Two join Churchill review panel

Out-of-state scholars replace pair who had praised prof's work

Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 5, 2006 at midnight

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The University of Colorado on Wednesday named two new members to a committee investigating research misconduct allegations against professor Ward Churchill.

The move came about eight weeks after two members of the panel stepped down amid revelations that they had earlier praised the work of Churchill, who has been at the center of a media storm for nearly a year.

José Limón, an English professor at the University of Texas, and Robert Clinton, a law professor at Arizona State University, agreed to join the panel, which also includes three CU professors.

The investigative committee has 120 days to do its work "unless more time is clearly needed," CU spokeswoman Pauline Hale said.

The committee was forwarded seven separate charges against Churchill by the university's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. Among the charges Churchill is facing are allegations he committed plagiarism, misused others' work, misrepresented sources and fabricated material he presented as fact.

If upheld, the allegations could lead the university to fire the tenured ethnic studies professor.

Churchill did not respond to a request for comment.

His attorney, David Lane, said he had "no reaction" to the naming of the two new committee members.

Churchill's work came under scrutiny after a college newspaper publicized an obscure essay of his comparing some victims of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

Although CU's initial investigation concluded that Churchill had a First Amendment right to say what he did, university officials decided that other allegations were serious enough to merit further inquiry.

One is whether Churchill falsely accused the Army of committing genocide in 1837 by distributing smallpox-infested blankets to Mandan Indians in the Upper Missouri River Valley.

He also faces allegations of publishing the work of professor Fay Cohen of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as his own, and of plagiarizing a defunct Canadian environmental group's writings on a shelved water-diversion project.

Churchill has steadfastly denied all wrongdoing.

Limón and Clinton join CU law professor Marianne Wesson, who is the panel's chair, history professor Marjorie McIntosh and sociology professor Michael Radelet.

Neither Limón nor Clinton could be reached for comment Wednesday.

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