Ward Churchill
Ward Churchill is a University of Colorado professor who wrote horrific papers praising the murder of the people in the World Trade Center, calling them “little Eichmanns,” among other things. He’s a sadistic man to praise the death of innocents, and in fact his words evoke thoughts of, well, Eichmann, except Prof. Churchill being the depraved Nazi.
Talk soon turned to whether the tenured professor should be fired. On the one hand, I favor broad academic freedom and free speech. On the other hand, I have trouble seeing much academic value in a lot of his work. I do think one would be justified in firing a professor for failing to address substantive academic work, but “academic” is now in some ways like “art” – its definition is in the eye of the beholder.
In the end, from what limited information I have, Churchill should be retained, albeit with a stern warning to produce valuable academic work and not hate-filled rants void of substance. Prof. Volokh, Prof. Reynolds, and Prof. Bainbridge all address it and conclude a firing is not best, but stripping him of the department chairmanship is both reasonable and wise. Further, if reports are true that he lied about his Native American heritage, that fradulent move would certainly be grounds for removal.
Update: Robert thinks the professor is doomed.
17 Responses to “Ward Churchill”
How about a boycott of his classes by UC students? If I attended there, I’d certainly do my best to avoid ever sitting in his classroom.
BTW, here is Churchill’s rebuttal to the criticism of his piece. Among his claims is that I applied the “little Eichmanns” characterization only to those described as “technicians.” Of course, since he never once used the word “technicians” in his piece, it’s a little unclear what that term is supposed to mean, how the reader was expected to understand that distinction, or why there are quote marks around the word. (Then again, his paper uses unnecessary quote marks constantly, so maybe it’s force of habit.)
I respect your careful restraint regarding this guy, Josh. You are a model of what the conservative response should be to this sort of thing. He’s clearly an ivory-tower extreme-left idealist who never has to think about practicalities in his daily life. But he’s in no way the terrible threat and hater of America I’m sure many on the right make him out to be.
I would disagree that he’s ever praising the 9/11 attacks in his paper, though. He’s saying “the U.S. brought this upon itself by being too capitalist, too heartless, and too self-absorbed.”
He’s not saying “yay, terrorists attacked America — I hope they win!” He’s saying “I knew this would happen. We can avoid stuff like this in the future if you’ll just listen to me and my peaceful, non-capitalist plan to save the world.”
He’s arrogant, narrowminded, and giving what is probably extremely bad advice — but it is not the same as praising 9/11.
Thanks for the compliments Aaron. But I do think Churchill’s paper is quite celebratory: “If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it.”
That quote, standing alone, does look celebratory. I didn’t see it so, in context, because I thought he was basically saying “geeze, I coulda told them that that eventually the evils that empire did might come back to haunt them. But they didn’t listen to me — and it happened just as I would have expected”
I suppose he is being celebratory in an “I told you so” fashion. Which, I agree is mean-spirited and wrong, whenever anyone does it.
I’m still don’t think he was intending to praise the attacks outright, although one can certainly isolate a quote like that, standing alone, and make an argument that he was.
I believe that I’m more in Aaron’s camp here with his meaning, though I don’t find him to be very helpful because of the phrasing of his attempted critisism of America. I certainly don’t think that he should be dismissed based solely upon these papers, and I would hope that the University of Colorado would attempt to protect his academic freedom, however dubious it may be in this instance.
I guess I’d be willing to quibble over “celebratory”, though not at all in defense of Churchill. There just seems to me to be something very uncelebratory about most quasi-Marxist declarations — they just never seem to make it to being happy. What it clearly does do is take a very dark satisfaction in at least some significant number of the deaths from 9/11, and that certainly is a reason for condemnation. I agree with JC, though, that it’s grounds for removal from any significant position of responsibility but, on principle, not from his academic position itself.
Just out of curiosity, is there any precedent for a professor being fired for making inflammatory statements (of any political leaning)?
And I agree that Churchill shouldn’t be fired for his statements. If he had committed some sort of fraud in trying to prove his thesis that the WTC victims “deserved what they got,” then perhaps firing would be justified, but it seems he was just spouting off rhetoric.
Some other “out-of-context” quotes from Churchill (emphases mine):
With that, they’ve given Americans a tiny dose of their own medicine.. This might be seen as merely a matter of “vengeance” or “retribution,” and, unquestionably, America has earned it, even if it were to add up only to something so ultimately petty.
—
In sum one can discern a certain optimism – it might even be call humanitarianism – imbedded in the thinking of those who presided over the very limited actions conducted on September 11.
I haven’t read Churchill’s statements but I don’t think it’s necessary to do so to come to a conclusion one way or another.
If tenure isn’t exactly for protecting the expression of the most repugnant opinions, in the hopes that those opinions get the most thorough vetting and as wide a critical audience as possible, then what is it for? What good is it?
greg
The costs of so-called “academic freedom” greatly exceed any value that it can have in this day and age. If the information revolution means anything at all, it means that tenured professors are overpaid, underworked, insuffeciently supervised, and not worth what they cost. In a word, the worst sort of rent seekers. Look around and take a look at them and see if you don’t agree.
I have to say that I agree with Joshua and Eric on this one. The guy is so full of it it’s not funny. THAT shouldn’t get him fired. Anonymous is, IMO, full of it in his broad condemnation. I have looked around, Anonymous, and most definitely don’t agree with you.
OTOH, I have seen some claims that he has falsely claimed some American Indian ancestry when standing forth as an expert in that area. If that is truly the case and it can be proven then that would certainly be a cause for dismissal of even a tenured professor. Otherwise his speech should be protected but certainly not free from criticism.
Free Speech
There is a major difference between the government restricting speech, and a private organization restricting speech. Private organizations can restrict almost anything they want.
What’s disgusting about Churchill is not so much his communism but that he is so obviously a complete poseur. There are communists out there who are willing to die for their beliefs (cf. Rachel Corrie)–them I can respect. Churchill, though, talks, postures and poses for ridiculous photographs.
Clearly, as I anticipated when I first heard about this, Churchill is the best thing that’s happened to the militant “America: F*ck Yeah” crowd. He gave them something to get excited and repressive about.
I got the following info about Churchill’s treatment so far in Colorado from a friend who lives there:
The Colorado State House unanimously passed a non-binding resolution condemning Prof. Churchill, while the State Senate passed the same measure with a single opposing vote.
The CU Regents also condemned Prof. Churchill and voted to review all his writings to determine if he should be fired from his tenured faculty position.
Churchill hasn’t DONE anythign — he wrote a stream-of-consciousness analysis that he later turned into a book. He THOUGHT about what had happened, and wrote down those thoughts. And the COLORADO GOVERNMENT actually spent public dollars condemning him for THINKING and writing down his thoughts.
Prof. Churchill has received hundreds of death threats, and a swastika was recently painted on his private truck. Hamilton College canceled Prof. Churchill’s address to the school because of threats of violence against him, other panel members, and college officials.
All this for writing words reflecting how he feels about what happened on 9/11. He hasn’t DONE ANYTHING to hurt anyone — he just said “I always knew you guys were idiots people would want to kill.” And the response to his comment, I think, is proving his point.
For the record, the governor of Colorado just called Churchhill’s essay and other statements “treasonous.” Brilliant.
Donald Sensing has a post up in which he defends taking enjoyment in killing on the battlefield. The “thrill of the kill”?
I find Sensing’s views in this instance almost as appalling as Churchill’s.
How can we love our enemy if we enjoy killing them? War can be a necessity, but I find it rather sick and twisted to turn it to entertainment.
I had relatives serve on both sides in the Civil War. I guess one side or the other was supposed to enjoy the killing.
It is shocking that an academic trying to defend minorities from incursions by the powerful is the
“flap” about which American citizens tweek their ire, when the ENTIRE subject of significant concern
is the anti-American foreign policy of the eminently impeachable Mr. Bush. BR