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February 9, 2005
Why University of Colorado Needs to Fire Ward Churchill
Just how much of a fraud is academia's favorite faux Indian? Some clues can be found in an interesting piece by University of Colorado Law Professor Paul Campos, explaining why this phony should be fired. The reasons have nothing to do with freedom of speech.
On the doubtful question of Churchill being an Indian, Campos has this to say:
Why should we care one way or another? We should care because Churchill has used his supposed Indian heritage to bully his way into academia. Indeed Churchill lacks what are normally considered the minimum requirements for a tenure-track job at a research university: he never earned a doctorate, and his only degrees are a bachelor's and a master's from a then-obscure Illinois college.
Churchill's lack of conventional academic credentials was apparently compensated for, at least in part in the eyes of those who hired him at the University of Colorado, by the "fact" that he contributed to the ethnic diversity of the school's tenure-track faculty.
"It may well be that by this point he has genuinely convinced himself that he actually is an Indian," Campos continues. "Of course some people believe they're Napoleon. But that's not a good reason for giving them professorships in French history."
As noted by Campos, Churchill has also indulged in other forms of fraud, including fabricating a story that the US Army deliberately created a smallpox epidemic among Mandan Indians in 1837. Details can be found here.
Bummer, Ward. It looks like the chickens are coming home to roost.
Posted by Van Helsing at February 9, 2005 1:54 PM
Comments
Thanks for riding this bucking donkey, VH. Ward Cockroach has ethics right in line with many of our elected officials and former presidential candidates.
Covering for Rush today, Roger Hedgecock posited that, hey, we WANT Churchill to keep his job, in fact we WANT him to speak out, on every campus in the nation if he can. The damage he and his supporters have done to their cause is more than that from a trainload of garlic and silver crosses.
Free Speech is beautiful, ain't it?!?
Posted by: The MaryHunter at February 9, 2005 3:56 PM
