I haven't heard one person bring up the fact that his position was aquired through a lie.

That's the only thing I have to say on this matter which should have settled everyone's discussion from the get go.

Ok, one more thing. I hope he gets screwed but that's just personal.

So why on earth should we defend a "right" of Ward Churchill's which is only extended to similarly-minded fools and no one else?

Because, hopefully, you're not actually advocating extending rights to no one. The solution is not to remove rights where they do exist but to insist upon rights where they do not.

And you see that happening anytime soon?

It's not going to happen.

Make someone King for a day and have him do a job on Leftwing professors. Why do we have to put up with the stranglehold they seem to have gotten on our universities? It isn't just Churchill, it is the band of leftists all around him, blanketing the university, that stifles the students. A pox on them all.

I did mention it, SondraK (though I'm not sure that I really count as "one person" yet). In fact, speaking practically, I think it's the only accusation that has a significant chance of getting this guy fired. Which is probably why the University chose not to go after it.

Sir,
The strongest argument supporting your thesis is apparent when contrasting the response to separate, controversial statements made by two academicians, one statement being "right", one being "left".

Lawrence Summers, a Harvard man and former Clinton cabinet member (hardly a right wing standard bearer), makes a relatively mild statement regarding women and the sciences, a statement which many view as asking a valid question regarding the differences between the genders, and a media firestorm ensues.

Ward "Cleaver" Churchill makes a hyperbolic and ludicrous statement conflating victims of 9/11 and Eichmann and it takes the media years to respond, and then only because there was a protest that was picked up by the blogs and Fox and they were shamed into covering the story (much like Rathergate and hopefully Easongate).

rcl

I've got two totally selfish reasons:

1: If CU keeps this idiot on staff there's nothing they can do to supress conservative speech without having this thrown back at them. The amount of conservative speech coming out of the People's Republic of Boulder will likely be small, but it cannot be suppressed without exposing the rank hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of the faculty. Which brings me to

2: CU is a state school, which means it ultimately has to answer to the people of Colorado. Normally elections for Regents are pretty much neglected so the only ones who vote are the academics. If Churchill (Sir Winston must be halfway to China by now) is kept on staff then there will be an energization of the conservatives in Colorado to do something about it.

So why on earth should we defend a "right" of Ward Churchill's which is only extended to similarly-minded fools and no one else?

The solution is not to remove rights where they do exist but to insist upon rights where they do not.

I favor requiring those with the rights to extend them as a condition of keeping those rights. I they want to use the rights defense, let them demonstrate sincerity first. To my satisfaction.

The tipping point has long since passed.

Conservatives railed about bias in the media for years, until we were forced to create an alternative with TalkRadio and the Internet. A parallel change will be required in Academia, and for the same reason: those in charge of ondoing the orthodoxy are its primary beneficiaries and enforcers.

The first step will be the concentration of conservatives into specific disciplines within the Academy. The best and brightest incoming freshmen will choose those competitive disciplines, and other degrees will lose value. Second step will be the overall decline in prestige of high-profile Universities. Third step will be the rise of alternative sources of intellectual leadership, including the US military.

Each step is already underway, in synergy with the upheaval in media. It will take a generation at least, but it is absolutely inevitable.

I'd point out, too, that something unexpected is happening at universities, something that was hinted at in articles where professors were shocked and dismayed that many of their students were indifferent and sometimes hostile to the leftist anti-war cant promulgated on campuses.

Many of these profs don't get that their own students are hip to how to get a good grade ... get the gist of the prof's politics and regurgitate it back ..get a good grade, get the degree and hasta la vista to academia and onto corporate America. And the prof just stands in the echo chamber of his/her classroom not realizing the lack of challenge does not mean agreement with his/her position.

A co-worker of mine is in night classes towards a teaching credential. She just endured, teeth clenched, a professor of California "history" who spent a good portion of the class ranting about Republicans, GW ("he snorted cocaine until he was 40 then his dad bought him the presidency") and ended the class by listing on the board 11 reasons why Ronald Reagan was exactly the same as Hitler. Straw poll among the students is that they all hated the profs guts, but not one would speak against him. He preened at the end on how he was sure he had exposed them to "The Truth." Such is the self-delusion of S/He Who Holds the Gradebook.

Darleen:
Yep; been there, done that, got the parchment.