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http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_4561140,00.html
David Horowitz accepts call to debate Churchill in D.C.
By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News
March 22, 2006
Author David Horowitz will debate the University of Colorado professor he listed among America's worst academics.
Horowitz and ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill said Tuesday in separate interviews that the idea came from Churchill.
Horowitz has called Churchill's views "absurd on their face" and listed him in a book on professors who he says allow their opinions to dominate their lectures.
But Horowitz also said in a talk at CU that Churchill should not be fired for expressing controversial views.
The debate is scheduled for April 6 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Horowitz said. It will be sponsored by Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture and Young America's Foundation, which bills itself as a conservative group.
A moderator has not been chosen, Horowitz said.
The subject will be whether politics can be - or should be - taken out of the classroom.
Churchill's books and lectures are criticized for being overtly political. Horowitz believes classes should present balanced discussion.
"There's always merit to having a debate. That is the point of the whole (educational) process, putting out opposing viewpoints," Churchill said.
The Los Angeles-based Horowitz said he was in New York this month when he received a phone call from Churchill.
"We had quite a civil exchange," Horowitz said.
Horowitz said the two have met before.
"I've said harsh things about him; he's said harsh things about me," Horowitz said of their relationship.
Churchill dismissed his inclusion in Horowitz's book about America's worst professors.
"He's obviously an expert, never having been in school as near as I can tell," Churchill said.
Horowitz said he expects heavy security, but doubted the debate would get out of hand.
Churchill's work came under scrutiny after a college newspaper publicized an obscure essay of his comparing some victims of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.
A CU faculty committee is studying whether Churchill should be disciplined for alleged plagiarism and inaccuracies in his published work. Churchill said he has not been told when the report will be finished.