Ward Churchill

From dKosopedia

Ward Churchil or Ward LeRoy Churchill is an American academic and political activist. He is a tenured full professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and author of over 20 books and hundreds of essays. In addition to his academic writing, Churchill has written for several general readership magazines of political opinion. His work is primarily about the U.S. and its historical treatment of political dissenters in general and of American Indian peoples in particular.

Indirect Attack

Churchill was widely discussed and criticized in the mass media in 2005, for a 2001 essay in which Churchill questioned the innocence of many of the people killed in the World Trade Center attacks, labeling them as "technocrats" and "little Eichmanns. A revised and expanded version of the essay Some People Push Back appears in On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality.

The University of Colorado initially expressed support for Churchill's right to engage in controversial political speech, however, the University's Standing Committee on Research misconduct's investigative subcommittee recommended Churchill be sanctioned for repeated acts of "serious research misconduct." Attacking academic freedom is too dangerous for conservatives so instead they chose to attack his scholarship. He was accused of misrepresentation and failure to cite source material. Some observers concerned with academic freedom argue that the investigation is in retaliation to Churchill's critical statements about the World Trade Center attacks.

On April 23, 2007 seven professors at the University of Colorado at Boulder and two professors at other institutions issued an open letter assertign that the report which accused Churchill of academic misconduct and plagiarism is filled with errors, distorted and relies on biased information. The open letter threatened that if the University of Colorado does not retract the report the group may file charges of research misconduct against the authors of the report. See John Ingold. "Churchill Report Full of Errors, Profs Say." Denver Postt. April 24, 2007. News Report.

Bibliography

• Ward Churchill. 2003. On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality. AK Press. ISBN 1902593790 Book Details
• Ward Churchill. 2003. Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Anglo-american Law City Lights Publishers. ISBN 0872864111 Book Details

External links

• Ward Churchill: Down But Not Out] by Mark Petersen