On Ward Churchhill

The University of Colorado just fired Ward Churchill for "academic misconduct," including "misrepresenting the effects of federal laws on American Indians, fabricating evidence that the Army deliberately spread smallpox to Mandan Indians in 1837 and claiming the work of a Canadian environmental group as his own," reports the Associated Press. His controversial statements and publications about 9-11 had nothing to do with the investigation, although Churchhill did not become suspect until the uproar surrounding his opinions.

It sounds like the University of Colorado did the right thing here. The Colorado Board of Regents emerged as strong supporters of Prof. Churchill's First Amendment freedoms during the controversy. But note, also, that increased public attention automatically leads to increased scrutiny -- Churchill has become a high-profile spokesman for himself ever since his 9-11 writings surfaced, and close attention to his other academic writings was inevitable. That those writings have turned out to be fabricated or disingenuous has nothing to do with the basic First Amendment issue at hand.

How is this relevant to UW? For starters, I seriously doubt the ability of UW-Madison to deal with a situation on the scale of Ward Churchill. Last fall's decision to retain Kevin Barrett -- a goofy, irrelevant lecturer with an equally goofy conspiracy theory -- seemed major enough. Imagine us confronted with a professor like Churchill -- an intimidating, bullying, savvy figure, published prolifically in anti-American journals, who has written that the victims of 9-11 deserved it (an opinion which, goofiness aside, Kevin Barrett has not even flirted with.) UW is met with comparatively minor issues of academic freedom every year, and our State Legislature hates us enough for those. Could we stand up to the Rep. Nasses of the world if we were in Colorado's position? Would we want to? The fates of our respective public universities are linked, after all.