Good advice for...well, everyone.

He was hired because of his ability to create controversy. He was also hired by fools. However, they were and are Colorado fools.

Churchill is now tenured in the left elite, regardless of what happens in the current situation. The only remaining question is how many Ward Churchills can dance on the head of a university president? See Thousands of Little Ward Churchills

For those not familiar with the Churchill controversy, here's a quick recap:

Churchill: "You bloody irresponsible capitalists caused international hatred that resulted in 9/11!"

Corporate America: "How dare you say that! Twenty years ago you VIOLATED A COPYRIGHT! Plus, you're NOT REALLY AN INDIAN!"

So who's the bad guy? I dunno, you decide ...

Um, Aaron, I think your summary rather drastically downplays the moral midgetry of Churchill's statements.

"Churchill does not seem to be the sort of person one would like to have teaching their children." Eric has hit on a formulation here that I would think liberals should pretty soundly agree on. Indeed, it's rather on the mild side.

Of course, it might also be worth noting that at most universities, you're not usually required to take ethnic studies courses, and even if you are, you usually have a fair amount of choice in which faculty member you take a course with.

Ward Churchill is an ass. Yes, by the standards of this board, I'm a liberal. And yes, he disgusts me and strikes me as an intellectual pygmy. If he really believes what he said his ability to discern the no differences between some of the people working in the towers and anything resembling what Adolph Eichmann did betrays his incompetence at a minimum.

Let's really look at it. His claim is that by working to promote the system that he feels has caused vast misery in the rest of the world some of the people have a moral equivalence to a high ranking officer of the SS whose job was the logistics of the Holocaust. Did the people working in the towers at the private companies that did a wide variety of things think of how they were advancing the cause of capitalism around the world? Or were they just thinking of how they were doing their job helping make their company a profit? Were there really any jobs at the towers that on a day-to-day basis had the men or women performing them thinking of the best way to exterminate the greatest number of people that someone had decided deserved death because of their religion, ancestry, race or sexual preference? No. Of course there weren't. And some of these things if not all of them would have to be true to provide even a smidgen of equivalence to Adolph Eichmann. He knew full well what he was helping to organize. There was no doubt. No equivocation. Adolph Eichmann was fully complicit in the mass extermination of millions of people, even to the point of continuing his work when ordered to shut down by Himmler. Churchill accused people of being "little Eichmanns". Not hardly.

Jim, your response to Churchill's statements is to disagree with them and present evidence for your point of view. That's not what's happening in the mainstream media right now, which is my point. This is a way of terrorizing people into not speaking out about certain things -- not for fear of being wrong, but for fear of being smeared and publically mocked/humiliated.

Between the determination that Vermonters shouldn't criticize the war in town meetings, and that a college professor's racial identity and 20-year-old copyright violations are fair game for national criticism if he speaks up against the war ... I gotta say I'm a little disappointed with ITA today.

I'm a Native American. I wuz born here.

As was commented earlier, Churchill was hired precisely because he is controversial. His background was well-known to the University of Colorado at Boulder when he was hired, tenured and promoted. The university administration has little cause to complain, since Churchill was hired to bring the school publicity. Colorado taxpayers, however, might wonder whether publicity at any cost should be a goal of one of their state universities.

Aaron, you seem to be trying to ignore the cause and the content of the criticism of Churchill. None of this is happening because he spoke up "against the war." He is criticized for comparing the people who died in the World Trade Center to one of the Nazis most responsible for the Holocaust. That is the reason he is being "publically mocked/humiliated," and it is, by far, the most important thing that people are holding against him.

Also, Paul's Vermont post questioned the value of holding town hall meetings to discuss this kind of issue. What is your objection?