Colorado found plenty of guilt to go around.
It found repeated, intentional academic misconduct — plagiarism,
fabrication, falsification and more — by Churchill, an ethnic studies
professor at Colorado’s Boulder campus, and documented those instances
in a 124-page report released Tuesday. But the panel also faulted the
university, noting that allegations about Churchill had been known for
years in the scholarly world but had not been deemed worthy of inquiry
at his home campus. The committee suggested that the university had
hired Churchill knowing he was an outspoken activist and should not have
been surprised when that’s what it got. And the panel raised concerns
about its own role because it was created in the aftermath of a public
uproar over essays Churchill wrote about 9/11 — essays that infuriated
many but that the panel concluded were protected by academic freedom and
the U.S. Constitution.
Guilt was relatively easy for the panel to determine. All of the
conclusions about research misconduct were unanimous among the five
members of the committee, whose work will now be reviewed by another
faculty panel and will then be considered by Colorado administrators.
But the question of what punishment would be appropriate divided the
panel. One member suggested that Churchill be fired, despite his status
as a tenured professor. Two recommended that he be suspended for five
years without pay. And two recommended that he be suspended for two
years without pay.
But in a section of the report that could provide cover if Colorado
officials want to fire Churchill and cite the faculty panel as a reason
for doing so, the two panel members who would prefer a five-year
suspension said that they — like the panel member who favors firing —
would find revocation of tenure and dismissal to be “not an improper
sanction” for Churchill, given the seriousness of the findings. Thus
Colorado can say that a majority of the investigative panel agreed that
firing could be justified.
Churchill and his lawyer did not respond to messages seeking comment on
the report. But he has consistently denied wrongdoing and threatened to
sue the university if it fires him, saying that he is being punished for
his outspoken views. Churchill told the Associated Press Tuesday that
the report was “a travesty” and “transparently ridiculous,” adding that
“I feel, in a weird way, actually sort of validated they would put
themselves through such contortions.”
Language in the report itself suggests that Churchill — in his dealings
with the panel — did not acknowledge any serious errors, although in
some cases he suggested that others may have made mistakes that
contributed to the writing that led to the plagiarism accusations. In
some instances as well, the committee said that Churchill appeared to
change his story on key points — saying, for instance, that when he
could not find written sources to back some of his points, he was
relying on American Indian oral traditions. The committee, while taking
care to say that American Indian oral traditions were a valid source for
scholarship, questioned the legitimacy of citing such traditions after
the fact.
If Colorado officials hoped that the long-awaited report would allow
them to resolve the Churchill controversy and move on, they are likely
to be disappointed. Even as the report was being prepared for release,
new charges were being made about Churchill’s scholarship. Even with a
slim majority of the panel agreeing that dismissal would be appropriate,
and mounds and mounds of evidence of misconduct, other parts of the
report could no doubt be used by Churchill to argue that he couldn’t
have received a fair review. And while the report itself is written in a
scholarly, reasoned tone, the passions about Churchill remain volatile.
Within hours of the report’s release, Gov. Bill Owens of Colorado —
while praising the report’s conclusions about Churchill — issued a
statement complaining about the “lengthy process” of evaluating a
professor who “besmirches the reputation” of the university, and calling
for him to quit immediately.
Ward Churchill was hired by Colorado in 1991, promoted to full professor
in 1997 and was serving as chair of ethnic studies last January when —
seemingly out of the blue — he became a flashpoint in the culture wars.
He had been invited to give a talk at Hamilton College, in upstate New
York — the kind of speaking invitation Churchill had accepted for years,
typically delivering speeches about the racism faced by American Indians
and the failings of U.S. foreign policy. Most of the time, Churchill
preached to the choir, winning fans through his appearances and his
essays published in leftist periodicals. His views are on the far left
of the American political spectrum, and relatively few who didn’t agree
ever paid much attention.
The Hamilton invitation changed all that. Professors unhappy about the
invitation circulated some of his writings, including the now notorious
“little Eichmanns” speech in which he derided the people killed in the
World Trade Center. Churchill never made it to Hamilton — the college
defended his right to appear there, but the speech was called off amid
death threats. But as soon as his writings gained a broad public
audience, conservative politicians and right-wing talk radio shows
couldn’t devote enough time to Churchill and demands that he be fired.
As the controversy grew, critics came out of the woodwork, with many of
them charging that he’d engaged in a pattern of research misconduct.
Colorado convened a panel that determined in March 2005 that his 9/11
comments and other political writings did amount to legally protected
speech, but that the research misconduct allegations — if verified —
might justify dismissal. And that led to the panel that reported Tuesday.
Criticism All Around
The new report is an unusual mix of reflections on academic freedom and
Churchill’s role at the University of Colorado, lawyerly analysis of
specific accusations, and a mini-textbook into some aspects of American
Indian history. The committee appears to be trying to give Churchill
every benefit of the doubt, and takes note of instances where his
critics overstated their complaints or where there is some rational way
to back up a particular claim Churchill made.
But in damning example after example after example, the report documents
instances in which it could not find any evidence to back Churchill’s
claims and in which it did find overwhelming evidence to back those who
filed complaints against him. The committee noted, for example, a number
of similarities in an article Churchill wrote in 1992 with an article
published the previous year by Fay G. Cohen, a professor at Dalhousie
University, in Nova Scotia. There can be “little doubt” that large
portions of the essay are from Cohen’s work, the report said.
In one instance, it found a footnote of more than 100 words that was
“identical to the keystroke,” except that Churchill used an acute accent
over the e in one tribe’s name while Cohen left the e without an accent.
In numerous other cases, the report faulted Churchill for citing sources
that did not say what he said they said. Generally, the report found
that Churchill claimed particular atrocities, death totals, etc., to be
greater than others had found them to be. In other cases, the report
found that Churchill was in effect citing himself. Throughout the
controversy, Churchill has claimed that his critics are uncomfortable
not only with his political views, but with his emphasis on the many
documented wrongs committed by the United States against Native
Americans. Many of the instances cited by the report, however, concern
cases where scholars whose work was distorted were in fact writing about
the terrible things done to Native Americans, but their numbers were not
as high as Churchill later indicated or the motives of various players
were not as clear as he suggested.
For example, a lengthy section details Churchill’s writings about a
smallpox epidemic that spread to the Mandan Indians, living in what is
now North Dakota, in 1837. Churchill charged that the Indians were
deliberately infected through blankets given to them — something that
the report noted was attempted in other cases with Native Americans.
Churchill cites as a footnote to back up part of his claim a work by
Russell Thornton, a professor of anthropology at the University of
California at Los Angeles and a Cherokee who has written extensively
about the horrors of U.S. treatment of Indians.
The only problem, as Thornton has said previously and as the report
found, the footnote doesn’t match anything Thornton wrote and Churchill
could not produce any evidence to back his claim. The committee found
that because Churchill repeatedly listed works that had names suggesting
them as “legitimate sources,” but they in fact did not back up what he
said, he was falsifying sources.
The report made repeated reference to the repeated nature of Churchill’s
errors, the fact that he never made corrections or responded to critics,
and that he brushed off suggestions that he was getting key points
wrong. In several instances, the report said that such a pattern
provided strong evidence that the misconduct was intentional, not the
sort of honest mistake many scholars make from time to time (and correct).
In finding that Churchill produced so much “shoddy and irresponsible
work,” the committee also noted that it harmed his department, the
reputation of the university, and of academe. The committee in
particular noted the damage done to the image of ethnic studies.
While Churchill certainly fares poorly in the report, so does Colorado.
The report expressed concern that this investigation started only after
the controversy broke over the 9/11 essays Churchill wrote, even though
some of the misconduct allegations were well known among scholars for
years previously. That sequence of events was cited by the two panel
members who opposed firing Churchill, saying that to do so would have
“an adverse effect on other scholars’ ability to conduct their research
with due freedom.”
To the extent that Churchill’s controversial writings have made the
university uncomfortable, the report suggested that Boulder has no one
but itself to blame. Churchill never earned a Ph.D. and was always
outspoken about his desire to be an activist and to do much of his work
in non-scholarly venues. “At the time he was hired, the university was
aware of the type of writing and speaking he does.”
In justifying its work — despite these concerns — the committee noted
that the charges against Churchill were “serious claims” that required a
full investigation. The panel compared the situation to one in which a
motorist is stopped for speeding because a police officer doesn’t like
the bumper sticker on her car. If she was speeding, she was speeding —
regardless of the officer’s motives, the panel said.
Outsiders Weigh In
Reaction to the report varied widely — and is just starting to pick up
as people digest the report (or in some cases don’t bother).
Peter Charles Hoffer, a professor of history at the University of
Georgia, is an expert (in the good sense of the word) on many of the
forms of misconduct that the Colorado panel found Churchill committed.
The author of Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud in American History
From Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin was
reading the report online when reached Tuesday afternoon.
He said he was impressed by the rigor of the report and the sense of
fairness that was evident in the way it sorted through the various
accusations. The evidence against Churchill was “convincing,” as was the
evidence that the misconduct was intentional, Hoffer said. Many of the
prominent scholars and authors caught plagiarizing in recent years have
said that too much was being made of minor errors, Hoffer said, but
Churchill was unique in his unwillingness to acknowledge any real
mistakes at all. “He never admitted anything, and to correct error, you
have to admit things,” Hoffer said.
Churchill’s failure to make such an admission, he said, raised real
questions about his competence as a scholar. “The whole project of
scholarship is critical thinking,” Hoffer said. “Although he sort of
bills himself as a polemicist, that doesn’t mean he’s not subject to the
same standards of critical thinking as the rest of us.”
At the same time, however, Hoffer said that he didn’t think Churchill
should be fired — although a demotion would be appropriate. Hoffer said
he was bothered by some of the issues raised by the panel — the way
Churchill’s misdeeds were never investigated until the 9/11 comments
made him politically toxic. Hoffer also noted that Churchill “performed
his duties” in the classroom and played the sort of public role Colorado
at least at one time wanted from him.
“They hired him as a public voice. They got that voice,” Hoffer said.
Roger Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University
Professors, said he was generally impressed with the way the committee
conducted its work. He noted that the make-up of the committee (it
included scholars of ethnic studies) was “quite credible,” that
Churchill was permitted to witness testimony and to pose questions, and
that Churchill was permitted to have a lawyer present. He called these
“safe procedural safeguards.”
Bowen also praised the authors of the report for raising the issue of
fairness in Churchill’s treatment — whatever misconduct he may have
committed. Colorado “knowingly hired a controversial ‘public
intellectual,’ not for his academic credentials but for his public
persona. To then fire him for the same reasons they hired him — his
ability to stir controversy — raises issues that are reflected, I
believe, in the divisions within the committee over appropriate
sanctions,” Bowen said.
Others said that the only relevant issue is the misconduct.
“How this came to light is immaterial. If one takes honestly seriously,
it needs to be enforced,” said Stephen H. Balch, president of the
National Association of Scholars, a group that pushes for a more
traditional curriculum and opposes what it sees as political
correctness. He said that there is “not another line of work” outside
academe where violations of this magnitude would “not be cause for
termination.”
Balch said that academic freedom could be threatened if Colorado doesn’t
take a tough stand and fire Churchill. Faculty members say that they
must be the judges of their colleagues, Balch noted. “But academic
freedom doesn’t mean professors have carte blanche to do as they please.
Academic freedom depends on the willingness of faculty to enforce
standards,” he said.
As the Colorado committee noted, some of those most hurt by Churchill
have been people who work in the same field, which has been mocked by
many who are angry at Churchill. A perfect example — as well as a story
very similar to those detailed in the report — can be found in the
scholarship of Brenda Child, an associate professor of American studies
at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
Child was in the Denver papers this week because people had heard about
a new allegation against Churchill (not covered by Tuesday’s report):
Child never wanted to be part of the Churchill mess but people heard
about how she saw Churchill’s 2004 book, Kill the Indian, Save the Man:
The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools, and noticed
a photograph in the book that she had taken and never given permission
to Churchill to use. The photo was from Child’s 1998 book, Boarding
School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940.
Both books covered some of the same ground, looking at the schools many
American Indians were forced to attend. Child said that not only did
Churchill use her photograph — of a cemetery outside of a one-time
Indian boarding school in Kansas — but he added a caption saying that
half of those who attended such schools suffered a similar fate as the
occupant of the grave shown. Child said that while many did die, there
is no definitive number and it is a “tremendous exaggeration” to say
that half died.
Child does work that reflects one of Churchill’s stated goals: giving
voice to Native Americans. Her book and her current research draw on
correspondence between Native American students and their families to
document the experience of the boarding schools — much of it terrible.
“We don’t need to exaggerate. The facts speak for themselves,” she said.
“There is wonderful scholarship going on in American Indian studies, and
other African American studies and other ethnic studies,” Child said. A
member of the Red Lake Ojibwe tribe, Child said she is particularly
heartened to see more Native American studying and writing their own
history. “I don’t think Ward Churchill is representative,” she said.
— Scott Jaschik
