Judgment day for Churchill today

Embattled CU prof may be fired today; regents will determine his fate in vote after closed session

Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

University of Colorado ethnic- studies professor Ward Churchill faces dismissal today at the hands of the school's Board of Regents after 2 1/2 years of national controversy and investigations.

Protesters backing Churchill have vowed to hold demonstrations at the Boulder campus. CU officials say police will be present.

Churchill has told Boulder's Daily Camera he expects to be fired today.

He is charged with academic misconduct, ranging from plagiarism to inventing facts and even entire historical episodes. Among the more unusual charges is that Churchill published essays under the names of other people then cited them in his footnotes as independent sources supporting his views.

A faculty investigative committee upheld the charges one year ago. The matter then crawled through an extensive appeals process, with CU President Hank Brown recommending dismissal in May.

The regents will meet today in closed session to hear the charges and Churchill's response. They will then deliberate in private but vote in public on whether to fire him.

If Churchill is dismissed, his severance pay will be one year's salary, currently $96,392. It was not immediately clear if he will continue to receive benefits such as health insurance or employer's contributions to his retirement plan, said CU Vice President Ken McConnellogue.

The money already in his retirement fund won't be affected.

He has continued to receive his salary, although he has not taught since the fall 2005 semester. Part of the time, he was on sabbatical, and he also used compensatory time off he'd accumulated for teaching extra courses in previous semesters. More recently, he has been on paid leave.

The nine regents have been silent on the case, explaining that they will act on evidence they have read and testimony at today's hearing, not public pressure.

"We need to listen to what professor Churchill has to say in his testimony tomorrow, even though we have read thousands of pages of it," said Pat Hayes, chairwoman of the regents, on Monday.

Churchill was largely unknown to the public in 2005 when word spread that he had compared victims at New York's World Trade Center to "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who helped carry out the the Holocaust.

A panel of administrators ruled that Churchill's political remarks were protected by the Constitution. But they called for an investigation of his academic works.

Churchill has vowed to sue if he is fired. Legal scholars have given him little chance of prevailing in court: Judges usually defer to governing boards on personnel matters, particularly when due process has been followed.

The regents and Brown have done precisely that, said RL Widmann, an English professor who leads CU's faculty council.

About 25 faculty members have been involved in reviewing the charges against Churchill during the various stages of the investigation, Widmann said.

The regents will be closeted with a special counsel assigned by the state attorney general's office as they discuss possible actions.

The mechanics of how Churchill vacates his office in the basement of the Ketchum Building will probably be worked out with the campus' human-resources department or the dean's office, -McConnellogue said.

Churchill's wife, Natsu Saito, continues to be a member of the Georgia State University Law School faculty, an official said.

The charges

Behind the move to dismiss Ward Churchill are questions about the accuracy and integrity of his scholarly works. Findings of a faculty investigative committee released last year:

• Historical facts: Churchill manufactured events in which European Americans intentionally spread smallpox to kill Indians. In one such event, the Army is said to have distributed tainted blankets to Mandan Indians. But no evidence backs the claim.

Elsewhere, Churchill claimed the United States adopted a formal racial code to identify Indians, similar to the code used by the Nazis to identify Jews. U.S. law includes no such code, legal scholars say.

• Plagiarism: Churchill published an essay on water issues in Canada that closely resembles a pamphlet by a Canadian environmental group. He also borrowed a work on fishing rights originally published by Canadian scholar Fay Cohen.

• Falsifying sources: Churchill wrote essays under the names of other people, which he then cited as independent sources in his footnotes.

The investigative panel described the charges as serious.

Timeline

• 1978: Hired as an administrative assistant in CU's American Indian Equal Opportunities Program, which counseled American Indian students. During the next 10 years, he also lectured on campus and published essays on Indian topics.

• 1991: Hired with tenure in the communications department, bypassing the usual six-year review that precedes tenure. Faculty members in the department later say they were pressured by administrators to hire an Indian.

• Early 1990s: Churchill's ethnicity questioned by some Indians. CU declines to investigate.

• Early 1990s: Churchill's work comes under criticism in small academic journals for inaccuracies. CU ignores the criticism.

• 1997: Churchill transfers to newly formed ethnic-studies department and becomes chairman in 2002.

• Sept. 12, 2001: One day after the terrorist attacks, Churchill describes victims at New York's World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns," a reference to a notorious Nazi.

• January 2005: Americans are outraged when Churchill's previously ignored "little Eichmanns" comment is revealed by a student journalist at Hamilton College in upstate New York. Churchill speaking engagements are canceled at Hamilton and several other colleges.

• Jan. 31, 2005: Churchill steps down as chairman of CU ethnic-studies department but keeps his job as professor.

• Feb. 1, 2005: Gov. Bill Owens calls on CU to fire Churchill.

• March 24, 2005: An administrative committee determines that Churchill's "little Eichmanns" remark is protected speech but orders an investigation of plagiarism and other academic misconduct charges.

• May 2006: A five-member faculty committee finds the charges are warranted. Acting Chancellor Phil DiStefano recommends dismissal.

• July 2006: Churchill appeals to CU's Privilege and Tenure Committee. The panel's investigation is delayed for months by a court dispute with Churchill over whether CU is obligated to pay his legal bills.

• May 2007: Privilege and Tenure Committee upholds findings of the investigative committee but splits on whether to fire Churchill.

• May 25: CU President Hank Brown recommends dismissal.

• Today: Regents scheduled to conduct closed-door hearing then deliberate.

morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303 954-5209