CNN is reporting that controversial University of Colorado, Boulder professor Ward Churchill has been dismissed from his position.
More after the flip.
I'll add as I go along, but CNN is reporting that officials have announced the intention to dismiss Churchill. From Phil Destefano, University of Colorado Interim Chancellor:
After conducting the due diligence I thought was necessary, I have come to a decision regarding the recommendations of the standing committee on research misconduct pertaining to professor Ward Churchill. Today, I issue to Professor Churchill a notice of intent to dismiss... him from his faculty position at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Churchill was the center of controversial comments about the 9/11 attacks. From Wikipedia:
Ward Leroy Churchill (born October 2, 1947) is an American writer, political activist, and academic. He is a tenured full professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and author of over 20 books and hundreds of essays. In addition to his academic writing, Churchill has written for several general readership magazines of political opinion. His work is primarily about the U.S. and its historical treatment of political dissenters in general and of American Indian peoples in particular.
Churchill was widely discussed and criticized in the mass media in 2005, for a 2001 essay in which Churchill questioned the innocence of many of the people killed in the World Trade Center attacks, labeling them as "technocrats" and "little Eichmanns." The University of Colorado stated support for Churchill's right to engage in controversial political speech.
Following an investigation, the University's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct recommended Churchill be sanctioned for repeated acts of "serious research misconduct", and on June 13, 2006, recommended his firing Some observers concerned with academic freedom argue that the investigation is in retaliation to Churchill's critical statements about the World Trade Center attacks.
Looks like the sanctions just became a dismissal.
Also interesting is a February 2006 Washington Post article:
In a rambling, acidic commentary he says he dashed off within hours of the attacks, the 57-year-old professor of ethnic studies described the bankers and stock traders who died in the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns." He called their deaths a "penalty befitting their participation in . . . the 'mighty engine of profit' to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved."For years, those remarks went largely unnoticed. Indeed, Churchill was promoted to chairman of his department. He enjoyed a devoted corps of student supporters on the campus here and commanded four-figure lecture fees across the country for speeches on his academic specialty, poverty among Native Americans.
But then Ian Mandell, the 21-year-old editor in chief of the student newspaper at New York's Hamilton College, did the homework that nobody else had done.
With the professor scheduled to speak at Hamilton -- in a forum titled, aptly, "Limits of Dissent" -- Mandell googled "Ward Churchill" and found the phosphorescent 2001 essay.
While I may not agree with everything (or anything) he said, and while I may agree with Melvin's comment (below) that Churchill's a "pain in the ass", I think it's his fundamental right to say what he believes. So much for THAT freedom.
Update [2006-6-26 17:2:16 by RenaRF]: The reason the university gives for intending to fire Churchill stems from allegations of "research misconduct". Desroko provided this quote in the comments, which I have extracted here, via the Denver Post:
In a 20-page report, the committee agreed with a May investigative committee report that Churchill intentionally falsified his research, plagiarized other people's work and ghostwrote articles and then cited them to buttress his work.
. Both Caldonia and dmsilev have helpfully provided links to
this site to actually view the complaint and (I think) the findings, but the page is so busy it won't load.
I don't know if the allegations are true or not but there is a lively discussion in the comments of whether he was "targeted" for his incendiary comments and a case built around that as well as whether or not having tenure protects him absent serious, proven misconduct - you be the judge and join the discussion. For now, and I have nothing on which to base this, I lean towards his being targeted because of his comments and the "case" evolved from there. But what do I know.