Ward Churchill is a piece of human excrement, but...

There indeed have been examples of extreme right wingers protected by Universities for uttering outrageous views.

One case that comes immediately to mind was a Nobel Prize winner in Physics William Shockley from Stanford who advocated all sorts of nauseating theories including eugenics, racial superiority, and forced sterilzation. There were widespread calls for Stanford to fire this loon that were, I think, rightly resisted.

In Churchill's case I don't believe he should be fired for his politics or his comments. He should be fired for passing himself off as a native american and committing this fraud against the U of C.

That's grounds for his firing...not his political views that should be protected-as abhorent as they are-by the tenets of academic freedom.

For more, see my post here:

http://rightwingnuthouse.blogspot.com/2005/02/fire-ward-churchill-but.html

Ah, but you've gotta' remember that folks like WC really do get to behave according to another standard. Remember...

"All [of us] are equal, but some [of us] are more equal than others."

George Orwell, Animal Farm
(with apologies for the slight editing of the original)

DRK

Shockley was not employed to teach his odd beliefs. He was a physics guy best known for contributions to the semiconductor field, namely as co-inventor of the transistor.

It was only in the latter part of his life that Shockley began making public statements about his beliefs and became notorious for that rather than his genuine and far reaching contributions to the world. He was overly taken with some ideas but much of it wasn't so much wrong as politically incorrect. A KKK member he wasn't.

Comparing him to Ward Churchill is just wrong. Take away Churchill's lunacy and his classroom indoctrination in same and there is nothing left. Shockley made immense contributions to the world that benefitted even those he denigrated. If Churchill had never been born what would there be to miss?

W.C. should be fired simply because he's an idiot and not qualified to teach. How can a university possibly think someone who is so totally lost to reality and doesn't know his history lessons be of benefit to the students and teach them anything but fiction?

Isn't it a difference of whether we don't approve of his speech (protected- thus can't fire him) versus him being a idiot (non-protected- fire his ass.) Honestly, though, it speaks volumes about his University - it is not as though he taught in a vacuum. Are his colleagues rallying around him?

Out of sheer curiosity, has anyone ever heard of "a Jewish scholar" who "denied other acts of genocide?"

I mean, seriously?

I worked with a guy with a Ph.D in US foreign policy once. Naturally, I ended up asking him, "Why is it you have a Ph.D in US foreign policy and you work for a software company on process development?"

He said, "I like working in private industry, because it matters if you're right."

As I said yeaterday, we can't ignore this guy - he won't let us. He is obviously trying to fan the flames for his book and clearly enjoys baiting the right. This is a very dangerous trend that can be stopped only through direct action. If UC were boycotted they'd find a way to get rid of him, lawsuits or no. Until the Right takes direct action through boycott, nothing will change.

THE RIGHT MUST BOYCOTT!!!

Well, that about does it for me. "The Jews are worse than the Nazis" crosses my line of tolerance for what can be considered "academic free speech." At least the blowback argument is rooted in a tenuous, naive form of logic, but I really don't get how, even accepting his "Holocaust Industry" premise, it would be possible to label that as worse than the actual mass-scale industrialized genocide from which it derives.

I guess all I can say is that this guy is not even a real leftist if he says stuff like that. He's not a right-winger either, though... he's just nothing. He exists on his own ideological plane, entirely free of rational human philosophical bases. Unfortunately, what many on the left fail to realize is that just because he can readily spout nativist tree-hugging and soci-alist dogma, it does not make him a friend of their cause. He is a philosophical void, a black hole from which nothing of intellectual value can escape.

I guess after all that, I still have to say I'm uncomfortable with the idea of his being terminated for his speech per se, but I think the argument that his ravings demonstrate incompetence in his chosen profession, along with the fraudulent claims of ancestry and other academic shenanigans, should be enough to make a convincing case for his shitcanning. Ace said it before: if that happens, then never will the word "shitcan" have been more appropriately applied.

By the way, I can say "shitcan" but not "s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-t" because of the "c-i-a-l-i-s."

As I re-read the excerpt, I realize that I misread it the first time. He wasn't saying that the "Holocaust Industry" stuff is worse than the Holocaust, just worse than Holocaust deniers. I think the point still stands, though.

Hey Ace, compare the theme of Churchill's essay with the content of Cedarford's posts the other evening. They are virtually identical. Maybe Cedar was a "teacher's pet" at one point.....

Isn't it funny how many Lefties enjoy posing with guns? I can't recall seeing the Right posing with guns in a quite a long time. If anyone has any pix of the Right that are, say older than 20 years can you post them?

So victims are "Eichmanns" but "Eichmann" isn't so bad.

So it's not really an insult, is it?

FREE WARD CHURCHILL!

/dummocrap

ACE - Anyone know of the address, phone, and email address of the UC so we can send our protests to UC instead of just ranting about it here?

Senator Phil,

Good observation but somebody beat you to it (scroll to the bottom) :)

© 2003 Regents of the University of Colorado
303 Regent Administrative Center, 24 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0024
Phone: 303-492-7523 Email: vca@buffmail.colorado.edu

He can backpeddle all he wants but his true colors are now clear!

Ace --

I in fact DID address your question in an earlier thread:

I can't believe I'm being forced to "defend" this guy, but let me just say this: Churchill's piece argues that those who died in the towers in 911 (and, if you wish to grant the professor the benefit of the doubt, he's talking only about the government employees) are legitimate targets of an a group aggrieved group -- that they were killers by proxy based upon their participation in the capitalist system.

This argument is absurd (from my vantage point), but it is pretty standard hard left stuff, and is the blowback argument as filtered through a Marxist revolutionary perspective.

This is quite different, I think, then arguing that women deserve to be raped -- at least as you present it (I can certainly envision some theorists making such an argument under specific conditions) -- or using a term like sand n*ggers; Churchill was drawing an analogy to Eichmann which I find wrong, silly, and repulsive, but it was an analogy. It is my function as an academic to argue that analogy away -- not to turn Churchill into a martyr by taking away his right to make his case in the very setting where one SHOULD be making such cases, if that's what they believe and can attempt to defendYou seem to be taking my "defense" of Churchill on the matter of his blowback argument to mean I am forced to defend anything that he says as a matter of academic speech -- which has my argument exactly backwards. I defended THAT PARTICULAR BIT OF SPEECH because, as I've noted on a number of occasions, the argument is academically justifiable.

None of which commits me to defend every crazy or racist thing Churchill says.

But re: his 911 spiel, I linked today to some video of his speech at CU last night where he literally uses the word BLOWBACK. Which is a theory for 911 you'll find in foreign policy journals, and is a mainstream belief in much of Western Europe.

You can find a link to the video in the comments here

Jeff G,

I didn't say you had to defend every crank thing this assh0le says. I was just pointing out that you had suggested "racism is different" (IIRC), and now that this guy is guilty of that too, I was just inviting you to get on board and join the team for the big win.

"This argument is absurd (from my vantage point), but it is pretty standard hard left stuff, and is the blowback argument as filtered through a Marxist revolutionary perspective.

"This is quite different, I think, then arguing that women deserve to be raped -- at least as you present it (I can certainly envision some theorists making such an argument under specific conditions) -- or using a term like sand n*ggers; Churchill was drawing an analogy to Eichmann which I find wrong, silly, and repulsive, but it was an analogy. It is my function as an academic to argue that analogy away -- not to turn Churchill into a martyr by taking away his right to make his case in the very setting where one SHOULD be making such cases, if that's what they believe and can attempt to defends."

Above is the reminder of the blockquote that got cut off in the earlier comment.

and re: Blowback,

You won't take "yes" for an answer.

Yes, I admit that the blowback theory is perfectly legitimate to argue, if generally wrongheaded.

But I think you're saying one can basically justify the attack on the WTC, and call the victims "little Eichmanns," and that's all fair game as long as one is doing so in the context of discussing blowback.

I think that's silly.

I can be discussing something perfectly legitimate -- like ending quotas in college admissions -- but that would not give me license to then, as part of my thesis, begin suggesting that we should keep the Chinese out of our universities because they are cunning and crafty and have magical powers, much like elves.

The fact that you're talking hateful nonesense as PART of a legitimate debate does not immunize that hateful nonsense from criticism-- or consequences.

Who on earth is suggesting his hateful nonsense is immune from criticism or consequences? Certainly not me. I've criticized both the idea of "blowback" and the analogy Churchill uses to try to connect capitalist technocrats to Eichmann.

All I've argued is that the ONE consequence I'm averse to is making this guy a martyr by firing him for drawing the stupid analogy in the course of THIS academic argument -- that is, firing him for what is fairly standard leftist academic speech.

Re: your Chinese person analogy... Churchill's sad little Marxist diatribe criticizes a SYSTEM and those complicit in perpetuating it (he includes himself in this, if you believe what he said last night). This is different than criticizing an ethnic group for what are presented as innate physiological characteristics.

So, can they just fire his ass for being a fraud instead of firing him for being a racist scumbag?

ACE:"I can be discussing something perfectly legitimate -- like ending quotas in college admissions --"

What if in your argument you said: "African Americans use Americas whites feelings guilt for slavery to justify quotas and affirmative action. African Americans believe that they were victimized by slavery to a greater degree than Japanese Americans were during world war 2."
Isnt this a similar to:
"...accused Jews of seeking to monopolize for themselves all that beautiful Holocaust suffering that other groups would very much like, ex post facto, to share. "
And:"...Jewish scholars stressed the Holocaust in order to “construct a conceptual screen behind which to hide the realities of Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian population.”
Churchill should be fired for being a fraud-not for expressing his political beliefs. If every professor on Americas campuses was fired for making stupid or politically incorrect ideas there would be none left. They should be defeated in a battle of ideas-not by exerting political pressure. Is there no one on the right who is skilled enough to refute his claims in public? Of course there is. But instead of challenging his ideas they challange his right to speak his opinions without fear of losing his job.

Ann herself has just ANNIHILATED Churchill in her column.

Mr. John Nowak,
As a matter of fact, there are thousands of Jewish scholars who deny all other atrocities in histoy.

Perhaps a more famous example would be Prof. Ron Rosenbaum's 'Explaining Hitler". But, alas, there are scores of examples.
-smle