Indian-history Expert backs Churchill

By Electa Draper
Denver Post Staff Writer
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated:04/13/2007 01:21:53 AM MDT

Boulder - A nationally recognized expert in American Indian history and law Thursday night defended the work of Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado facing dismissal because of charges of research misconduct.

Cornell University American studies professor Eric Cheyfitz said at a campus colloquium that he has re-examined the academic case against Churchill and has found "the charges are fundamentally baseless."

He said that Churchill has been a leader in genocide studies and his contributions have been significant.

Churchill, who identifies himself as a Native American, has been the subject of two years of investigation and review triggered by his infamous essay calling some victims of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks "little Eichmanns," a reference to Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann.

A CU investigation into charges that Churchill had been a poor scholar lasted 15 months and yielded a 124-page report with a finding that he had committed serious academic misconduct, including plagiarism, falsification and fabrication.

Then-interim chancellor Phil DiStefano notified Churchill in June that he intended to fire him based on the work of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. Its investigation is still under review by another CU faculty committee, which is expected soon to ask CU president Hank Brown and regents to terminate or reinstate Churchill.

Meanwhile, Churchill has been relieved of duties but remains on the payroll.

Neither Churchill nor his attorney, David Lane, could be reached for comment. But Lane has said that after the last "rubber stamp comes down," he will file a federal lawsuit alleging CU fired the professor in retaliation for the Sept. 11 comments, which were protected speech. Churchill has said his challenge of orthodoxy made him a target for elimination.

"Attacks nationwide on academics in a variety of disciplines are an attempt to shut down objective information and diverse, particularly dissenting, viewpoints," said Ken Bonetti of the CU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a colloquium sponsor.

Cheyfitz said he recently defended Churchill to the tenure committee. He said that the CU report has errors and omissions.

"I've read it several times," he told a group of about 100. "What we've got here is smoke and mirrors."

Cheyfitz said the case against Churchill amounted to academic double jeopardy. The university should have reviewed his work before giving him tenure, promotions and raises.

"It's an attack on tenure too, which is the bulwark of academic freedom," he said. "This touches many more people than professor Churchill."

DiStefano said the university was not firing Churchill for his Sept. 11 comments but for "the pattern of research misconduct that occurred over time."

Associate professor and past director of the Center for Indigenous Nations Studies at the University of Kansas Michael Yellow-Bird said that Churchill is one of the most cited scholars in Indian studies and the attempt to silence him is "colonialism at work."

Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 303-954-1276 or Electa Draper

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April 2007 Reports

Last updated on April 16, 2007