Churchill: Less equal than others

June 30th, 2006 at 11:29 Björn Hallberg

Let the purging begin. One of America’s most controversial, charismatic and flamboyant academics, Ward Churchill, has apparently been recommended for dismissal from the University of Colorado on trumped up charges of research misconduct. Surprisingly, given the state of the US, Churchill was found to have first amendment rights and that his heritage did not have any bearing on the case. Instead, the recommendation rests “solely” on the findings of an inquiry into Churchill’s research.

Two days after the top official at the university’s Boulder campus recommended he be fired, ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill told The Associated Press no scholar’s work could stand up to the scrutiny he is under.

He said academics who don’t challenge the status quo are rarely investigated, but “dissident scholars” like himself are accused of serious misconduct for mistakes as minor as punctuation.

Churchill ignited a furious debate with an essay that related the 2001 terrorist attacks to U.S. abuses abroad. The essay referred to some World Trade Center victims as “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who orchestrated the Holocaust.

On Wednesday, Churchill said he was following the logic of the philosopher Hannah Arendt in her book, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.” Churchill said Arendt believed Eichmann was the “everyman” of modern society, “and you need to be conscious of this, and you’re responsible for calibrating the impact of what you do on other people.”

Well, no matter how many times Churchill tries to explain his frankly brilliant take on Arendt, the dull minds of the mainstream will never grasp the concept. Nor will it endear him to the oligarchs and the lords of the empire.

And lets not forget that Gov. Bill Owens has publicly been calling for Churchill’s dismissal for months. Gee, that probably didn’t prod the University to take action. It does remind you a lot of the sort of academic treatment Martin Luther King Jr. has received posthumously.

And why not compare this to the case of Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz who has beyond any doubt been exposed as hoaxer and a plagiarist. Both grounds for dismissal by the same harsh standards, but unlike Churchill he is well protected by powerful friends and his views, though far more vile, “appeasing”, and murderous are considered mainstream. But I guess some are more equal than others. For more details on the allegations of misrepresentation, see CU committee blasts Ward Churchill (Rocky Mountain News, May 17, 2006). Note especially how every bullet point essentially is a feeble rebut of an attack on various US founding myths. It’s quite revealing that way.

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