Rasmusen Weblog

The issues surrounding Ward Churchill are more important and complicated than anything this shake-and-bake leftist has said. As an academic myself, I'm concerned that this situation will serve as an opportunity for right-wing attacks on, and wild assertions about, all of Academe and especially the institution of tenure.

Tenure does serve a crucial role in ensuring that faculty feel comfortable in pursuing and speaking the Truth -- lofty as that sounds. But there's a two-way commitment. The faculty member in turn is assumed to be a professional who deeply and passionately loves a discipline, loves it enough to stay current in it, loves to talk about it and teach it, and to contribute in meaningful ways to it -- and this includes contributing work that can stand up to scholarly scrutiny from colleagues in the discipline. One certainly does have to wonder how Ward Churchill ever achieved tenure at a flagship state university. Given the very real possibilities being bruited about that he isn't even who he says he is, and hasn't done what he claims to have done in his life, you have to wonder as well if the hiring process broke down. The hiring committee was probably made up primarily of other ethnic studies faculty. But there had to be administrative approval up the line (been there and done that myself for several years). Did no one thoroughly check his references? And again, during the tenure process over a few years, probably no one but his own department was reviewing his work. And for the life of me, I can't figure out how a unversity hired a guy into a tenure-track position, and not only tenured him but allowed him to chair a department, without his having a doctorate. Curioser and curioser. Bringing politics into the classroom...hard to judge in a "discipline" like ethnic studies, which is usually an advocacy bull session rather than a serious research/teaching unit. Many colleges and universities have language in their faculty personnel policies about using instructional time appropriately, or something to that effect. Advocating for certain political viewpoints or actions rather than teaching about a subject would seem to pass beyond what a professor is hired to do and how classroom time is being spent. That may be one way to get at grounds for his dismissal. And if he in any way misrepresented himself as a minorty or lied about his credentials in employment forms, there is usually language on some of the personnel forms that would allow the institution to fire him for lying.

But let's not jump to damning conclusions about all of American higher education. One university for whatever reasons dropped the ball in its duty to hire, evaluate, and supervise a faculty member appropriately. Letting the sunshine in on Churchill hasn't actually been so bad. Let his irresponsible rants be publicized. Let it be pointed out that he's a hypocrite for taking good pay from the very democratic, capitalist system he would like to see destroyed, while cloaking himself in one of its noblest concepts, freedom of speech. Better yet, do what the universities did well for centuries: set up a series of debates at the Colorado campus -- or anywhere else -- between Churchill and scholars in real disciplines who can take him apart on the illogic and historical inaccuracy of his assertions.

Mr. CHurchill is adept at presenting theatrical type presentations to tabla rasa 18 year olds with short attention spans and a craving for entertainment.

Where Mr. Churchill is potentially the most vulnerable to his impressionable young disciples is in his economic hypocrisy.

Mr. Churchills rails against the corporate "little Eichmans". Those Twin Tower Stock and Bond traders, that keep the finances of the world flowing, including the funds that support campuses like CU, and gasp, these are the same folks who were putting together the stocks and bonds that compose the Pension Plan that Mr. Churchill is vested in through the Univ of Colorodo. You know the one. The one that has holdings in those energy companies, and those international banking concerns, and those fast food stocks, etc.

IF Mr. Churchill was truly of man of his convictions he would immediately divest himself of all those evil corporate holdings in his retirement plan as a statement of his true moral courage. Guess what folks. It aint gonna happen.
Mr. Churchill likes his cake and wants to eat it too, just like the fat cats, he always is threatening to kill or overthrow from power.

Ward Churchill is just another hypocritical scam artist who found an easy to manipulate audience. Sort of like an academic version of Charlie Manson.