May 17, 2006

Truth and Consequences

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.

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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

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Comments

Is this an isolated case?

Our constitution provides “equal protection under law” to all of us so that the law is not selectively applied by people in control of its mechanisms.

It would seem to me that the investigation of Prof. Churchill is unusual and uncommon and was certainly triggered by public outcry over one particular essay rather than the consequence of some regularly applied activity built into the educational system and its sister academic publishing system for checking themselves and academic integrity.

I cannot help but wonder why there is not such a checking system, a kind of academic court system, where people may call for investigations of this sort and where there are permanent officials, analogous to district attorneys and attorneys general, whose job it is to ferret out, investigate, indict where appropriate, and try all cases of academically forbidden or invalid behaviour.

The lack of such a system and of other such investigations analogous to Prof. Churchill’s case seems to me to be sufficient grounds for a defense based on violation of “equal protection".

It also seems to me that an appropriate course would be to allow Professor Churchill a process of formal response and an appropriate punishment would be to require Professor Churchill to correct his errors and apologize and cite whatever sources he plagiarized in a clear and public way as a condition of continued employment.

How many other people are there who are being subjected to the kind of scrutiny applied to Professor Churchill or who ought to be?

Saul Krasny, Equal Protection, at 6:55 am EDT on May 17, 2006

This is a further reflection on a previous comment about “equal protection”

In that comment I suggested that Professor Churchill be required to cite sources he is found to have plagiarized and to correct his errors as part of his punishment and as a condition of continued employment. I do not condone plagiarism in any form and certainly do not mean to imply that citing is adequate punishment for it. Dismissal is almost universal as a consequence for plagiarism.

I am suggesting that in this case, if plagiarism is proved, then dismissal be balanced against rights to equal protection.

(If possible please add this to the comment on equal protection, rather than issuing it as a second comment)

Saul Krasny, at 6:55 am EDT on May 17, 2006

On The Justice of Roosting Chickens

The committee’s report is assiduous, measured, and professional. This forum will benefit from posters supporting arguments with specific references to the report.

Occom, at 7:05 am EDT on May 17, 2006

wishful thinking there

“Dismissal is almost universal as a consequence for plagiarism.”

That sure is wishful thinking. Most of the time it is ignored, because it is too much trouble to actually prove and “prosecute.” When it is prosecuted, reprimand, or simply denial of tenure (if they don’t have tenure) is the consequence. In fact, most deans I know see plagiarism investigations as a political action, to only be undertaken if convienient and politically prudent. (Of course, in Churchill’s case, just about anything would have been politically prudent.)

(Since I have not read the full report, I won’t comment on it, and it would be irresponsible, and un-academic for others to do so.)

Larry, at 7:35 am EDT on May 17, 2006

Mr. Churchill has no one to blame but himself

About claims CU was “just reacting” to Churchill’s grossly unprofessional comments about 9/11 victims —

It has been clear for years that Mr. Churchill crudely abused peers, real Indian leaders, Italian-Americans, and others. When his former victims saw him weakened by his moronic 9/11 comments, they struck back at the so-called “American Indian scholar.”

He is the proximate cause for his problems — no one else. He is a symbol for the utterly wasteful way academia operates itself.

Tenure is not some form of diplomatic immunity from the real world — it supposed to be about competent scholarship, period. If one creates some fantasy world for oneself, expect substantial critiques from others.

R.A.S., at 7:55 am EDT on May 17, 2006

David Horowitz -101 Professors

This news article should have included a discussion of other possible reasons for the review of Churchill. The 9/11 slur was not the only public outcry against this guy. See David Horowitz — 101 Professors.

The academic profession did a great job on the report, but they generally are in a state of denial regarding the depth of the problems.

William Sumner Scott, J.D. Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.wss@jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, at 8:30 am EDT on May 17, 2006

Chrchill and Tenure

Speaking as a strong defender of tenure and as one who is sometimes dismayed by the knee-jerk anti-tenure sentiments expressed in comments at IHE, I think Churchill ought to get the boot. Not for his 9-11 comments, which are protected speech & have the virtue of at least being his own words, but because of the multiple documented cases of scholarly misconduct. Tenure requires of its recipient “good conduct” & that surely includes scholarly conduct. The tenure system is weakened by ignoring the gross misconduct of Profesor Churchill. Had the University of Colorado acted, as it should have, before Churchill’s 9-11 comments, this case would not even be controversial.

Joseph Duemer, Professor at Clarkson University, at 8:30 am EDT on May 17, 2006

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

Due process and procedural fairness are never about the innocence or guilt of the accused. Civil libertarians cherish the Miranda Warnings demanded by the Supreme Court ("You have the right to remain silent", etc.) even as they despise the life of Ernesto Miranda, the vicious rapist in whose name those warnings were created. The ACLU defended the rights of the American Nazi Party to march in a Jewish suburb of Chicago despite the fact that there is not an ACLU member alive who has anything but contempt for the Nazis.

Ward Chuchill is obviously nowhere near as bad as Miranda or the members of the American Nazi Party. But that’s beside the point. I don’t especially care what happens to Churchill. I do care a great deal what happens to academic freedom and due process.

Ward Churchill was chosen for selective investigation and “prosecution” because the University of Colorado bowed to pressure from the noise makers of the right-wing blogosphere, the bullies of the cable TV news industry, and the anti-intellectual demagogues of their state’s legislature. Imagine how the FIRE-breathers on the right would react if a university singled out the leaders of the College Republicans and investigated every paper they ever wrote for evidence of plagiarism. Do you think Horowitz or ACTA or the National Association of Scholars would back off if it turned out that one of the club’s officers had, indeed, ripped off a few paragraphs back in his or her freshman year?

Ward Churchill’s career at Colorado is probably finished, and I’ll certainly shed no tears for him. But if you think this is over, go visit the ACTA website (ACTA is the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a right-wing outfit that wants to impose their own version of political correctness on campus). On ACTA’s blog, you will find the following illuminating quote:

“Ward Churchill’s public utterances raised legitimate questions about the quality of his academic work. An investigation revealed that this work was indeed gravely flawed.”

There you have it in black and white. ACTA apparently believes that Churchill’s exercise of his constitutionally-protected right to free speech justified an exhaustive investigation of his entire career. To me, that looks a lot like selective prosecution for liberals and left-wingers based on the right’s assessment of the quality of their “public utterances".

This was never about Ward Churchill. This is about a well-organized, highly politicized campaign to weaken the campus left in the name of “quality” and “accountability".

Unapologetically Tenured, at 8:50 am EDT on May 17, 2006

Apples and Oranges

Two distinct topics are often conflated in dealing with Ward Churchill. One is his political stance—something clearly protected by tenure policies. The other is his academic malfeasance (plagiarism, etc.), something not at all protected by tenure policies. It should be understood that these have nothing to do with each other.

Look at it this way: Churchill should have the right to express and defend his beliefs, no matter how reprehensible the rest of us may find them—as long as he has acted in an honorable professional manner in presentation of his background, in his writing, in his teaching, and in his respect for the views of others. Judgment on these matters needs to rest with his professional peers—as in this case—and not with any legislature (as David Horowitz would have).

Aaron Barlow, at 8:55 am EDT on May 17, 2006

Ivory Tower Troubles

The apologists for Churchill, starting with faculty like Unapoligetically Tenured, and students like Alex, are failing to understand the simple point that Churchill’s problems are not arising from his speech. Even the much disliked David Horowitz made the point that Churchill’s remarks about 9-11 are protected by the First Amendment. But that’s not what the committee investigated. The University of Colorado investigated Churchill’s scholarly work, not his free speech. The committee found that his scholarly work was unsatisfactory. That has nothing to do with his free speech.

If Unapoligetically Tenured is concerned about ACTA and David Horowitz, he should think about his remarks, and those of Churchill’s defenders. As long as faculty cannot distinguish between protected free speech and academic malfeasance, then they are making the work of groups like ACTA much easier. The University of Colorado should never have hired someone with Churchill’s virtually non-existant qualifications for faculty status. The report makes it clear — if academics want the public to take them seriously, the academy will have to do a better job of policing itself. Firing Churchill would seem like a good way to start, since his qualifications for faculty status are nil, and calling his work ’scholarship’ devalues the term.

RGS

RGS, at 9:25 am EDT on May 17, 2006

The Churchill case was from the start a political debate. And now, we will not even learn what are exactly the facts of his plagiarism. Who is going to read the facts of the case? Not many. So, it will continue to be a political debate only.

Universities became the battleground for political forces, they are not about science and literature anymore.

See what an outrage is being perpetrated on me: http://ca.geocities.com/UofTfraud/

Michael Pyshnov.

Michael Pyshnov, Politics decides, at 9:40 am EDT on May 17, 2006

Going Public

In response to Unapologetically Tenured, I note that Committee explicitly considered Churchill’s claim that he was being singled out for investigation. According to the Committee:"Professor Churchill repeatedly suggested to the Committee that he was targeted for investigation in a discriminatory manner due in part to his controversial left-wing views, but the Committee notes that public figures who choose to speak out on controversial matters of public concern naturally attract more controversy and attention to their background and work than scholars quietly writing about more esoteric matters that are not the subject of political debate. Whether such public figures seek political appointment, like Lani Guinier (now of the Harvard Law School) or former Court of Appeals Judge Robert Bork, both of whose appointments to office were defeated in part based on their prior scholarship, or become nationally visible public speakers, like Professor Churchill, greater notoriety and attention constitute the natural consequence and cost of voluntarily becoming a public figure. The distinction between those who are and are not considered public figures is enshrined in United States law regarding the First Amendment through the doctrine announced in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.4 In his interview with our Committee on April 2, 2006, Professor Churchill admitted as much, noting that under Indian tribal customs and traditions, the obligation of Indian leaders to speak out to defend their people sometimes requires them to take the responsibility and risk for expressing views others could not so easily publicly voice. Thus, while the Committee recognizes that Professor Churchill’s national visibility as a controversial speaker and writer may have contributed to the attention given to his prior scholarship, we observe that such attention stems in part from his voluntarily becoming a national public figure.”

Occom, at 10:00 am EDT on May 17, 2006

Was Churchill Singled Out?

I just read Occom’s post above, and as best I can tell, the Committee spent over 250 words to say, in effect, “Yes, Ward Churchill was singled out for this extraordinary level of scrutiny because of the nature of his constitutionally protected statements.”

The stuff about being a public figure is just a smokescreen. First, almost nobody had ever heard of Ward Churchill until the right-wing made him a target. Second, even if he could somehow be construed as a public figure, what difference does it make? Is the Committee suggesting that the procedural and due process rights of academic “public figures” are somehow diminished by their notoriety? This is not a slander case, in which the distinctions between public and private figures matter. This is a case of someone being differentially treated by a public institution on the basis of his exercise of his First Amendment rights.

Unapologetically Tenured, at 11:00 am EDT on May 17, 2006

Due Process

Regarding Churchill’s appropriate fate, I basically agree with Roger Bowen’s sentiments as expressed in the article: when hiring (and then promoting and tenuring) Churchill, Colorado knew it was getting an underqualified ideologue. Rather than fire Churchill, it seems to me, the university might use this report to take concrete, transparent steps to show that it has learned from this experience and has changed its procedures to prevent departments such as ethnic studies from basing personnel decisions on a candidate’s ideology rather than scholarly qualifications.

That said, I’m sure that the “right-wing blogosphere” will celebrate posts like that of “Unapologetically Tenured” as showing the need for comprehensive change in academic personnel procedures. (I’m puzzled as to why someone “unapologetically” tenured would feel compelled to post under a pseudonym.) He/she describes the Churchill case as an example of “selective prosecution for liberals and left-wingers.” (The views Churchill expressed are those of “liberals"?) He/she suggests that “due process and procedural fairness” were not followed in this case, yet, as the above article notes, Churchill was investigated by a panel of academics and given both ample due process protections and the opportunity to respond to all allegations. And that he/she compares Churchill’s case to a hyopthetical inquiry against the writings of College Republicans, wondering if “Horowitz or ACTA or the National Association of Scholars would back off if it turned out that one of the club’s officers had, indeed, ripped off a few paragraphs back in his or her freshman year,” suggests a very low threshold for scholarly competence. If the Colorado faculty committee report makes nothing else clear, it’s the absurdity of a comparison between Churchill’s academic offenses and a student ripping “off a few paragraphs back in his or her freshman year.”

KC Johnson, Professor at Brooklyn College, at 11:35 am EDT on May 17, 2006

FOLKS, READ THE REPORT!

Folks, READ THE REPORT. On the basis of a very few critics (primarily two) who disagreed with a handful of Churchill’s assertions, this committee (composed primarily of lawyers) made the leap to a finding of “misconduct.” On many of those disagreements, the committee ended up AGREEING WITH Churchill—that he had a reasonable basis for his assertions or that there was room for disagreement, while nonetheless finding that he cited references that did not support his claims. This is research misconduct?? In a handful of instances spanning tomes that Churchill has written over many years, they claimed this was a “pattern of misconduct”??

And that committee is still taking on NEW charges? This is Kafkaesque.

AB, at 12:05 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Anyone Want to Mount a Serious Argument?

Sarcasm, nitpicking, and personal attacks are a poor substitute for argumentation, so it is tempting to ignore Professor Johnson’s response altogether. (And by the way, it’s really none of his or anyone else’s business why I might choose to comment anonymously.) Nevertheless, even someone of my limited “scholarly competence” should have the right to defend his/her views, so let me try.

The need for due process and procedural fairness does not begin at the moment an inquiry commences, any more than it begins the day that a criminal trial is convened. If the procedures leading up to the investigation/trial are politically tainted, and someone has been singled out for selective prosecution, then the standard of due process has obviously not been met, irrespective of the guilt or innocence of the person charged.

As for my analogy involving the College Republicans, the point (and I suspect Professor Johnson understands it) has nothing to do with the amount of plagiarism detected as a result of the investigation. It’s the fact that all the evidence obtained in this manner is, as the lawyers like to say, “the fruit of the poison tree".

My guess is that Horowitz, ACTA, etc., would be screaming “foul” (and rightly so) if a university singled out the College Republicans for special scrutiny, even if the result of that investigation found that one of the club’s officers had plagiarized each and every term paper s/he had ever written.

In any event, I’m not sure why this suddenly got so personal...

Unapologetically Tenured, at 12:30 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

long time coming

Many of us who work in the fields that Churchill published in and were fully aware of his malfeasance were afriad or unable to come forward. Take for example, the articles on Radioactive colonialism that appear in the State of Native America and A little matter of Genocide. They are extremely similar but list different co-authors. This isn’t fruit of the poisoned tree, most of these accusations were out there already circulating, but there was no forum to take them to.

Western Dave, at 1:15 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Paradise For Night Clerks

Three things:

First, Larry is right on the button vis-a-vis his comments about dismissal as a consequence of plagiarism. Any academic who is unaware of (1) the ubiquity of plagiarism in higher education in the United States today, (2) the fact that the incidence of plagiarism is a monotone increasing function of time, (3) the enormous number of cases that are not addressed in any manner at all, and (4) the incredibly broad range of responses to those cases of plagiarism that are addressed is simply an academic who is not paying attention.

And the worst is yet to come. As the work of academics – I hesitate to call them scholars – from various cultures (e.g., China and Russia) is integrated into what might be called a global body of knowledge, we will see accusations of plagiarisms in numbers that a 1950’s scholar could not possibly imagine.

Second, the statement by R.A.S. that “[Ward Churchill] is a symbol for the utterly wasteful way academia operates itself” is, in my opinion, inaccurate. I am not a fan of the evolving culture for learning that defines American higher education, but to identify Churchill as symbolic or representative of anything about that culture is wrong. Ward Churchill is a sample outlier, pure and simple ... albeit one made famous by the media.

Third, Churchill has made his bed, and there will be plenty of University of Colorado night clerks lining up to make sure he sleeps in it. His plight is not a right-wing/left-wing confrontation except insofar as those groups – if, indeed such groups exist at all – take issue with the execution of his First Amendment rights. Read his stuff. I think I can promise you there will be very few SCHOLARS who will come out of the woodwork to say, “This man is an intellect who deserves my support, independent of a few, possibly inadvertent, academic indiscretions.”

The courts will resolve Churchill’s fate, vis-a-vis his First Amendment rights. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. But, on the matter of plagiarism, he will get what he deserves, quite independent of the fact that most of those who steal others’ ideas and words are enjoying the promotions and tenure obtained from their actions.

RWH, at 1:15 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

ward churchill—wider implications

The wider implications of the Ward Churchill verdict are stunning. Given the egregious findings here by a distinguished panel of professors, the question is not merely Ward Churchill’s writings alone. The question is: how was it that this charlatan was promoted three times, first to tenure and associate professor, then to full professor—and finally to CHAIR of the Department of Ethnic Studies at Colorado?If there was a normal promotion process, then the first two promotions could ONLY have happened via the receipt of approval letters from prominent people in the Ethnic Studies field. This process must have been carried out twice, first for tenure, then for full professor, and must have involved at least six and probably as many as ten prominent professors of Ethnic Studies. Yet they noticed no problems. What does that say about them as scholars? What does it say about Ethnic Studies as a valid intellectual field? In fact, the Report appears to indicate (p. 5) that Ethnic Studies is not held to the same scholarly standards as other, more traditional fields of intellectual endeavor in the humanities and social sciences. I cannot figure out whether the Report also means to imply that Ethnic Studies SHOULD not be held to those same standards. I hope that is not what the authors of the Report mean.

On the other hand, if there was NOT a normal promotion process in Churchill’s case, and this happened twice, then this raises other questions, as Professor Bowen hinted at in the body of the article and as another commentator above has put bluntly: the University of Colorado knowingly hired and promoted an underqualified ideologue. Now they are reaping the consequences.

Furthermore,—but this would be the most difficult thing to do—those administrators at Colorado who approved Ward Churchill’s tenure and associate professorship, who then approved Ward Churchill’s promotion to full professor, and who then and finally approved Ward Churchill’s elevation to Departmental Chair of Ethnic Studies all deserved to be disciplined. But these adminisrtators will be in particular the people most protected by the system. I know someone who, when interviewing for a job at Colorado in 1997, was told that Churchill was a fraud, and that everyone knew it. The university, according to the Report, was in receipt of major complaints against Churchill’s scholarship as early as 1996. So—who DIDN’T know Churchill was a fraud? Yet the administrators promoted him to full professor AFTER 1996, and then eventually to Chair of his Department. One needs to investigate why. Were they physically afraid of him? Were they afraid of the criticism they would receive from his supporters if they objected? Were they so supportive (or afraid) of his politics that this trumped any doubts about his worth as a scholar?

All that having been said, the source of this investigation of Churchill—an investigation that should have happened long ago—was itself purely political, and that is very troublesome.

Arthur M. Eckstein, Professor of History, University of Maryland(P.S., I posted a version of this comment yesterday on the original blog when the “extra” on the Churchill verdict came out, but there are a lot of new people on this new blog, so I thought I’d post it again. I mention this because I don’t want to be accused of plagiarizing my own comment!)

arthur eckstein, at 1:15 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Serious Indictment of Uuniversity of Colorado

“This is a case of someone being differentially treated by a public institution on the basis of his exercise of his First Amendment rights.”

That is quite a indictment of the University of Colorado. Is it really true that if hard evidence shows that faculty there systematically steal and fabricate material, then pass it off as scholarship, the university finds that acceptable academic conduct?

Really?

You may in fact be right (the fact that the school hired and tenured him despite his known history seems to support your contention), but that very fact staggers the mind.

JBM, at 1:20 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

“This is a case of someone being differentially treated by a public institution on the basis of his exercise of his First Amendment rights.”

There is no disputing that this case had its origins in Churchill’s public statements.

However, the argument of someone being differently treated because of those public statements can’t be used as a defense of Churchill.

If you’ll permit a reductio ad absurdum example — would you free me from a charge of rape because it was discovered after I came to the attention of the police for legally picketing an abortion clinic?

One would hope that Academics won’t excuse sloppy work on technicalities. To do so almost guarantees an end to the tenure system.

Lokki, at 1:20 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Some Evidence Please

I’ve been teaching for thirty years and I am certainly unaware of “the ubiquity of plagiarism in higher education in the United States today.” This is the sort of smear that anti-intellectuals routinely toss around without providing a shred of evidence. Can you find individual cases? Sure, but the same is true among journalists. And when you take those cases as a percentage of all the legitimate scholarship, you come up with a very small number. This is the same as excoriating American business across the board because Ken Lay is a crook.

Joseph Duemer, Professor at Clarkson University, at 2:05 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

reply to Lokki on selective prosecution

Lokki, Not to comment on Mr. Churchill specifically (Since it would be unethical and immoral to do so without reading the report,) but in some extreme cases, selective prosecution for violating a criminal law on the basis of constitutionally-protected activity is a valid defense. See Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448 (1962) (selective prosecution could not be “...deliberately based upon an unjustifiable standard such as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification."); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 373 (1886) (defendant can demonstrate that administration of criminal law is “directed so exclusively against a particular class of persons. . . with a mind so unequal and oppressive” that the system of prosecution amounts to “a practical denial” of equal protection of the law.) However, selective prosecution implicated the actions of whatever party commenced the actions. If, on the other hand, the adjudicatory body is somehow biased, then a different aspect of due process (one somewhat easier to assert) is implicated, as one need only show that there process was defective (and not whether they intended it to be defective.)

Larry, at 2:20 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Due Process

I think that Unapologetically Tenured has got it right. The most important issue here is due process. It is not just a question of whether or not the investigation itself was conducted fairly. One has to ask why the process was initiated. The threat to academic freedom is precisely in the use of even fair procedures as a means to silence those with a particular viewpoint.

In my view, the most disturbing comment in Scott’s article is the assertion from the NAS president that “How this came to light is immaterial.” On the contrary, it is most certainly material. Colorado succumbed to pressure from the right-wing noise machine by initiating an investigation into allegations that had been made much earlier (and ignored). That creates a chilling effect.

We don’t hear of cases where a conservative scholar is investigated as a result of inflammatory public speech because the left is not using McCarthyism as a political tactic to attack the academy.

Whatever happens to Professor Churchill, the damage has already been done by the failure of leadership at Colorado.

Timothy Shortell, Associate Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY, at 2:40 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Three comments

I have read the report. The allegations against Churchill are not a few nit-picking ones. In fact, his conduct, and indeed, his pattern of conduct in many instances over a long period of time, seemed to the investigating panel (composed of five professors, two in law, one with an appointment both in Mexican-American studies and literature, one in history, and one in sociology), and, on the basis of their report, seems to me, to considerably deviate from the standards of conduct ofresearch with which I am familiar.

Let me cite one of the more bizarre, in my opinion, aspects of Churchill’s actions, although one that the committee did not seem to attach very much weight to. I will briefly summarize, and refer you to pages 23 and 24 of the report for details. In investigating one of the allegations against him, the committee asked whether Churchill had relied on previous work, found that he had cited two references to articles ostensibly by other people, and so apparently acted properly, except that another of the allegations against him was that he had plagiarized one of these articles. Churchill’s defense against the plagiarism charge, which the committee accepted, was that he had in fact ghost-written those two articles. (But in accepting this defense to the plagiarism charge, the committee noted that with respect to the first charge, Churchill could not claim to have relied on independent sources.) Certainly ghost-writing is accepted behavior in some circles; I am unaware that it is acceptablein academia.

***********

In his article Scott Jaschik wrote

“Churchill charged that the Indians were deliberately infected through blankets given to them — something that the report noted was attempted in other caseswith Native Americans.”

The report notes (page 39) “the belief that the U.S. Army intentionally spreadsmallpox to Indians by means of infected blankets is widely held.”

But in fact reading this report one sees two things: (a) the smallpox epidemic of 1837 (the issue under discussion) almost certainly originated by contact with a crew member on a steamship who was infected by the disease; and (b) the only other relevant incident was the undoubtedly deliberate attempt by theBritish to infect Native Americans with smallpox in 1763.

So, while the actions of the American government against Native Americans in the 19th century were truly abominable, they did not sink to the depthsof trying to spread smallpox among them.

***********

It is not only a question of how and why Churchill was repeatedly promoted, it is also a question of how and why he got hired in thefirst place.

math prof, at 2:40 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Churchill is an academic bufoon with specious academic credentials and a gift for self-promotion. He played the academic game in thea name of ‘intellectual freedom’ and ‘diversity’ for a number of years, and finally blew up in an explosion of his own making. CU should be embarrassed to have him on the faculty. No wonder people like Horowitz have an audience for their arguments.

Heath Allen, Prof, at 3:00 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Due Process

With all due respect, Professor Shortell has it exactly wrong. He must not have yet read the report itself. Ward Churchill has been and is receiving due process, unless you insist that due process happens only when you agree with its result. Does Shortell believe that the University of Colorado _rightly_ ignored the claims against Churchill’s “scholarship” in earlier years? The most vocal critics of both Michael Bellesiles and Ward Churchill have complained loudly about how long due process took. It should take a substantial period of time because due process is a deliberative weighing of evidence and reaching conclusions that are not hasty. If Shortell had his way, tenure would be the safe haven from which any offense to scholarly standards might freely be committed without consequence. It was _never_ intended to be that.

Ralph Luker, at 4:00 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Due process? What are you talking about?

Anyone who has read the public comments by the AAUP representatives about Mr. Churchill gets a sense, the AAUP folks are edging away from the self-identified Cherokee.

As in, no official AAUP statement about the CU report. As in, “everything that had to be done, was done.” Or, put another way, “he’s a fraud, and he got caught.”

To think otherwise is a wonderful example of arrogant self-delusion, worthy of study itself.

R.A.S., at 4:35 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Give Me The Evidence ...

I’ll be truthful. I imagined saying plagiarism is ubiquitous on the campuses of colleges and universities in the United States today would bring a cry for substantiating evidence just about as readily as saying millions of Americans have lost faith in their president by virtue of his embrace of cronyism and his ill-advised war against the citizens of Iraq. That is especially so when I included the added “insult” that any academic questioning my statement “must not be paying attention.”

If I were interested in learning something about the incidence of plagiarism in the U.S., I would start by reading some of the research of Rutgers University professor Donald McCabe, founding president of The Center for Academic Integrity. According to his research, “58 percent of high school students admitted to having committed an act of plagiarism in the past year” ... and “40% [of college students] admit to doing so in the recent Assessment Project surveys.” Not only that, but the AP surveys reveal that “a majority of students (77%) believe such cheating is not a very serious issue.”

For a variety of reasons, plagiarism by college and university faculty is much more difficult to ascertain, but it is a problem every bit as serious as I indicated in my previous post.

Check out ...

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v47/i43/43a02601.htm

http://www.aacu-edu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa04/le-fa04myview.cfm

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i37/37a04501.htm#recent

http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i17/17a00802.htm

http://www.academicintegrity.org/cai_research.asp

http://www.highereducation.org/cr...alk/ct0106/news0106-plagiarism.shtml

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/fyi/...rs.ednews/04/05/highschool.cheating/

http://www.isu.edu/research/docs/Plagiarism.pdf

http://leeds.bates.edu/cbb/?q=node/251

I hope you will not press me further about “individual cases.” The numbers are legion, and even include more than a few famous scholars. Just get on-line, type in “plagiarism” ... “faculty” and enjoy your evening.

Finally, Professor Duemer, I would be remiss if I failed to add that my friends might reserve their most uncomplimentary adjectives to describe me, but not a single one would refer to me as anti-intellectual.

P.S. I really enjoyed your web-site ... very nice.

RWH, at 5:00 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Responsibility

Nothing about anything associated with Ward Churchill surprises me. He’s a hot headed jerk. CU is trying to handle this professionally. Churchill fudges his work. The right wing is pissed off. The faculty is getting defensive. The great debate is about academic freedom.

The questions I’m not seeng answered: Why is there not more than a few CU faculty that publicly disagree with Churchill? I haven’t seen much. How did he get hired? How did he get tenure? If so many faculty knew he was full of it, why didn’t they do something? Does the Ethnic Studies department represent the Liberal Arts College? If so, what is a liberal arts degree worth?

From my position as a CU alumni, CU has been looking like a bunch of fools. This report is the first professional response to any of this but they have a long way to go. Whether or not Churchill is fired is up to the lawyers at this point, but the important question is how are the rest of the problems going to be fixed? It’s either the university or public opinion that will fix it. And if it’s public opinion it will be done by draconian measures brought up by the governor that will kill the university.

I think CU needs a serious self examination. Freedom and disagreement are crucial to academics, but with freedom comes responsibility. Responsibility to students, to scholarship, to the university, to the state. These are things that CU needs to look at.

Matt, CU Alumni at Fort Collins, at 5:40 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

Tenure and Due Process

I think Ralph Luker is spot-on in his comments about due process and the Churchill inquiry. Prof. Shortell and “Unapolgetically Tenured” seem to suggest that because the Univ. of Colorado hired a scholarly charlatan (it’s unclear if Prof. Shortell and “Unapologetically Tenured” view the hiring of Churchill as improper), and then because that charlatan then made highly inflammatory public comments that produced the (expected) highly inflammatory public response, due process forbids the university from investigating very serious allegations of scholarly misconduct subsequently leveled against Churchill. As Ralph notes, there’s no reasonable view of tenure that would justify this view. It’s also worth remembering that the most serious academic charges against Churchill were leveled by other scholars of Native American history.

Carried to its logical extreme, this view would encourage faculty plagiarists to make wild public remarks in the hopes of generating counterattacks (perhaps from the dreaded “right-wing blogosphere"), which would then immunize them from any inquiry into their research misconduct. And comparing the extraordinary offenses detailed in the Colorado report to a hypothetical case of a College Republican “ripping off” a few paragraphs in a student term paper, as “Unapologetically Tenured” does in his/her original post, trivializes Churchill’s misconduct.

As I said above, I don’t support Churchill’s dismissal, in part because Colorado knew what it was getting in hiring him. But for the university to have ignored the allegations detailed in this report would have left the school delinquent in its duty. Moreover, as a public institution, such an approach would have been politically unsustainable.

KC Johnson, Professor at Brooklyn College, at 9:00 pm EDT on May 17, 2006

but RWH, your url examples are almost all of student plagiarism. Your original allegation concerned plagiarism by scholars. So you fail to deliver and do your best to confuse the issue.

c, at 5:35 am EDT on May 18, 2006

Missing the Point

Professors Luker and Johnson (two peas in a pod over at HNN) are missing the point when it comes to due process. If Professor Churchill is guilty of misconduct — I’m going to wait until I hear his side of the story before making up my mind — then his university can decide on appropriate sanctions. But as Unapologetically pointed out, the fact that the investigation began as a politically motivated attack on progressive scholarship taints the whole process. That should give pause to any scholar, whether or not he or she agrees with Churchill’s scholarly work or politics. Because the University of Colorado succumbed to pressure from the right-wing hysterics, they have failed to respect academic freedom. It creates an atmosphere of fear among teachers and scholars.

Why did Colorado wait so long to investigate the allegations against Professor Churchill? Was it that they did not think them serious? They had ample opportunity and time. That they suddenly felt it necessary to investigate — in response to much bluster from the right — makes this an issue that is larger than Professor Churchill’s work.

No one is suggesting that tenure means that a scholar ought never be investigated for academic misconduct. If Colorado had decided to launch its inquiry several years ago, it would hardly be newsworthy. It is the timing that raises red flags. To object to malicious prosecution isn’t to make a claim about the accused’s innocence or guilt.

I find it curious that so many who are not in the field would claim to judge the quality of Professor Churchill’s scholarship. Unlike Professors Luker and Johnson, I have some faith in the faculty committees that voted to hire, tenure and promote Churchill. They vetted his work. They know him and his work better than the rest of us. And certainly better than any state legislature.

Timothy Shortell, Associate Professor at Brooklyn College, at 5:40 am EDT on May 18, 2006

I think we can all agree on a few things:

1. Ward Churchill has apparently engaged in serious academic misconduct and certainly is not undeserving of punishment on that basis. However...

2. Plagiarism charges were apparently leveled at Churchill before 2001, and the University of Colorado apparently chose not to act on them. Thus,...

3. It is very unlikely that Churchill would have been either investigated or punished had he not made some incendiary, but constitutionally protected, statements about the 9/11 attacks.

So why is it so hard to accept that Churchill’s plagiarism isn’t really, or at least isn’t primarily, the point here? Under enormous pressure from state government, egged on by the right-wing noise machine, the University of Colorado evidently needed to find a reason to sanction Churchill, and, fortunately for them, they already had one, in the form of allegations that they had previously deemed unworthy of their attention.

To my mind, that strongly suggests that the direct proximate cause of Chuchill’s impending suspension/dismissal/whatever is not the fact that he plagiarized, but the fact that he got caught being a radical agitator. (And, yes, yes, the things he said were really offensive and stupid, but the First Amendment doesn’t permit us to take action on that basis.)

Now, I can’t prove—and you can’t disprove—that Colorado would have found a way to punish Churchill even if he had not turned out to be a serial plagiarizer. But I think there’s good reason to believe that his fate was sealed regardless of what the investigation turned up.

Why do I think this? Two reasons:

1. To quote myself in a previous comment thread, “Very few people are so squeaky clean that they could survive such an inquisition unscathed. Missed a footnote? Had an affair? Used the office computer to update your fantasy baseball team? Taken home a few pens? Sent an email that could somehow be deemed inappropriate?” (My point here is not to “trivialize” Churchill’s misdeeds. He made it easy for the university to find him guilty. I’m just saying that it’s quite possible they would have found a reason to act even if Churchill had been far less culpable.)

2. There’s a precedent for this sort of thing. Richard Berthold of the University of New Mexico made an offensive joke on September 11, 2001, telling his class that “anyone who can blow up the Pentagon has my vote". Even after apologizing, he was forbidden from teaching freshmen, publicly reprimanded, and was told he would be singled out for an in-depth post-tenure review. He was not fired, though he did retire a couple of years later (I have no idea if his retirement was previously planned, or resulted from the incident and its aftermath). The point is, even though he was never accused of any Churchill-like misconduct, he was punished for his constitutionally protected speech by a state university that was under enormous political pressure. (And please don’t split hairs by pointing out that Berthold made his comments in the classroom. You know that wasn’t the point.)

I hold no brief for Ward Churchill. I’m glad he’s not at my institution, and I would be embarrassed if he were. But, if you’ll forgive my laziness, let me quote myself one more time regarding the right-wing’s attack on controversial leftist academics:

“It will never get that far, you say? Maybe you’re right. But I know that the next left winger who wants to say something controversial will think twice. And then think again. For some of you on this comment thread, I’m sure that would be a delightful result. Your only interest in the academy is in its destruction, or at least the destruction of its intellectual independence. But for the rest of you, leave aside your feelings about Chruchill for a moment and understand this for what it is and for what it portends for academic freedom.”

Unapologetically Tenured, at 5:40 am EDT on May 18, 2006

What can I say?

Nice comment thread. Nothing much to add, other than this:

Oh really? I guess Professor Balch hasn’t been reading his newspapers lately. Ungainly compensation and golden parachutes for the golden parachutes in reward for horrible management has become de rigueur in the ziggurats of Mammon and the hallowed halls of our government.

Churchill and others in the professoriate may indeed be hucksters and shysters, but pale in comparison with those who are destroying our national trusts for the own personal gain and self-aggrandisement. Is academia messed up? Oh, sure. But no more or less than the insane, angry, resentful, and hate-filled society that surrounds it.

Oso Raro, at 5:40 am EDT on May 18, 2006

He asked about REALLY WHY 9/11 happened? That is all, when the smoke of dishonesty clears. Why is that question a taboo? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

Moji Agha, at 5:40 am EDT on May 18, 2006

Enough Politics — Read the Report

The report is only 125 pages and should be read — is that too much to ask in an academic forum? It does not take that long to read and would raise the tone of the discussion beyond polemics (a Churchill/committee term to provide proper attribution).

Anyone reading the report would find it is not a political hatchet job nor a denial of “due process” or any other misapplied legalise one wants to supply at this point — the report is well-authored, researched and balanced. It does conclude:

1. Fabrication, Falsification, Plagerism and Failure to Comply with accepted standards and practices as to attribution of credit and reporting of results.

2. The seven Allegations investigated by the committee involved multiple publications over a period of time

3. At least based on the report, only one incident was submitted by the University — the rest were from academic sources

4. The committee did not try to judge the entire body of work — only the seven allegations. They do hint that they found other suspicious materials in their incidental review (see paragraph bridging number pages 97 & 98), but this did not enter into their conclusion.

5. The committee reached their conclusion on the degree of seriousness based on a persistent pattern of misconduct and an unwillingness to correct (or acknowledge)such misconduct.

Doesn’t stike me as a political hatchet job and those who make this finding into such a claim do a diserviced to our fellow academics who took on an onerous task and dispatched this task in a praiseworthy and unbiased manner.

The committee was not tasked to look at sanctions and only did so because they felt it was an important consideration — their recommendations are in no way binding. Even so, only a single member was in favor of dismissal as the only possible sanction. Again, a poltical hatchet job — I think not. Instead, a group of serious individuals giving serious thought to the issue.

Are these allegations serious enough to support dismissal? As with the committee, I am torn.

There is little doubt the behavior is abhorrent to any serious academic and merits dismissal. On the other hand, if Colorado was concerned about such standards, why did they hire and promote Churchill in the first place? To claim after the fact that they are concerned with such standards is, in the best light, hypocritical.

My view — sorry if it was late, but I actually like to study the original sources before opening my mouth.

Amazed in the Midwest, at 5:40 am EDT on May 18, 2006

Questions

Three questions for U.T.

1. Have you read the report, which is all the more devastating because it is both painstaking and fair? Moreover, the report suggests the possibility of even more problems: “We note, however, that in the course of our investigation, as our work has necessarily required us to read through a variety of Professor Churchill’s writings in addition to those cited specifically in the allegations, we encountered a disquieting number of instances in which his use of sources aroused our concern. We are not in a position either to say that the flawed passages we have examined are typical of his work or to conclude that they represent an uncharacteristic divergence from proper standards of scholarship that he has observed in works not reviewed here.”

2. Are you suggesting that being criticized by Bill O’Reilly gives one permanent immunity from the consequences of scholarly misconduct?

3. Do you draw no distinction between free speech on the street corner and behavior in the classroom?

Occom, at 9:00 am EDT on May 18, 2006

What standard of due process?

I have to thank Unapologetically Tenured and Shortell for providing a clear example of the wrong standard to apply here. They essentially argue that we should hold universities to the same standards as criminal courts—where even minor violations of due process at any point in the investigation or proceedings end the case. That’s not the right comparison, though. Academic due process is not the same as criminal due process, either in the degree of individual risk or the reasons why we care about due process. Those of us who are civil libertarians hold prosecutors to a “clean hands” standard because taking someone’s liberty is extreme and requires extraordinary care. While we worry about the potential chilling effect of prosecutorial misconduct in some cases, that’s not the universal motivation.

On the other hand, academic due process is not about liberty but about jobs. So there certainly needs to be fairness and procedural integrity, but not at the level that criminal investigations and trials must meet. I’m a union officer trained in grievance matters, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a grievance officer who wants university discipline matters to follow any state’s criminal rules of procedure.

In addition, the motivation is different. In academic due process, the primary motivation is to protect the academic freedom of faculty and to prevent the chilling effect of academic-freedom violations. I’m convinced the majority of Americans understand that need for protection from pressures, as long as they think it serves the academic role of teaching, research, and social whistleblowing. Were political pressures to effectively insulate individual faculty from any and all accountability, then I think we’d be going outside the bounds of that understanding. Academic freedom must therefore be crafted to allow appropriate collegial governance (including sanctions for transgressions, where appropriate) even in an environment of intense pressures.

The ordinary way that institutions provide a measure of due process is through peer investigation and deliberation, both of which are reflections of our professional lives. (I’m not mentioning the other steps in the AAUP Red Book statements on discipline, because I’m looking at the aspects that insulate discipline from outside pressures, not the steps appropriate to guarantee internal due process.) We had both in the Ward Churchill case: a committee of five peers examined the allegations, and they did so over months of study, rather than the days or weeks that I’m sure the press and other parties may have wished. Did that provide enough due process in this case? Clearly, the committee members were aware of the pressure and discomfitted by it.

But that discomfort—something that was inevitable in this situation—did not prevent them from writing an outstanding report, one that was as careful as Ward Churchill’s scholarship is not. Their performance under pressure proved the value of peer investigation and deliberation. Unless the defenders of Ward Churchill at this point can suggest an alternative set of mechanisms to allow investigation of a faculty member when there is political pressure raging around—and have some good reason to believe such investigations would do a better job than the peer committee in this case—I’ll stick with peer investigations and deliberation.

Sherman, Associate Professor at University of South Florida, at 9:01 am EDT on May 18, 2006

What are you suggesting?

.. “Because the University of Colorado succumbed to pressure from the right-wing hysterics ..”

Mr. Shortell, you are already well-known for your own experience with public commentary about religion, morality, and intelligence. Given all the excuse-making and counter-factual thinking that you are doing for Mr. Churchill — what exactly are you suggesting that CU should about Mr. Churchill? What are you proposing, to be done? Do nothing for five years? Let Howard Dean decide his fate?

Well, here’s my judgment. Mr. Churchill would be a fraud and gross deceiver, even if were married to GWB relative. I’d fire him, today.

Art D., at 10:45 am EDT on May 18, 2006

How Much Evidence Do You Need?

Joseph Duemer and c, what does it take to satisfy you guys? I found the following URLs in about five minutes, and I didn’t quit because I ran out of substantiating evidence; I quit because enough is enough. There is plenty of data supporting both of my previous posts. Here are quotations from three appended URL’s and several other URLs that say pretty much the same thing ... all about the incidence of FACULTY PLAGIARISM ... and that doesn’t even touch other forms of professional dishonesty.

“Moreover, many academics fail to live up to the supposed self-policing obligation imposed by the tenure system. A recent survey of 2,000 doctoral students and an equal number of professors in chemistry, civil engineering, microbiology, and sociology revealed that “eight percent of the faculty members and seven percent of the students surveyed reported that they have observed or have direct knowledge of plagiarism by faculty in their own department ... Six percent of our faculty respondents and nine percent of the students report instances of data fabrication by faculty members.” Click below ...

http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=1766

“Questionnaires administered to students and faculties in academic research found that approximately 10% had direct knowledge of plagiarism by faculty members and 50% were aware of misconduct such as honorary authorship ...” Click below ...

http://jme.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/30/1/40

“A 3-day forum on ethics at Washington State University will explore issues surrounding what some call a national epidemic of cheating and plagiarism by faculty and students.” Click below ...

http://libarts.wsu.edu/college/news/2003/02/ethics.html

And for more ...

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbc...?AID=/20060510/NEWS01/605100349/1056

http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i17/17a00801.htm

http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/bu...icle/0,1713,BDC_2448_3690856,00.html

http://fermat.nap.edu/openbook/0309052823/gifmid/177.gif

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/18/1071337093574.html

If this doesn’t satisfy you I don’t know what will. That’s it for me!

RWH, at 11:05 am EDT on May 18, 2006

nobody is confusing the 5th and 6th

Sherman, Nobody here is conflating the 5th and 6th amendments. My earlier comments about prosecutorial discretion and the cited cases were not based on the 6th amendment right to a jury trial, but the 5th amendment right to due process.

Anyway, the Supreme Court has held that public employment is generally protected by the 5th amendment. This means that there must be some type of due process. This means, at a minimum, notice of the charges, the opportunity to call and cross-examine witnesses on disputed issues of fact, and a neutral fact-finder. There is no need for a factual hearing if there no disputed issues, and the proceedings may be conducted on paper. See Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975).

This does not mean that: 1) a jury trial is required; 2) hearsay statements are inadmissible (but, as a practical matter, the trier of fact must usually explain why any challenged hearsay statements are reliable).

Anyway, if anyone wants to attack the WC decision on procedural grounds, they will need to do on these grounds. I appreciate that you are a union officer, but you probably should provide more specific citations if you wish to convince people of your positions, since many of us are lawyers.

Larry, at 12:25 pm EDT on May 18, 2006

Bad Motives?

To paraphrase Unapologetically Tenured’s last post:

1. Ward Churchill is guilty of serious misconduct, but his misconduct “isn’t the point.”

2. The actual motive (or “direct, proximate cause” in UT’s words) for the investigation was Churchill’s constitutionally–protected political speech.

3. The University would have used any available excuse, even using trumped-up charges of a pen-stealing, if necessary, to get rid of Churchill because of his political speech.

If we assume all these points are true, UT still fails to articulate any coherent reason why Churchill should not be fired.

A person is not absolved of his own malfeasance merely because others have an ulterior or less-than-pure motive for investigating it. We do not let a bank robber go free on the grounds that the police “might have framed him if they hadn’t found the mask, the money and the gun in his pockets.” In claiming that UC would have used any excuse to get rid of Churchill, UT condemns the university administration and the investigative committee for “something they might have done,” instead of condemning Churchill for what he actually did. This seems like a very odd sense of justice.

UT also ignores the very real possibility (indeed, the probability) that multiple individuals were involved in Churchill’s investigation who possessed an assortment of motives, both individually and collectively. Wanting to get rid of a political embarrassment on the faculty does not preclude a simultaneous desire to get rid of an academic fraud and plagiarist. Yet, UT apparently assumes that all persons involved in the Churchill investigation were monomaniacs sharing the sole desire to infringe Churchill’s civil rights. Beliefs of this kind are sometimes held by people with persecution complexes.

For academics, the lesson of the Churchill affair is clear. It isn’t “Don’t make speeches calling 9-11 victims ‘Nazis.’” Rather, it’s “Don’t make public speeches calling 9-11 victims ‘Nazis’ if you are an unqualified, incompetent liar with a long record of plagiarism.”

Cole Ayeland, Villanova, at 12:50 pm EDT on May 18, 2006

Right or left doesn’t matter

What matters is that this guy has open more eyes with regard to REAL American history than most entire university programs have. So the numbers are off, the oral stories are arguable from county to county with the old ones and Churchill is the ONLY professor to be put under the microscope— lots of stones to throw and LOTS of right wing funding and interest.

Well, I think what is very clear is that he hit a BIG nerve. How about we hold today’s news accountable for its mis-reporting to the public (heck, lets get to Fox- lying strait to your face). Nobody is taking right wing radio nuts and observing there resources and references- how about a panel for Rush— haha! (These people “telling us what’s going on” would be thrown out of a higher education department the day they presented a first report.

Thw way I see it, we got ourselves a witch hunt and the dogs are going to eat Churchill and keep on running the bigger show that has so many “educated” people rallying behind our NEW IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT who will be putting into practice exactly what Mr. Churchill has shown them to do in the past. They will be real gung ho’ until the knock is on thier door.

“History, what’s that?”

Txhagal, at 7:30 pm EDT on May 18, 2006

Get what is deserved

UT implies that since not everyone will get what they deserve for not being perfectly clean, no one should be punished. Instead, we should be making as great an effort as possible to hold EVERYONE to as high a standard as we can — we should be searching out ALL plagerism, ALL sexual and racial harrassment, ALL illegal activities and poorly reflecting behavior rather than excusing ANY of it EVER.

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 8:25 pm EDT on May 18, 2006

How laughable

” .. that has so many “educated” people rallying behind our NEW IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT who will be putting .. exactly what Mr. Churchill has shown ..”

IHE, thank you for all the humor your advertising-supported bandwidth provides. People like the aforementioned, Mr. Shortell, Mr. Churchill (!!), et al., think one political party has a lock on IQ tests.

Guess that leaves out Geo. Will, PhD (Princeton); Wm. Kristol, PhD (Harvard); Lynne Cheney, PhD (UW-Madison), et al. Once the laughter trails off, the exposed waste in taxpayer-owned academia can be cleaned up.

Art D., at 9:10 pm EDT on May 18, 2006

Legal Woes for CU ?

The investigatory committee at CU has found Ward Churchill guilty of serious academic misconduct including plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification. This now raises serious questions about the University of Colorado’s legal liability particularly regarding students, especially those in Ethnic Studies. Can CU be sued for academic malpractice or fraud because of Churchill’s misconduct? Three issues seem particularly problematic.

1. Degrees in Ethnic Studies Churchill may have awarded, B.A.s and especially graduate degrees, M.A.s and Ph.D.s would seem now to be greatly devalued because of his flawed academic integrity. Students holding those degrees have been defrauded, and the deficient academic standards of their mentor make the students themselves seem less reliable, and less well-educated and trained than other graduates and degree-holders. One might argue that their degrees are worth less than degrees awarded by other faculty members and departments at CU, although the tuition they paid and the effort they put into their work was equal.

2. Students whose work Churchill evaluated have been cheated, since his academic standards have been judged inadequate. Perhaps they are entitled to have their work and their grades in his courses re-evaluated by other professors with conventional academic standards. Or perhaps they should sue CU for failing to provide reliable instruction and evaluation by a competent, reputable instructor, for which they were paying tuition.

3. Decisions on graduate exam and dissertation committees where Churchill passed judgment must now seem unreliable. In fact, all the work of university committees and all university procedures in which Churchill participated—tenure and promotion cases, hiring and salary decisions, faculty and departmental reviews, administrative policies and decisions—all of these are devalued and tainted because of his serious academic misconduct. Individuals affected by such decisions might argue that all such procedures are invalid, and hold the university responsible for providing re-hearings. Law suits against the university could easily abound in t his area. And since Churchill was chair of the department of Ethnic Studies at CU, he participated in many university policy and APT decisions, which could lead to many lawsuits.

The CU investigatory committee’s findings open a whole Pandora’s box of legal problems and liabilities for CU resulting from Churchill’s egregious academic and research misconduct.

Pico, at 5:28 am EDT on May 19, 2006

Sure, CU can be sued. However, anyone that sue them under an “educational malpractice” theory would lose. As much as I think it would be a great idea to hold institutions liable for failing to maintain the standards of care in their profession, academics have escaped the liability that doctors, lawyers, and professionals do their best to avoid. (I sure would like to sue a TA that gave me a B+, and the girl he had sex with an A, alas, the best I could do was to go through the administative process.)

Assuming, arguendo, that there was a viable theory of malpractice, it would be difficult to prove anyone was damged by simply being taught by Churchill. Undergraduate education is virtually the same no matter where you go, even if the professors are hacks or “real” scholars. Let’s face it, if someone has a degree in ethic studies, they are not going to send an innocent man to the gallows or kill a child on the operating table. The worse that they can happen, is they won’t get a job, but since many ethnic studies majors are unemployed anyway, it would be darn near impossible to show a causal relationship.

Anyway, you articulate a a nice fantacy of the way educaiton should be, but CU will be able ot successfully defend against lawsuits.

Larry, at 5:30 am EDT on May 19, 2006

Lets all laugh...

Its amusing to some that the correct history presented by Mr. Churchill is so “refutable” in that interpretations can indeed be twisted and the point can be lost in the FUD created by the “educated” right (who by the way has been bold faced lied to several time by their leader as of the last few years- but they are so smart they re-elected him!!!).

Fault of logic, lack of social concern and blame for poverty (while corporate white collar crime takes a 99 to 1 cut of our future when compared to the God forbidden “social program") is the problem we have. Mr. Churchill brings this out in plain view with regard to the history of our treatment of Indian youth during the turn of the 20th Century. Then he correctly lists the detailed loss of death caused by American “heroes” (including Clinton).

Pardon me again for butting in to say that Mr. Churchill is NOT only NON-partisan, but he has told something (so unpopular these days) called the truth and like so many other before him, the “leaders” of the day are NOT happy with this— WHY ELSE would they attack him? You question his integrity and I’ll match it against ANY MEDIA PUPPET which MOST idiots today form opinions from— in fact, I’d refer them to some history on Germany about 1936ish...take a look if you dare and see how the “sheeple” felt so “RIGHT” back then...

Txnagal, at 4:35 am EDT on May 19, 2006

Still laughing ..

” .. Mr. Churchill brings this out in plain view ..”

Great! And when Mr. Churchill is fired — with his $67,000/year goverment pension, the Great White Deceiver have even more time to develop his narcisistic activist personality disorder!

Can’t wait! Hey — for that matter, why doesn’t Mr. Churchill quit today!?

P.S.: about this — ” .. while corporate white collar crime ..” blah, blah, blah ..

Why, yes — that ENRON trial in Houston is really an illusion of the dominant paradigm. Just like the moon landing.

Art D., at 7:35 am EDT on May 19, 2006

A Few Parting Responses

Looks like we’ve beaten this one into the ground, so I’ll make a few parting responses and then move on. I actually have no fully formed opinion as to what should happen to Churchill at this point. I simply believe that singling out someone for special scrutiny and investigation in response to his constitutionally-protected speech is both wrong and dangerous. Many of you disagree. I get that.

In some cases, I suspect it’s because the pleasure you take in seeing a radical professor get his comeuppance supersedes any concern you might otherwise have about things like process and fairness (issues that apparently only matter when the rights of conservatives are at stake). But I also realize that not all the commentary here is disingenuous, and that many people are so offended by Churchill’s apparent misdeeds that nothing else really matters to them. I disagree, but I’m not unsympathetic.

I suppose I worry most about the people who take the posiition that, in effect, if you’re not guilty, you have nothing to worry about. I think history—academic and otherwise—has proven this view wrong over and over again. But we’ll see. I hope you’re right.

Quick responses:

Occom:

1. Yes 2. No3. Depends

Sherman:

You’re welcome.

Cole Ayeland:

I disagree with very little of what you say. I hope my comments above clarify my perspective.

Art D.:

Uh, yeah, let’s let Howard Dean decide his fate (what on Earth are you talking about?).

Unapologetically Tenured, at 8:40 am EDT on May 19, 2006

Howard Dean has “the truth”

” .. Art D.: Uh, yeah, let’s let Howard Dean decide his fate (what on Earth are you talking about?).”

Mr. Shortell, given his own experiences, indicated that Mr. Churchill was the poor, benighted victim of mean, biased right-wing attacks.

Therefore, using that kind of warped logic, only someone like Dr. Howard Dean, Hiliary, Grover Furr, et al., is capable of determining “the truth.”

This is called sarcasm. Ever heard of it?

It’s usually simple — like Occam’s Razor. But you are apparently confused, awaiting your next government check, like Great White Deceiver WC. Well, good luck.

Art D., at 9:40 am EDT on May 19, 2006

specifics needed from Texas

TxNGal, I am interested to know where you get that figure regarding white collar crime taking a cut of our future. Also, I am curious as to why you are so sure that Mr. Churchill told the “truth.” Which of his statements was objectively true? Perhaps you can provide specifics.

Larry, at 3:20 pm EDT on May 19, 2006

Rational Debate

It is clear that the Churchill case has taken on a symbolic dimension. At least there has been some attempts here to discuss the issue rationally. (And then we have the trolls. By the way, isn’t there some blogosphere law to the effect that the number of times one has to explain one’s use of sarcasm is inversely related to one’s skill in using it?)

Unfortunately, the discussion of John Wilson’s viewpoint has been more strident. There appears to be a mob forming to condemn the prisoner before hearing his side of the story.

It seems that many people have a hard time understanding that some academics might be critical of the call for Churchill’s head on a platter without actually holding a favorable impression of his politics or scholarship. But I suppose free speech issues are often like that.

I think it would be useful for folks to ask themselves honestly were the professor were on the far right instead of the far left, would they hold the same opinion about bouncing him from the academy.

Timothy Shortell, Associate Professor at Brooklyn College, at 9:45 pm EDT on May 19, 2006

Educational Malpractice

In response to my fantasies about academic malpractice and CU’s legal liabilities for W.Churchill’s academic misconduct, a reader comments: “Assuming, arguendo, that there was a viable theory of malpractice, it would be difficult to prove anyone was damged by simply being taught by Churchill.”

I wasn’t thinking or writing about students’ being damaged just by being taught by WC, I was really more concerned with situations where his endorsement and administrative decisions might directly affect the career and reputation of either a colleague or a student.

Of course most students who sign up for Ethnic Studies courses know what they are getting into—both politically and in terms of grades and academic standards. They will have scrutinized the online course evaluations and statistics on how many “As” Ethnic Studies students usually receive. (Don’t get me started on that...).But do their parents—tuition-paying parents—know that they may be paying for substandard academic content in courses and “easy A’s” that don’t necessarily reflect students’ achievements? Do their parents know that there is a high likelihood that a CU graduate with a degree in Ethnic Studies and letters of recommendation from The Churchill will not have the same reliable credentials as students in Ethnic Studies at other schools?

If I were in Ethnic Studies, especially at CU, I’d race to dissociate myself from Churchill and to condemn his fraud in order to defend the academic reputation of the field.

Pico, at 5:10 am EDT on May 20, 2006

Rational, moral & intelligent debate

” .. I think it would be useful for folks to ask themselves .. were the professor were on the far right instead of the far left, would they hold the same opinion ..”

Yes, of course — what are you talking about? Plenty of Republicans have been fired by other Republicans — e.g., Duke Cunningham, Nixon, Agnew, and in the recent Ohio state legislative primaries. Being a gross deceiver like Mr. Churchill would get 90% of the public fired immediately — including Republicans.

However — given the empirically-determined 25:1 ratio of Democrats to Republicans in sociology, what are the odds of someone on the “right” joining the “far left” faculty?

That would amusing, if it wasn’t so absurd, ridiculous, and in need of immediate repair. More rationale for chartering higher education to make it cost-effective, self-managing, and less burdensome on taxpayers (as if the Churchills of the world cared).

Art D., at 2:10 pm EDT on May 20, 2006

Ward’s a double-agent?

In the midst of this oh-so-serious trial involving “academic freedom” (for thee, not me) — possibly the most-amusing opinion column about WC, Mr. Horowitz, et al.:

http://www.pirateballerina.com/blog/entry.php?id=42

Art D., at 9:15 am EDT on May 21, 2006

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Truth and Consequences

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Comments

Is this an isolated case?

On The Justice of Roosting Chickens

wishful thinking there

Mr. Churchill has no one to blame but himself

David Horowitz -101 Professors

Chrchill and Tenure

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

Apples and Oranges

Ivory Tower Troubles

Going Public

Was Churchill Singled Out?

Due Process

FOLKS, READ THE REPORT!

Anyone Want to Mount a Serious Argument?

long time coming

Paradise For Night Clerks

ward churchill—wider implications

Serious Indictment of Uuniversity of Colorado

Some Evidence Please

reply to Lokki on selective prosecution

Due Process

Three comments

Due Process

Due process? What are you talking about?

Give Me The Evidence ...

Responsibility

Tenure and Due Process

Missing the Point

What can I say?

Enough Politics — Read the Report

Questions

What standard of due process?

What are you suggesting?

How Much Evidence Do You Need?

nobody is confusing the 5th and 6th

Bad Motives?

Right or left doesn’t matter

Get what is deserved

How laughable

Legal Woes for CU ?

Lets all laugh...

Still laughing ..

A Few Parting Responses

Howard Dean has “the truth”

specifics needed from Texas

Rational Debate

Educational Malpractice

Rational, moral & intelligent debate

Ward’s a double-agent?

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