Hamilton College Alumni for Governance Reform

Stewart and Stuart take note: The vote by the Board of Regents was unanimous. Colorado's Board fires a plagiarist; Hamilton's board names a distinguished chair after one. What will the PR people have to say now.


http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5642650,00.html

Ward Churchill Case - Press Release - CU Regents Dismiss Ward Churchill

July 24, 2007

BOULDER-The University of Colorado Board of Regents today voted to accept President Hank Brown’s recommendation to dismiss Professor Ward Churchill from the faculty of CU-Boulder for conduct that fell below minimum standards of professional integrity.

The vote concluded nearly two and a half years of an extensive faculty review process to investigate charges of research misconduct against Professor Churchill. More than 20 tenured faculty members from CU and other institutions served on three separate panels. Each panel conducted a thorough review of his work and faculty involved found evidence showing Professor Churchill engaged in research misconduct, and that it required serious sanction.

“The university has an obligation to ensure its faculty’s work is above reproach, said CU president Hank Brown. “Academic freedom requires academic integrity, responsibility and accountability.”

The record of the case www.cu.edu/churchillcase shows a pattern of serious, repeated and deliberate research misconduct that fell below the minimum stand of professional integrity, involving fabrication, falsification, improper citation and plagiarism.

The university’s review of Professor Churchill focused on his professional activities, not his statements about victims of September 11, 2001. Professor Churchill, like every United States citizen, has the right to make controversial political statements. Early in the investigation, the university determined his speech was protected by the First Amendment. http://www.colorado.edu/news/reports/churchill/distefanostatement.html

The University of Colorado values academic freedom as the bedrock of any university. But for academic freedom to thrive, it must be accompanied by academic and professional integrity.

The lengthy review process adhered to shared governance procedures established by the faculty and adopted by the Regents. During the more than two years the investigative process has taken, Professor Churchill had the opportunity to present his position. The process allowed him to make his case in writing, in person, with his attorney and with his own witnesses.

The board’s decision to dismiss is final. Professor Churchill will receive one year’s salary as a tenured professor, but will be immediately relieved of his faculty post and responsibilities.

"This case was an example not of mistakes, but an effort to falsify history and fabricate history and in the final analysis, this individual did not express regret or apologize," said Hank Brown. "This is a faculty that has an outstanding reputation and this move today protects that reputation."

Does anyone out there in the blogospere want to compare these comments with those by Hamilton's president!

To Whom It May Concern:

As members of academic professions committed to the principle of academic freedom, we deplore the procedures and recommendations of the University of Colorado in the case of Professor Ward Churchill. Responding to a public outcry against Professor Churchill's constitutionally-protected free speech, the administration of the University of Colorado appointed a special committee to investigate the character and quality of Churchill's scholarship. The committee recommended his dismissal, a recommendation that is supported by university administrators.

61. Susan Sánchez Casal, Hamilton College
149. Ella Gant, Hamilton College
160. Barbara Gold, Hamilton
363. Nancy S. Rabinowitz, Hamilton College
392. Carl A. Rubino, Classics, Hamilton College

http://hcagr.squarespace.com/home/2006/7/24/hamilton-is-prominent-in-petition-protesting-firing-of-ward-churchill.html

http://www.teachersfordemocracy.org/

Institution/# signatories

Hamilton 5
Yale 4

Williams 1

Bates 0
Bowdoin 0
Colby 0
Colgate 0
Harvard 0
Haverford 0
Holyoke 0
Kenyon 0
Middlebury 0
Trinity 0
Tufts 0
Union 0
W&L 0
Wesleyan 0


Modified 7/26 to up Hamilton College to 5 signatories in support of academic integtrity and Ward Churchill.

Signatories to the faculty resolution against the Alexander Hamilton Center.

Carl A. Rubino
Peter Rabinowitz
Nancy Rabinowitz
Barbara Gold

Gee, Archivist, something's amiss here. Why President Joan Hinde Stewart herself told reporters there is no activism in the classroom at Hamilton College.

From InsideHigherEd,

"All of that changed early in 2005, however, when Churchill was scheduled to speak at Hamilton College. Some professors there, who did not feel Churchill was an ideal speaker, circulated some of his writings, including an essay with the the now notorious remark comparing World Trade Center victims on 9/11 to “little Eichmanns.” Within days, the controversy spread — with Hamilton under pressure to uninvite Churchill and Colorado under pressure to fire him. Hamilton stood by its invitation, on academic freedom grounds, but in the end called off the appearance, based on threats of violence."

Will Churchill hire (obtain) an ACLU attorney and sue Colorado? Something tells me this saga is not over yet.

"Gee, Archivist, something's amiss here. Why President Joan Hinde Stewart herself told reporters there is no activism in the classroom at Hamilton College."

Vox,

Non sequitur, dude.

The presence (or absence) of signatures on petitions or resolutions is not evidence of activism in the classroom.

Please get a grip.

Chief,

Read the report of the founders of the AHC on this website. Here's a sample:

"At a meeting of the faculty on 10 October 2006, the first since the college announced the AHC’s creation, faculty members debated a resolution signed by two dozen of our colleagues, the majority of whom can be identified as leaders or supporters of the left-of-center Kirkland Project or its successor organization the Diversity and Social Justice Project. According to the faculty minutes, “ Proponents of the resolution expressed concern that the AHC charter threatened faculty autonomy, created a governance structure that did not guarantee appropriate institutional involvement and undermined the authority of the Dean of Faculty, established a Board of Overseers that could include Hamilton College Trustees, and instituted a governance structure unlike those of other Hamilton groups.” Please note—and this is no minor point— that criticism of the AHC included faculty concern about the inclusion of trustees by the founders on the board of overseers of the AHC. The faculty resolution insisted that “representatives of the Hamilton College community have input into the operation and governance of the AHC.” But who counts as members of the Hamilton community? Apparently not the trustees and alumni, if the signatories of the resolution had their way."

Vox,

Non sequitur ad seriatim.

You have previously insinuated that the signers of the aforementioned petition and resolution are practitioners of "activism in the classroom." Please cite examples.

As you consider your response you might find it helpful to begin by defining what you mean by "activism" and why this is inappropriate in a classroom. I suspect that we might agree. But thus far your arguments are inchoate.

From the journalist Peter Wood on the implications of Churchill's firing:

"it shows that trustees and regents do have the power to enforce academic standards when they summon the will to do so. I assure you that this will send a chill down the backs of a lot of college presidents, whose main concern has been to pander to their left-wing faculty."

"The presence (or absence) of signatures on petitions or resolutions is not evidence of activism in the classroom."

Maybe not by itself, but “death by a thousand cuts” comes to mind.

There are some people who believe that those with such radical views leave them at the classroom door. Ward Churchill did not. He lied. He plagiarized. He was an out and out fake.

Now he has been called to task for the fraud he committed by pretending to educate. That there are some who still defend him under the guise of academic freedom may not prove activism in the classroom but it does prove stupidity in those who purport to be intellectuals.

From National Review Online:

Dustbin of History Welcomes Ward Churchill [Bill McMorris]

In light of Ward Churchill's termination—albeit for academic dishonesty rather than just general vileness—here are some of his greatest gems:

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.

[The terrorists], at a minimum, have to blow up about 300,000 more buildings and kill something on the order of 7.5 million people [to break even].

[Islamic radicals] value life…far more highly than their U.S. counterparts.

[T]hose restored to control over their own destinies by the gallant sacrifices of the combat teams the WTC and Pentagon [might] eventually (re)admit Americans to the global circle of civilized societies.

When you push people around, some people push back. As they should. As they must. There is justice in such symmetry.

[W]e, like the "Good Germans" of the 1930s and '40s, are complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the consequences.

[T]he Trade Center [was] a "legitimate" target. Those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than collateral damage.

In Memoriam: Ward Churchill’s hateful rhetoric.

From David French of FIRE, Bravo!

"As he received more due process than any ordinary American ever receives in the course of their professional lives, Churchill’s dogged fight to keep his job only reinforced to many Americans the notion that faculty view themselves as a breed apart – entitled to lucrative lifetime employment no matter what they do. And that may well end up as the lasting legacy of the Churchill case: the tipping point that led an increasing number of ordinary Americans to view the academy as an out-of-control, disconnected bastion of spoiled and petulant entitlement. The academic left decries the “chilling effect” of Churchill’s termination, but the only individuals who should feel “chilled” are those professors publicly spewing deranged invective at that same time that they conceal a professional past rife with fraud and abuse. No, the real (and important) legacy of the Churchill case is that he became the most famous professor in America, and he was the worst possible ambassador for an academy that is under ever-increasing scrutiny."

"Academic freedom has to be based on integrity...that's what this case was about."

http://www.goactablog.org/blog/archives/2007/07/colorado_gets_i.html#trackbacks

One wonders which professors at Hamilton used Churchill's writings in class as if they were scripture. Know anyone Chief?

"As one critical scholar noted, “[Mr.] Churchill has fabricated a genocide that never happened. It is difficult to conceive of a social scientist committing a more egregious violation.”

Mr. Churchill may be out of a job. But, sadly, the pernicious nonsense he spread will be with us for many years to come."

[typo corrected ed]

"One wonders which professors at Hamilton used Churchill's writings in class as if they were scripture. Know anyone Chief?"

Nope. Do you, Voxy?

Are you listening Hamilton's Board of Trustees? Hank Brown of U Colorado on accountability in today's Wall Street Journal. Does anyone have a sword for Hamilton's leaders to fall on?

"But his case is about far more than academic misconduct. It is about the accountability that public universities must demonstrate. Mr. Churchill's difficulties in facing up to his academic responsibilities are in many ways emblematic of higher education's trouble with accountability. Too often, colleges and universities tend to insulate themselves in ivy-covered buildings and have not been as diligent as necessary to ensure that the academic enterprise is conducted rigorously and honestly. This elitist attitude is simply outdated, and our university has made tenure reforms -- precipitated by the Churchill case -- that will ensure academic integrity."