Bit of Good News: Ward Churchill Update

[Annie]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/05/16/national/a110624D20.DTLColorado

Professor Cited for Misconduct
- By CHASE SQUIRES, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, May 16, 2006

(05-16) 15:12 PDT Boulder, Colo. (AP) --

An investigation of a professor who likened some of the Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi found serious cases of misconduct in his academic research, including plagiarism and fabrications, a University of Colorado spokesman said Tuesday.

One member of the five-person investigative committee recommended that ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill be fired, and four recommended he be suspended, university spokesman Barrie Hartman said.

Gov. Bill Owens said Churchill has tarnished the university's reputation and should resign.

Churchill, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, said he would wait for university officials to make their next move before he makes his.

"Some of this I see as being transparently ridiculous, laughable," he said.

The professor touched off a firestorm with an essay relating the 2001 terrorist attacks to U.S. abuses abroad. The essay referred to some World Trade Center victims as "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who carried out Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate European Jews during World War II.

University officials had earlier determined Churchill could not be fired for his comments about the terrorist attacks, but they launched an inquiry into allegations about his research.

The committee's 125-page report said Churchill falsified, fabricated and plagiarized some of his research, did not always comply with standards for listing other authors' names and failed to follow accepted practice for reporting results.

The decision on his future at the university will be made by school officials later this year. Churchill has said if he is fired, he will sue.

Churchill's wife, Natsu Saito, who also teaches in the ethnic studies department, said Tuesday she had resigned her tenured teaching position at the school but said she and Churchill have no plans to leave Boulder.

In her resignation letter, Saito accused the university of reneging on promises to her and the department, ignoring racial harassment of the department and individuals, and treating Churchill unfairly. She said her decision to resign was not prompted by the pending report.

 

[Annie]

Churchill Responds, it's all a conspiracy. Yeah. Right. :

http://www.counterpunch.org/churchill05162006.html

Punishing Free Speech

A Travesty of an "Investigation"

By WARD CHURCHILL

I have received the report of the Investigative Committee of the University of Colorado and consider it a travesty. This "investigation" has all along been a pretext to punish me for engaging constitutionally-protected speech and, more generally, to discredit the sorts of alternative historical perspective I represent.

There is blatant conflict of interest involved. Interim Chancellor DiStefano, who has consistently and publicly declared his bias against me, has served from the outset as both "complainant" and judge.

Despite my repeated requests for an investigation conducted by unbiased experts, the committee was composed primarily of CU insiders. Hmm, shouldn't the 'insiders' of the university be the determiners? Although both were available and willing to serve, the investigative panel included neither American Indian scholars nor persons competent in American Indian Studies.By whose standards? Churchill's? Natch.

To all appearances the committee was composed with an eye toward precluding the involvement of individuals knowledgeable in my discipline, as well as the context of indigenous history and belief that I have quite consistently brought to bear in my scholarship.

As a result, it was necessary to devote much of the 120-day investigative period, not to examining "the facts" at issue in my case, but to acquainting the committee with some of the most rudimentary procedures employed in American Indian Studies. Had qualified individuals been included on the panel, this preemption of my ability to respond to substantive matters would not have occurred.

Although the rules allow for extensions of the "deadline" for reporting, and despite the fact that I repeatedly requested an additional 30 days in which to formulate adequate responses to the highly complex and steadily-changing questions posed by the committee, the committee declined to allow any extension whatsoever.

The upshot is that the committee's report is often self-contradictory. It frequently misrepresents or conflicts with the evidence presented. In many respects, it is patently false.

As things stand, the entire procedure appears to be little more than a carefully-orchestrated effort to cast an aura of legitimacy over an entirely illegitimate set of predetermined outcomes.

It follows that I reject and will vigorously contest each and every finding of misconduct.

 

[Annie]

More analysis on CU's analysis:

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_05_14-2006_05_20.shtml#1147812585

Start at top and work down...

 

[Annie]

Good morning!

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_4773332,00.html

CU panel: Fire prof
Churchill should be cut loose, say six of nine who cast secret ballots

Ward Churchill is prepared to sue CU if he is fired, his lawyer says.


By Sara Burnett, Rocky Mountain News
June 14, 2006
A majority of the University of Colorado committee looking into charges of research misconduct against Ward Churchill said Tuesday that the ethnic studies professor should be fired.

The panel - made up of nine CU faculty, a staff member and a graduate student - agreed unanimously with an investigative committee's earlier findings that Churchill "has committed serious, repeated and deliberate research misconduct," including plagiarism and fabrication of material.

Of the nine members who cast secret ballots, six recommended dismissal. Two said he should be suspended without pay for five years, while one suggested a two-year suspension without pay.

In a 20-page report forwarded to CU's interim provost and the dean of arts and sciences, committee members said the findings were only exacerbated by Church-ill's unwillingness to admit wrongdoing.

"We are drawn to the irresistible conclusion that Professor Churchill is unable, or at least unwilling, to acknowledge legitimate critique," the report states. "If he is unwilling to acknowledge critiques, we are pessimistic that he is likely to change his behavior."

The vote marks the first time CU's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct has found a colleague guilty since the panel was created 17 years ago.

It also increases the likelihood that Churchill will be fired.

Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano, who has the final say on Churchill's fate, is expected to announce his decision in the next few weeks.

He'll first consult with Provost Susan Avery and arts and sciences Dean Todd Gleeson, who received copies of the panel's 20-page report Tuesday.

Neither Churchill nor his lawyer are holding their breath, attorney David Lane said.

The panel's report was the latest "rubber stamp" in the university's ongoing march toward firing Churchill, Lane added. He also reiterated earlier statements that Churchill will sue CU in federal court "when," not if, he is fired.

"Not only was (the report) totally predictable, it was totally predicted," Lane said.

Churchill and Lane have called the investigation politically motivated and the committees' findings without merit.

"This is but the latest volley in a national, indeed international, campaign to discredit those who think critically and who bring alternative perspectives to their research," Churchill wrote last month in a response to the investigative committee, which also recommended he be fired or suspended without pay.

Churchill angered many in the public last January, after an essay he wrote about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was widely publicized.

In it, he compared some victims in the World Trade Center to Nazi Adolf Eichmann, and said the attacks were the predictable result of a U.S. foreign policy that resulted in the death of thousands of Iraqi children.

Politicians, including Gov. Bill Owens, called on CU to fire Churchill.

CU officials ruled that Churchill's right to free speech protected his job. But they also said the publicity had attracted several complaints about Churchill's research, and that the university was obligated to review them.

The inquiry started with the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct, which decided there was enough evidence of wrongdoing to forward the case to an ad hoc investigative committee, made up of scholars from both inside and outside CU.

That panel released a 124-page report last month.

In it, committee members unanimously agreed that in all seven instances sent to them for review, Churchill committed research misconduct - one of the most serious offenses a faculty member can commit.

For example, the panel said Churchill falsified and fabricated accusations that the U.S. Army committed genocide by distributing blankets infested with smallpox to the Mandan Indians in 1837.

They also found that he plagiarized in at least two instances, and that he falsified claims that the General Allotment Act of 1887 created a "blood quantum" standard allowing Indian tribes to admit members only if they had at least half native blood.

The investigative committee's report then went back to the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct, which has been reviewing it for the past few weeks.

The committee met last Monday for about six hours to discuss the case, CU Spokesman Barrie Hartman said.

In its sharply worded report, the panel blasted Churchill for "a pattern of intentional errors" in his work.

"The (committee) acknowledges that any scholar can make an occasional mistake, particularly when producing the volume of writing that Professor Churchill claims . . . We are forced to conclude, as did the Investigative Committee, that this is not a case of 'ordinary error,' but a pattern of repeated, intentional misrepresentation," they wrote.

The panel also said Churchill's misconduct could compromise the work of other scholars, who rely on each other's writings for their own research. And they said they regret the "erosion of public trust" in CU and academia Churchill's case has caused.

"We wish to remind all parties that this investigation had to do with one individual, and that his conduct should not be generalized to others," they stated.

The committee also recommended three changes to CU policies, aimed at avoiding more cases like Churchill's.

One called for a more thorough peer review of faculty members' research.

Another stated policies for hiring and promotions must be applied consistently - a reference to Churchill being promoted without going through the full seven-year review required for receiving tenure.

The third recommendation was that the provost and chancellor take steps to restore the reputations of faculty members hurt by the investigation, particularly those in the ethnic studies department.

The committee's findings

The University of Colorado's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct issued a strongly worded report Tuesday, agreeing with an investigative panel's earlier findings that professor Ward Churchill "has committed serious, repeated and deliberate research misconduct."

The votes

• Of the 11 members on the panel, nine cast secret ballots with recommendations for action against Churchill.

6 said he should be fired.

2 said he should be suspended. without pay for five years

1 said he should be suspended without pay for two years.

What's next

• The committee's report was forwarded Tuesday to Interim Provost Susan Avery and Arts and Sciences Dean Todd Gleeson. Avery then sent a copy of the report to Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano.

• Avery and Gleeson will evaluate the report, then meet individually with DiStefano and advise him on what they think should happen to Churchill.

• DiStefano will then make the final decision. That decision could come in the next few weeks.

• If DiStefano recommends Churchill be fired, the professor may appeal to the university's Committee on Privilege and Tenure. The dismissal must also be approved by CU President Hank Brown and the Board of Regents.

• Churchill's attorney, David Lane, has said Churchill will sue CU in federal court if he is fired.

 

[Diuretic]

The way I see it is this - who cares about his concusions as long as his methods are valid. If he is an academic fraud then boot him.

 

[Annie]

The way I see it is this - who cares about his concusions as long as this method is valid. If his method isn't valid or if it's worked up to meet his pre-determined conclusions then - punt him.

It was his 'method', i.e., plagarism, that got him to this point.