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June 27, 2006

Integrity is not a conditional word.

It seems transgressions have finally caught up with Ward Churchill. A tenured professor at the University of Boulder, CO, made the news last year for calling those killed in the 9/11 attacks 'technocrats' and 'Little Eichmanns'. If you haven't read it, this is a paragraph from the essay, and a link to read it in context.

As to those in the World Trade Center . . . Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.

source

Arrogant, visceral, repulsive ranting. All protected by free speech, of course, which University of Colorado defended. I do always enjoy it when people confuse 'free speech' with 'impunity from repercussions'.

Allegations of academic fraud were investigated by the University. The investigating committee unanimously found that Churchill had engaged in "serious research misconduct,", a pretty way of saying falsifying information, fabricating information, plagiarism and several other academic misconducts.

Yesterday, Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano released his recomendation:

After conducting the due diligence I felt was necessary, I have come to a decision regarding the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct pertaining to Professor Ward Churchill. Today, I issued to Professor Churchill a notice of intent to dismiss him from his faculty position at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

I understand he is knee deep in the appeals process, but it seems the University has gone out of its way to dot the Is and cross the Ts.

His defenders paint him as a scapegoat, unfairly targeted. When tap dancing on thin ice, a veneer of academic credibility on dubious foundation, the halogen flood light of controversy is not what you want to focus on yourself.

There is justice in these roosting chickens.

Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at June 27, 2006 10:08 AM

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