Churchill smoked
Ed Morrisey has an intelligent, nuanced take on the firing of Ward Churchill by the University of Colorado.
The actual reasons for the firing–Churchill’s resume lies and distortions of the truth in his research–seem sufficient to justify his dismissal, though Morrisey is correct that the political right probably made a bigger bogeyman of Churchill than his stature ever merited.
For me, Churchill’s biggest academic sin wasn’t his post-9/11 comments, but his support (primarily in his 1996 book, ironically titled “A Native Son”) for an imbecilic and ambiguous movement to “give back the land” to American Indians. This idea, which has obtained truly bizarre currency in the high school and college debate communities, manages to combine all the worst aspects of slavery reparations, American Indian stereotypes, and generic white guilt into one neat little package.
I spoke to a UC professor about Churchill, a while ago. He was pretty angry about the academic misconduct, for sure (he wasn’t a fan of Churchill in any case, but the plagiarism, etc, was a big deal for him, understandably).
Comment by Adam — 7/25/2007 @ 4:29 pm