Ward Churchill is the intellectual equivalent of a streaker. His wannabe-provocative rhetoric “makes you think” in roughly the same way that a bouncing penis flashing across the stage during an awards ceremony or a graduation “makes you think.” That is, it makes you think, “Wow. There goes a bouncing penis.”*
Having said that, the University of Colorado granted this lanky-haired mudflap tenure. And a public university threatening to fire a professor because it disapproves of his thoughts—and because it is being pressured by outraged conservatives and grandstanding politicos like Colorado congressman Bob Beauprez—is precisely the reason why tenure remains important, at least in theory.
Given the subject matter of Churchill’s now-infamous post 911 screed, it is fittingly ironic that he himself has become the Nazi in this narrative, fighting for his right to march through Skokie, so to speak. Churchill deserves to be mocked and ridiculed and protested, sure. But he should not be fired for expressing unpopular thoughts.
Now, signing up for one of his classes so that you can heckle him mercilessly until he decides to quit out of intellectual shame…that’s another matter entirely.
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Other thoughts here, here, and here. And for a truly scary look inside the hearts and minds of Churchill apologists, peruse the comments here.
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update: Glenn has a nice roundup of links here, including background on Churchill from Gerard Van der Leun, and commentary from Volokh, Bainbridge, and Belmont Club.
I have to disagree, Jeff. The First Amendment gives him the right to speak, but it doesn’t say anyone has to listen, and it doesn’t say people don’t have to suffer the consequences of their speech.
I don’t see any difference between a university and any other employer. You work for them, not the other way around, and they should be able to fire you for any cause they deem important, including making statements that embarrass the university.
Furthermore, the First Amendment addresses government regulation of speech. Employers can and do tell their employees what they can and can’t say in public.
well, given this guy and some of the professors I’ve discovered in grad school, I’m wondering if a predisposition to COMPLETE ASSININITY is actually a job qualifier for those positions. I think if that guy would have said that within earshot of anyone related to the victims of 9/11, he’d probably have suffered a monumental beatdown. What a louse.
Well, Craig, Churchill is an employee of the state, so firing him for his speech is problematic. Just as you can fire tenured federal judges for misconduct but not for unpopular decisions, so it goes with professors.
The way to defeat Churchill is to challenge his ideas and to ridicule them mercilessly. But getting rid of unpopular (and ridiculous) speech by silencing it is a tactic of the left in academia. I’d hate to see the right go down that same road just because they’ve found an opening.
Context, people!
Dude! Not to be pedantic, but it’s Hamilton COLLEGE. My brother’s old school and one of my own old NESCAC rivals. I wouldn’t want those people to get above themselves.
Jeff, I had a feeling you might come up with that argument. Personally, I find that to be a pretty thin slicing of the concept of state regulation of speech. A university is pretty far removed from the apparatus of the state itself.
However, I do take your point about not letting ourselves turn into them.
Maybe I’ll just take Rush’s opinion: Leave ‘em there so everyone can see who they really are.
Thanks, Robert. Fixed it.
And Robert, Hamilton is where he was going to speak. He’s at UC Boulder.
Never mind, I see what you were talking about, Robert.
“Now, signing up for one of his classes so that you can heckle him mercilessly until he decides to quit out of intellectual shame…that’s another matter entirely.”
Pretty risky proposition for a student at any level. If one’s grade didn’t matter, that’d be a grand plan.
My personal observations were that the tenured professors were the most obnoxious and least open minded. As “intellectual gods”, challenging them passionately in an open forum was the most effective way of saying to everyone “Look at me, I’m getting an ‘F’, or at least a grade lower than you!”
Ah. But that assumes you’re not simply auditing the course for the express purpose of challenging the tenured professor. No grades involved.
I seem to recall from somewhere that this prick, Churchill’s CV is, charitably, pretty thin. Y’know, heavy on the native American aura and awfully reedy otherwise.
N.B. I would be the first to admit that my CV is so thin as to be measured in microns, but then I’m not a tenured prof at the local state U spewing bilious effluvia attempting to “make you think.”
“auditing the course”
Point taken. Hmmm, I wonder if there is such a thing as a tenured student? And I don’t mean a lazy student that just won’t graduate, just something along the lines of an internal plant to evaluate professors and their professionalism. An administration that doesn’t trust regular students might need an independent analyst to investigate the more questionable instructors in extreme cases, particularly at the undergrad level.
Assume Churchill was working at a private university, Jeff. Should tenure block his dismissal there, too?
Up to the university. My relationship with a private U leads me to believe he’d be safe.
Maybe I’ll just take Rush’s opinion: Leave ‘em there so everyone can see who they really are.
My thoughts exactly. Not only leave him there, but make him co-sign all fundraising letters from the University. Make sure his name is in all University publications. Make him wear a sandwich board saying “University of Colorado, c’est moi!”
Hell, UofC bought him – they have to keep ‘im. Caveat emptor, eggheads.
I knew it! Turn’s out Churchill’s claim to native American heritage is, um, a little tenuous at best. What a posing little prick. Sadly, it seems he isn’t alone in his opinions about the US in the academic world.
Oh, and his BA and MA were from that tower of ivory, Sangaman State University.
http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/archives/004321.html
Unless there’s more info than what’s in the Foxnews story, what’s the big deal about him leaving the dept. chair but remaining as a tenured professor? It seems to me that it suits both sides. The University shouldn’t have someone that’s that big of an asshat making the sort of administrative decisions that a dept. chair does, and a tenured professor should be able to make wildly outrageous remarks without fear of losing his/her job.
And from the better late than never dept: Happy B-day Jeff.
Trevor —
There is more to it. Beauprez and Gov. Owens are calling for his dismissal, and the U of C regents are holding an emergency meeting to decide his fate.
That comment thread is amusing and scary at the same time. I can’t decide which side to take (there’s so many): those telling a man who says he’s an American Indian to go back to Europe, the crazies who think getting acquitted of protesting Columbus Day is an achievement, the American Indians who don’t think Churchill is isn’t because of blue eyes, etc.
The amazing thing is that all those crazies suddenly showed up at midnight last night just because of Google. I was sure that Walter had been linked by some lunatic, who knew the moonbats could use search engines?
Jeff, he makes me think alright; I think about bitch-slapping him until he’s red in the face and asking him “Are you nucking futs?!?”
Thanks, Jeff. I should have known better than to expect a logical conclusion.
Indeed, although why he should be unaccountable to a private employer for statements that might cost his employer financially is unclear to me, at least.
Gotta say, Jeff, while you’re right about this being a different legal situation when it involves a public university, I’m not sure I take your larger point. If Churchill’s got the First Amendment on his side, why does he need the added protection of tenure? For that matter, why should the First Amendment be on his side? He has the right to his opinion, not the right to receive a salary paid out of public funds. You cite federal judges as an analog, but judges have to be unaccountable because it’s their job to protect minority rights from majority rule. Whose rights is Churchill protecting aside from his own?
Seems to me that the real reason for Churchill’s continuing employment has less to do with free speech than with a type of affirmative action, i.e., making sure minority viewpoints are represented in the faculty. But since so few schools take measures to ensure that right-wing viewpoints are reprented on their faculties, why should any of us give even the slightest shit what happens to this turd? Let the universitites diversify first; then we’ll take about the right taking the higher ground re: unpopular speech.
In terms of the constitutional First Amendment protection of free speech, this does indeed restrict government action to curtail speech. However, there is a doctrine that where the government is an employer, an employee’s free speech within certain rather poorly defined areas related to his employment is – while still protected, less than strictly protected.
There was a recent example involving a police officer demonstrates the principle I’m refering to. The Supreme Court opinion is found here. One could debate whether or not Churchill’s verbal streaking was within the protected area of speech on matters of public concern or was closer to that of the police officer masterbating in his uniform.
Allah —
I’ve been a huge proponent of intellectual (as opposed to color-based) diversity in academia, and my own conservative positions have caused me more trouble within my department than I’m sure Churchill’s positions have caused him within his.
Still, that’s not the point. What Churchill is espousing—twisted and wrong as it is—is a political argument (specifically the intellectually lazy “blowblack” doctrine, based on retrospective revisionism), and he simply should not be dismissed for such political thinking, shallow though it may be.
Churchill is “protecting” the rights of scholars to espouse unpopular opinions and to get them into the marketplace of ideas, where they can flourish or die of their own merit. His analogy doesn’t reach the level of hate speech, though it is certainly distasteful and hate-filled.
Personally, were I the U of C I’d begin looking for other reasons to let him go; there’s no question but that he’s become an embarrassment to the school. But they tenured him, so they’re going to have to figure out a way to dismiss him that has nothing to do with his essay.
Jeff, your point about free speech is spot-on. Churchill and those of his mindset have the right to speak their unadulterated anti-American poison. That’s as it should be. Free speech is protected by the first amendment for a reason.
And the fact that his caustic showboating has earned him a 60 second spot on all the major news channels is also as it should be. Now the country, and indeed the world, can judge him on his remarks and act accordingly. Some will laud him, whilst others like myself would cross the street just to avoid breathing the same air as this foul moron.
Little Eichmanns indeed. Working to feed your family is equivalent to Nazism in his mind? Dying at the hands of those bent on imposing their theology is a just dessert for this crime? Riiiight. Thanks for the ‘lesson’, Ward; I learned all that I need to know about you.
Oh my. I have to go scrub my brain.
I always loved that old chestnut. It’s like the DU went and got sloppy drunk with Ted Kennedy and then threw up all over poor Walter’s blog. I hope the stain comes out OK.
Umm maybe I’m out of line but exactly how is firing him violating his First Amendment rights? I mean he can still spout out whatever he wants wherever he wants. The FA does not protect you from people thinking you a dumbass, it only protects your right to publish things. MAybe I’m wrong but is anyone taking away his right to publish? Does not being at a university give you less access to pen and paper, or electronic media, or speech?
What I’m quite curious about, is whether Ward Churchill is espousing his personal agenda in the classrooms of acedemia, and allowing subjective and objective dissent, – or whether his own personal agenda is outside the realm of a publicly funded environment?
… whether the answers of his students are graded objectively, or whether there is weight allowed for like-minded individuals, or whether those who oppose his views are accorded no credibility.
Perverts of any educational system have, historically been granted leeway in grading the student populous. In my mind, this has always been unfair. Opposing the prof’s agenda had traditionally resulted in really shitty grades.
How say you?
Churchill is “protecting†the rights of scholars to espouse unpopular opinions and to get them into the marketplace of ideas, where they can flourish or die of their own merit.
Free speech is fabulous! But do academics, in power positions, have the ability to stifle dissent, and then “grade” according to “what they want to hear?” What of the student body?
This a very old argument I have with academia.
But why not? Colorado doesn’t owe him a job. You don’t owe him part of your tax dollars as “thanks” for preaching this shit. You guys keep talking about free speech here, as though someone’s going to sew his mouth shut if he gets fired. Not so. His right to speak will be fully intact. He’ll simply have to join the rest of us proles on the street corner if he wants to exercise it now.
This whole argument boils down to academic exceptionalism. If this were a case involving a private university, we’d be hearing the same points made to defend Churchill despite the fact that a private employer in any other field would have shitcanned him without hesitation. So explain to me why it is that this douchepail gets a pass when the average paper-pusher at a corporate office gets a pink slip.
Or perhaps you already have:
Fifty years ago, sure. Today? No way. A year after Michael Moore sells $100 million in tickets for a movie about Bush being in cahoots with Bin Laden, you’re going to tell me academia is some vital refuge for political dissent, Jeff? After the ocean of “Bush = Hitler” propaganda during the campaign? With all the alternative media outlets that exist—most notably, blogs—for crackpots to circulate their opinions? Everyone has access to the “marketplace of ideas” now. If anything, Churchill getting fired will be the best thing that ever happened to him. He’ll become a martyr and cause celebre, and eventually he’ll land at The Nation where he’ll write a weekly column about all the ideas he’s had that no one has access to since the mean university got rid of him. No one except people who read The Nation, that is.
I was reading some of Lileks’s old stuff last night and came across this essay on modern art. I’m struck now by how many of the points also apply to modern academia. If they want me to care about Churchill, first they have to get their shit together and reconstitute themselves as something remotely resembling the culture we live in. Until then, if the occasional scum de la scum gets pruned for popping off a little too loudly about wanting a million Mogadishus in Iraq, I’ll shed no tears.
Diana —
Students should choose their teachers carefully.
And I haven’t heard Churchill’s grading or teaching practices raised as a complaint against him.
Listen, I’m not defending this guy. I’m defending his right to make an unpopular (and to my way of thinking lazy, ludicrous, and academically embarrassing) argument without having to fear political pressures will cost him his job.
Allah —
Yes, it’s academic exceptionalism. Which I hope is still standing by the time the right takes back the academy. These political trends in academia are glacial in their movement. But the underlying idea that scholars should be protected is solid, in my opinion.
No, U of C doesn’t owe Churchill a job. But they shouldn’t fire him for what is, however facile, an academic argument.
Jeff – I totally agree with his right to express his opinions – but, if this affects his students in “any way”, there should be a very critical analysis of his credentials as a tenured professor.
Allah,
It sounds like your complaint is more with the tenure system than with its implementation here.
By definition, the tenure system protects employees from being fired because of their opinions (although they can get fired for other reasons).
In the case of a private university/college, I presume the tenure system is part of the business model. You theoretically use it to encourage a diversity of opinion, enhance your institution’s reputation, and attract better profs and students. I think that’s a good idea, regardless of whether or not it’s a 1st Amendment issue.
The problem here was in the implementation of the system, i.e. giving the jackass tenure in the first place. But that doesn’t mean the tenure system’s without merit.
Diana —
As someone who’s taught unpopular ideas in a university settin myself (I’ve openly questioned “diversity” and race-based affirmative action, for instance), I would hate to that were my academic beliefs to affect my students in any way it’s grounds for termination.
Universities are precisely the place for these ideas. Just so long as Churchill doesn’t punish students for their disagreements.
“Students should choose their teachers carefully.”
… not often an option for students, unless leap-frogging from institution to institution is possible. CV’s areen’t generally available for students to vet.
”CV’s areen’t generally available for students to vet.”
Sure they are, especially now that most universities require profs to have web pages.
Plus, teacher evaluations are almost universally available.
.. ‘course “swim with the fishes” or “Tale of the Turtle” are not necessarily attractive alternatives, either!
“teacher evaluations are almost universally available”
.. not in my backyard.
The first amendment may protect him from the government, but that’s it. It also doesn’t stictly apply to the employment relationship.
But what I don’t understand is why everyday people haven’t done more. The founders knew you needed protection from the government, but they expected your neighbors to kick your ass if you became a monsterous asshole like this fellow. I suppose the weak-ass modern day equivalent would be a complete boycott of his classes by all students. That would render him useless to the University and be grounds for dismissal, tenure be damned.
<i>”Universities are precisely the place for these ideas. Just so long as Churchill doesn’t punish students for their disagreements.”</i>
That’s my only concern .. that students be granted the same latitude of freedom of expression, and be allowed credit for their own thoughts and conclusions.
Students should choose their teachers carefully.
And I haven’t heard Churchill’s grading or teaching practices raised as a complaint against him.
You are right to point out that no official disclosure of biased grading has been reported. Nonetheless (and I hate to be a pest), selecting a different professor is quite often not an option. Sure, in the freshman or sophomore years, there is choice. Not so in more advanced years or post-grad studies.
An anecdote: I remember having to delay my graduation for a semester because one required course for my degree was dropped due to insufficient students. When I approached the department dean, a tenured professor by the way, to request a substituted course, I was denied and basically told “tough”. So in my case, there was one class offered every other semester by a particular professor and the dean allowed no substitutions. There were many other courses (at a university of 20K+ students) where but one professor was charged with all topical instruction. In fact, it was not uncommon to be “forced” to partake in a particular professor’s different classes multiple times in the process of acquiring one’s degree. Quite a funnel if you ask me.
AD —
Sure, that happens all the time. But that’s the way the system works. And that comes down to University hiring practices. You need to investigate these things before you enter into a program. That most people don’t is not a fault of the school’s—though they can certainly be made to suffer if enrollment drops or people start transfering out.
Hubris—Yes, I do think the tenure system is an outmoded idea. As I said to Jeff, our culture and technology today are such that no one needs the protection of academia to make his ideas heard.
I agree that diversity of opinion is exactly what we want on campuses, and exactly what we don’t have. On the one hand, liberals have used tenure to shield themselves from popular recriminations for their opinions. Fair enough. But then they turn right around and do their very best (in the humanities departments, at least) to keep conservative voices from joining their ranks. Tenure is simply the device they use to prevent McCarthyism from being practiced on them while they go and practice it on others. In which case, fuck them and fuck Ward Churchill. No free lunches, etc.
One other point. Honest scholarship that leads to unpopular conclusions is one thing, but people like Churchill and the faculty of Columbia’s Middle East Studies department seem to me to be engaged in an altogether different endeavor. They’re advocates, not scholars. Their primary goal is to espouse a particular political ideology, not to illuminate their field of study with new research or to consider new research unearthed by others objectively. In short, they’re gaming the system. I respect Jeff for having only the best intentions in defending them, but the reasons he’s giving in defense of Churchill and the nature of what Churchill is actually trying to do with his professorship are two distinctly different things, in my opinion.
Best line yet ….
“Wow. There goes a bouncing penis.”
Nothing meant Allah – just bad timing (again) !
Allah —
I agree in spirit with everything you say. But I don’t think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The marketplace is beginning to push back against the uber-liberal academy, but it takes time to undo 40 years worth of rot. Online learning is a future threat to traditional universities and may ultimately prove the real challenge to entrenched liberal orthodoxy (particularly in the humanities).
But on your kernel point—that you reach your conclusions based on anti-intellectual motives you ascribe to Churchill—I’d say that though you are probably right, you really can’t prove what’s in the man’s heart. Perhaps he really does believe his arguments. And if he doesn’t, then these things need to be vetted before tenure is granted.
Your counter will be that tenure is granted by like-minded ideologues—thus perpetuating the cycle—and you’d have a point; but that’s where public pressure for new and diverse voices to be incorporated into the system, and marketplace alternatives to broken academic models, should come in. Better that, in my opinion, than to begin bouncing people for making arguments they ostensibly believe in, and which don’t cross a line into hate speech.
“don’t cross a line into hate speech”
There’s another curious element to the discussion. Are there American laws against “hate speech” or academic prohibitions in your colleges/universities?
“But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire – the “mighty engine of profit”
This coming from a guy who sells $20 dollar paperbacks
I dunno Scooter, it might be worth the money to have a cover featuring a photo of an obviously rugged, individualistic, rebellious Churchill or to have a title in my library that uses the phrase “the Man” without irony.
The crux of my objection is that not every political statement uttered by a professor is ipso facto related to scholarship, yet tenure seems to protect them regardless. Nicholas De Genova can get up at a Columbia forum and call for “a million Mogadhishus” and not have to worry about being fired, despite the fact that that sentiment has no bearing on his chosen field (anthropology) and adds nothing by way of new information to any other field. Why does he enjoy a greater right than I would, as a private employee of a law firm, say, to keep his job for publicly advocating a position that embarrasses his employer? It’s grossly unfair to me and it colors his opinion with a patina of respectability—we can’t afford to lose Nick’s wisdom!—that he doesn’t deserve. It’s a fucking scam.
The key is scholarship versus advocacy. Granted, there’s not always a bright line between the two. But sometimes there is, as in De Genova’s case. Words have consequences, and everything I know about academics tells me that they want to operate in a world utterly free of negative consequences of any kind. Let Churchill suffer in this case if only to teach them that lesson. And if he’s fired and his little part of the ivory tower comes crashing down, so be it. Nothing wrong with towers collapsing, right, Ward?
Ah, but Allah, voices like ours strip his statements of their respectability. And that’s as it should be.
But there is a culture of academic exceptionalism, which may or may not be something we as a culture wish to hold on to. I believe it’s important in theory, which oftentimes leads me to have to bite my lip in practice.
On the upside, though. Martha’s got tribbing!
If only. Let me remind you that we work in a medium whose most prominent member is famous for seeing American contractors burned and hung from a bridge in Fallujah and remarking, “Screw them.” And whose popularity ever since has soared. We shouldn’t kid ourselves about our influence.
Besides, ridicule doesn’t stop De Genova from collecting his paycheck; might hurt his feelings, sure, but that only means he’s crying on the way to the bank. We could organize a boycott in order to pressure his employer into firing him . . . except that his employer can’t fire him in this case thanks to tenure. Tenure: all the benefits of a union without any of the dues!
But there are dues. It ain’t easy getting tenured. And De Genova collects his paycheck at the pleasure of the University who granted him tenure.
As to blogger influence… I don’t overestimate that. But I was speaking as an erswhile academic. David Horowitz has done much to drive this “diversity of thought” meme into the mix at many universities, and the idea is gaining traction. Why? Because the pendulum is swinging away from a particular pedagogical idea and back toward a kind of pre-1968 humanism. It’s just often times impossible to see from the vantage point of a single generation.
His analogy doesn’t reach the level of hate speech, though it is certainly distasteful and hate-filled.
But they shouldn’t fire him for what is, however facile, an academic argument.
Jeff, first of all, I don’t understand the distinction between hate speech and speech that is hate-filled. Notwithstanding, you don’t think that saying that the people who innocently went to work that day were “little Eichmanns” who deserved to die is hate speech?? What do you think their relatives and loved ones thought about that?
Secondly, that’s an academic argument? Where, at the University of Mars?
Quick trivia. What famous athlete “attended” the University of Mars?
Craig —
The distinction between hate-filled speech and hate speech is a legal one, and there’s a good chance I’m using the term too losely. To clarify, the professor’s speech didn’t incite violence, etc. It wasn’t the equivalent of calling blacks ‘nigger’, either.
And yes, that’s an academic argument—and one that is very popular on the left. Do a Google search for 911 and blowback.
Bill Lee.
…The distinction between hate-filled speech and hate speech is a legal one…
Which is why the law is a ass.
If my wife had died on 9/11, it would have damn sure incited violence from me!
And I was thinking Chocolate Thunder.
And I wasn’t thinking of the blowback thing as much as the vile spewing. Does that have a place in the academy?
Joseph Goebbels made people think, too. I wonder if Mr. Churchill believes a lot Jews in Germany got what they deserved, too? After all, weren’t they motivated by money?
Well, the green turd the size of a kielbasa I saw in the head this morning made me think too.
Think that 2 liters of grape soda is too much to drink in one sitting, for one. And that maybe I needed more fiber.
Still, I don’t think it should be put up on a podium at an institution of higher learning, either.
More linky goodness, if it’s okay:
This sword-of-the-oppressed theory of Islamic terrorism is a useful Rorshach-type test. We can perhaps forgive people toying with this ludicrous meme in the weeks following 9/11. Anyone still defending it 3 years later is certifiably insane. Via Blair
And an apt comment from Max Sawicky, though not connected with this kerfluffle:
There are some lefts I don’t like. There is one species that exploits a nihilistic niche market of people who would rather stew intheir self-righteous isolation than engage people with whom they disagree (which includes most everyone). They are happiest when pissing off the greatest number of others. It’s a living for some few people and makes them and their cargo cult of followers happy. The Right likes to elevate these types, since they advance the work of the Right. At the same time, they make effective radical, progressive, or liberal politics more difficult. Another unhelpful group are conspiracy-mongers. And of course there are the plain loons and those
with hateful ideas.
Ward Churchill will go into a witness protection program and change his name to Winston Cleaver.
JW: HA!!
Tenure is the last great gasp of socialism. It does not breed nor promote freedom of speech, it merely protects its own kind in an insular world of like-minded (or nearly liked-minded) individuals who have few if any responsibilities attached to the beliefs they espouse. Wherever there is no accountability in this world, there is sure to be an ugly mess for someone else to clean up. The granting of tenure at most colleges and universities is directly analogous to the granting of memberships at cracker-era country clubs.
I gave up a tenured teaching position voluntarily because I could no longer stand the ineptitude, PC insanity and lazy meanderings that passed as ‘scholarly work.’
True academic freedom only exists outside the ‘academy.’
Does anyone–besides me–hope like hell that Prof. “Running Mouth” Churchill’s 15 minutes of fame are now up.
14:50, 14:51, 14:52, 14:53, 14:54…….
I think Allah has it almost right, professors are overprotected. These professors are abusing the privilege they’ve been granted, the immunity really, to speak out on issues unrelated to their field of study.
The purpose of tenure, I hope, is to prevent the “chilling effect” that firing a prof for speaking out would cause. If De Genova got fired for his comments, what would happen if a professor of African Studies made the same comments? Same result or different?
What really annoys me is that the liberal press actually lends credence to their remarks.
I’m frustrated with those who have read an article or two and think that qualifies them to make articulate or accurate judgements of the situation.
CraigC: Churchill didn’t say those working at the World Trade Center “deserved to die.” Nor did he refer, as CNN claims, to all “white collar workers.” Churchill’s official statement concerns the “technocrats of empire,” a group he later describes as the “CIA office…situated in the World Trade Center” and the “command and control infrastructure” there. His statement is that the placement of government workers in a civilian facility makes that facility a legitimate military target for offensive action by those against whom he believes the United States has militarily transgressed.
Whether or not you agree with this statement or with his comments in general, please don’t twist his statements.
Secondly, Churchill has not done anything deserving of termination of his employment. He made comments that, due to the nature of the subject matter, invariably offended people. Any criticism of the United States following the 9/11 attacks is bound to offend people.
The man may be stupid, pompous and greedy for attention. His argument may be faulty and inconsiderate. Still, his comments are not grounds for dismissal. Churchill may be abrasive, but that alone is not reason to fire him.
Speaking of just reading an article or two, jumping to conclusions…
Churchill has not been fired. He’s still teaching. He’s just stepped down from being Chair of his dept. His assinine statements brought him national attention, but this one essay is hardly the only batty thing he has said over the years. This incident (Hamilton College, the essay that’s getting so much print) has just brought him into the public eye (and the public of CO pay for his salary).
You’ve quoted Churchill’s backpedalling (from Monday), while ignoring his previous statements and works.
What we have also learned from this is that CU Boulder has standards for the Dept Chair of an “Ethnic Studies” department that only confirms the basic vacuousness of “ethnic studies”.
SCSIwuzzy,
I didn’t say Churchill had been fired. I said he didn’t deserve to be fired, something which Bob Beauprez, Governor Owens and Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald (and Allah) all seem to be calling for.
Also, you’re right, I just took a look at Churchill’s original essay, and he has done a bit of…refining…since then. Still, as far as I can tell, he’s not advocating violence against anyone; rather, his hope is that America will do the “right thing” and “stop killing.”
I’d like to emphasize that I support Churchill’s academic freedom to go severely against the grain without fearing retribution, not necessarily his beliefs.
Rebekah,
I wonder just what you think would constitute reason for firing any professor. Would you permit a professor to lie about the subject? Would you permit the professor to claim that the students should revolt against the country? Just how far are you permitting the Academics to go without calling them on it? Sounds as though you will let them say whatever they want with no truth behind it and call it free speech – and you expect the parents and the general population to sit there and pay for this and just shut up. I think that if he wants to say anything he wants and he does it at a private university with no government funding and they will support it, have at it. However, if he is going to sit there and get his pay from a public institution at tax payer’s expense and preach revolt and anathema on the government, then the state is fully entitled to call him on it and ask him to cease and desist or leave.
Rebekah, you are misrepresenting Gov. Owens statement. He said that Churchill should resign.
I’ll spring for hot tar and chicken feathers myself.
I didn’t read every comment, but I did note that Jeff earlier said the tenure system would probably protect Churchill at a private institution as well as a public, but that may not be the case. In fact, it would be decidedly easier and more pragmatic for a private university (primarily religious) to fire Hamilton than for a public university to do so.
That said, I don’t think the guy should be fired for that opinion. If his teaching, research and service are up to snuff, the voicing of an unpopular opinion should be his prerogative. Now, he should also be willing to face the music for his assinine remarks (see the recent Summers flap at Harvard).
Bryan —
I just meant that at a private university (like the one where I taught), they’d likely stand up for the teacher and keep him as a matter of academic principle. Practically and legally speaking, they certainly would have a much easier time firing Churchil.
Whether or not you agree with this statement or with his comments in general, please don’t twist his statements.
They need precious little twisting; they practically fester right off the page as they are.
Such people exists, and they will say whatever they want to say. That’s life. Some few of them will hold positions of undeserved respect and prominence. That’s life, too. But what kills me is when radicals carry on as if birdcage scrapings like Prof. Churchill’s are stinging, uncomfortable truths, too searing for bourgeois Couchpotato-Americans to bear. That’s jack-shit, and jack just left town!
He needs to be kept so that we can keep mocking him.
As much as I am irked by the protection offered to Churchill, htom’s comment ‘He needs to be kept so that we can keep mocking him’ is probably right.
Keep in mind that 60 years later we still laugh at Spike Jones’ DER FUHRER’S FACE (politics) and COCKTAILS FOR TWO (social).
After what I spent on my daughter’s tuition at CU and all she put up with for being conservative, I would like to see the school admin. squirm.
Go for it Jeff and Allah!! Lead us on.
I invite Ward Churchill to Queens. I’d give him about ten minutes until he gets his fat old communist ass kicked by Anglos, Hispanics, Asians, etc. Hey pus nuts, you’re done! I want to drag him over to my fire station. The Irish lads would like to talk to this piece of shit, with the big mouth.
Free speech means he can’t be thrown in jail by the government for what he said. It doesn’t mean he can’t face negative consequences for what he said. To repeat an overused but very true line: free speech is not FREE.
If the state of Colorado thinks it has legitimate cause to fire him, then it’s the state of Colorado’s call. Conservatism, after all, places priority on state’s rights…and so does the 10th Amendment.
And let’s not minimize this jackass’ statements by stating his expressed thoughts were merely unpopular and unapproved. What he said went far beyond the invisible-but-undeniable bounds of both. No one would have shrugged these words off on 9/12 and they shouldn’t be now. Remember the man and woman who grasped each other before they fell to their deaths? Remember the firemen who charged in to save strangers just to have a building collapse and crush them? Remember the numbers of bodies that will never be found?
Mini Eichmanns?
“We Will Never Forget” should have been more than a patriotic—and disposable—slogan.
Later,
bbeck
These arguments are beginning to weary me. We all know free speech isn’t free and that free speech has consequences. Such sentiments have become almost as trite as the invocation of free speech as the answer to any challenge to a freely spoken opinion.
But you are wrong—the state of Colorado cannot simply decide it doesn’t wish to abide by the First Amendment, and the University of Colorado needs to abide by its contract. Whether or not firing is considered punishment, in the legal sense—or whether punishment only applies to tossing someone in jail for speech—is a question I suppose the courts will have to decide. From what I can gather, both sides here in CO think they have caselaw on their side.
Further, I haven’t minimized Churchill’s statement. I deplore them. But at the same time, I refuse to act as if his stupid ideas are the same as a physical assault—and no emotional appeals or evocations of 911 imagery is going to change that. As I’ve pointed out 15 times now, what Churchill is arguing is run-of-the-mill Marxist revolutionary boilerplate tacked onto the very common (and very widely-held) leftist argument that US foreign policy is responsible for 911: blowback. He is seeking to explain—through his blisteringly stupid (in my estimation) cademic worldview—why 911 took place. In short, he is making an academic argument, however poorly. And if he believes it, and can back it up with “evidence,” there is simply no way he can be disproven by anything other than competing speech. This is the real postmodern turn; in lieu of absolute truths pronounced by an objective being divorced from language, we must rely on logic, persuasion, etc., to make our points.
Finally, arguing in defense of Churchill’s right to make an academic argument in an academic setting is not the same as “shrugging off” his words. It’s simply positing that his right to say them—and my right to then counter them with MY speech—is what is important to academics. Once again, the LEFT tries to ban speech. Let’s not go down that road.
Rebekah,
Obviously, you’ve read Mr. Churchill’s press release. Had you read the original essay, you’d realize that the press release amounts to spin. It’s a pack of lies. He denies writing what he wrote and allowed to be published.
In his essay, Churchill wrote:
In his press release he claims
Rational humans cannot square those two quotes with each other.
There’s plenty more.
Mr. Churchill believes childish things. But he is, at heart, a heartless capitalist. He intended his inflammatory essay to spur sales of his book–which ain’t real high on the Amazon chart. He calculated a balance between outrageousness and dollars. Had he calculated that the only way to achieve his sales goal was to announce that he would donate $1 from each book sold to Al Qaeda for training the next wave of suicide pilots, he would have done so.
And, yes, he should be fired. He brought discredit upon his employer for his own personal financial gain. That gets people fired every day. He is no different than the convicted leaders of Enron and Adelphia.
Just to play devil’s advocate, I can square those two quotes: I mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks who were turned into little Eichmanns by a system that promotes domestic greed and apathy at the expense of oppressed peoples the world over.”
Your entire argument relies on ascribing particular motives to Churchill which I’m afraid you can’t prove. And his academic career redounds against you, as Churchill’s intellectual history is one filled with such Marxist revolutionary nonsense. Maybe he believes it, maybe he doesn’t. I don’t know and neither do you. But the question is, is his argument a legitimate one for academia (he is attempting to explain 911 using the blowback theory tied to an virulent anti-capitalist materialist philosophy)? In my mind, the answer is yes.
I disagree strongly with the arguments points, sentiments, et al (as anyone who reads this site knows), but at the same time, I don’t believe he should be fired for doing what academics do: assert hypothesis, then argue them. The most effective way to stop Churchill might be to fire him and anyone who thinks like him; but the BEST way is to discredit him through argument and debate.
Jeff, I knew someone would say that my statements were meant to invoke an emotional response…but that was not the intent. The intent was to place this academic’s thoughts, described by you as unpopular and unapproved, into context, and I don’t think those adjectives are remotely accurate. This wasn’t a matter of disagreeable rhetoric, it was a justification for the murder of Americans civilians and pure encouragement for our enemies to do so again. And that’s just the unemotional aspect of it.
Also, just because he has some political philosophy somewhere backing him up doesn’t validate his rendering of opinion. I’m sure I could come up with a tail load of philosophical evidence about any number of stupid things…but just because I can make the argument SOUND good, it doesn’t mean it is, and it sure doesn’t mean it should be any more protected than any intellectually unjustified speech (like the rape thing).
Furthermore, if anything, academics should be held to a higher, not a lower, standard when they express these opinions. It’s like a policemen who breaks the law; are we more upset that a cop, the person responsible for upholding the law, would break it, or would it be the same or not as bad as if a civilian did? Similarly, an “academic” is supposed to respect the academia he represents, and when he makes an argument so clearly preposterous on its face he should be hit far worse than some Joe on the corner yelling anti-American sentiments.
Professors are supposed to be the best and the brightest, hence their arguments should hold up under scrutiny. His did not, and when it failed, it would only make sense, regardless of topic, that his superiors would want to reconsider his employment. The subject matter only makes him more of a public target in this instance. If they don’t have legal grounds, then they can’t fire him no matter how many people howl about it.
And you know, the man is not just giving us a hypothesis to consider. Making arguments against Churchill’s junk is all well and good, but I don’t think it’s going to make as much of an impression on our enemies as his did. This just reaches farther than a “discuss among yourselves” theory.
Finally, conservatives aren’t out to take this idiot’s right to free speech away. He can say whatever the heck he wants provided it’s not treason or sedition or yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater (and the first two are debatable). What he shouldn’t expect is to express whatever he wants whenever he wants however he wants wherever he wants and then get paid for it with Colorado’s tax dollars. THAT is not covered by free speech.
Later,
bbeck
What he shouldn’t expect is to express whatever he wants whenever he wants however he wants wherever he wants and then get paid for it with Colorado’s tax dollars. THAT is not covered by free speech.
So by your logic then, professors have to conform their thoughts to the taxpayers’ wishes. Nice. Just let me know what you want me to say and I’ll say it.
I’ll do anything for my check.
Professors come up with theories that are shot down by competing theories all the time. That’s the nature of the academic beast—and of advancing knowledge. Once again, and for the record: you are begging the question to say that his argument is ridiculous on its face; clearly he—and many other academics—don’t think so. I think they’re wrong, but I prefer to show them why rather than to silence them.
Hey Goldstein!
This is a great thread, no cursing, no rants, (well, not much) but good arguments, pro and con. Still, I gotta disagree with your Feb. 4, 11:30 pm post.
There isn’t a reason in the world Churchill should not be fired or at least heavily censured for his premeditated act of meanness. There wasn’t an ounce of “academic discourse†in his very public raving despite the cloaking of his “thoughts†with the priestly garb of “scholarship.â€Â
To let the guy hide behind the veil of the First Amendment is very much akin to allowing a hate-filled prankster who yells “Fire†in a crowded theater to slink off and gloat over the stampede s/he caused.
Oh, yeah, sure.
The “merry†pranksters of this world do have that right to say whatever they wish but they must also take responsibility for their actions. No one complained when Trent Lott “disappeared†from the republican scene in a classic case of a career ending foot-in-mouth gaff and Churchill should not be treated any differently just because he is a member of academia.
Don’t sidestep the issue by finding some other “fault†to get rid of the guy because that really would be a wrong done to the guy and allow him to evade his real transgression as a public figure representing his university.
No. Put the guy on the footprints and make him doubly aware of the fact that he squandered his tenured position and brought undeserved shame to the school because of his vitriol.
I, for one, will not complain but applaud university leaders if they do sack the guy precisely because of his defamation of the victims of 911.
Michael
Taipei
BB –
“Also, just because he has some political philosophy somewhere backing him up doesn’t validate his rendering of opinion.”
I think I’ve heard that somewhere … might have been some Supreme Court Justice, tenured and paid by taxpayers.
(ok, ok, but don’t hit me, please!)
[keyword “love” this damn thing works!]
Just to finish my thought, (a little tongue-in-cheek).
You want to discuss Roe v. Wade decisions? Some Americans actually believe that the opinion wrongly justified the murder of unborn children?
The arguments continue today.
You just might have to wait for the bastards to die.
Diana:
If you were responding to me, No. I have no intention of hitting you any more than I have any desire to get into a Roe v. Wade debate in which some of my friends do hold that it is murder to abort a fetus. (We disagree, but we’re still friends.)
Churchill has made an incredible blunder and it looks like it will cost him his job. Enough said.
As for waiting for some one to die … I don’t do death watches, either.
Michael
Michael – response was to bbeck.
Apologies to Diana
None necessary.
Diana:
Kewl.
Now, I can go watch my new Hidalgo DVD. I always did like jumping horses. …
Somehow, that doesn’t quite sound right.
Nevermind …
Heh! To each, his own!
I’m not a writer, and often don’t make my intent very clear. I happen to agree with Jeff.
Churchill’s an idiot and a vile spewing rodent, but I don’t think he should be fired. We, his audience, can still make him run through some pretty tough mazes. His resignation from the chair of the department was a good first move.
Taken in a somewhat different context (but still similar in some ways), some of the best and brightest are now Justices of the Supreme Court; are tenured; and are paid by tax dollars. You can’t fire them, except for cause. Even now, the opinions given in that one particular case, make a great number of people very angry and have even, one might say, incited violence and murder.
It’s still far better to argue and discuss opinions, as we do here, in other media, and in academia.
If he is fired, some will cheer, others won’t. I do think it would be a mistake, is all.
Jeff,
Just pick a point, you haven’t squared the two statements at all–you’ve woven the adjectives. In fact, you’ve dealt exclusively with the part of the sentence that can be thrown away without losing Churchill’s meaning:
The penalty to which this sentence refers is death, in many cases by fire or suffocation.
Your attempt to “square” the thoughts is weak and intellectually dishonest.
BTW, unless Churchill tells me his motivation for the press release, you’re right: I won’t know. But a lot of people are justly convicted of crimes for which their motivation is inferred. In every case in which the criminal maintains his innocence, motivation is inferred. In every criticism of every literary work motive is inferred.
Besides chairing a phony academic department, what evidence do we have about Churchill’s motivation? Well, let’s consider the fact that he peddles himself as a Cherokee tribe member, though he is, in fact, not. But being a Cherokee makes him eligible for the chair of the Ethnic Studies department at Colorado. So he lies to get the job.
Second, his press release pushes his book:
Hey, I’ve no problem with authors hawking books. I’ve done it myself. But I’m a rightwing capitalist, not a communist poseur.
Considering the essay, I wonder if by “I mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks” he is referring to the likes of Atta & Co., victims of that “system that promotes domestic greed and apathy at the expense of oppressed peoples the world over”?
Which, I guess, would be the only way to recouncil the two statements.
Bill Hennessy —
I don’t believe I’ve done anything weak or intellectually dishonest, and if you cannot see have further tweaking of those two statements “squares” them in the sense of preventing them from being mutually exclusive, we have nothing left to talk about.
To wit: “I mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks who were turned into little Eichmanns by a system that promotes domestic greed and apathy at the expense of oppressed peoples the world over and so who had what was coming to them; the fact that they met their fates in the monument to American greed and hegemony—the WTC is—makes their deaths symbolic and, ironically, fitting.”
And yes, motivations are inferred all the time. But why should Churchill’s fate hinge on the motivations YOU wish to ascribe him, rather than the ones he professes himself. After all, he’s the tenured professor, while you are simply someone who believes the entire discipline is a corrupt and worthless fraud.
Some might even suggest you had it our for him.
Let’s throw a reductio ad absurdum into the mix and see if that helps to clarify anything.
Let’s say that instead of saying it’s groovy to murder American civilians, Churchill had written, “The 9/11 attacks prove beyond dispute that Muslims are inferior to other races. The slaughter of the schoolchildren at Beslan confirms this. Accordingly, it is incumbent upon Western societies to immediately reintroduce the slave trade, and make all members of the Muslim race chattels of the God-fearing races of the West so that we can assure our safety. (And while we’re at it, let’s enslave several other ‘mud races,’ as I will discuss infra.)”
He includes many footnotes to respectable sources, so that he can defend the work as “scholarly.” And never mind that Muslims aren’t a “race;” what I’ve written in my hypothetical is as intellectually defensible as the bilge Churchill actually does write.
I believe there would be virtually NO debate about free speech or the value of tenure if he had written that. The man would have been run out of town on a rail, and most folks would say, “good riddance.” I can guarantee you there wouldn’t be any college students whining about McCarthyism and how Churchill’s stuff “makes us think.”
The ONLY reason there is any significant debate over whether this guy should be shown the door is that his nonsense espouses hatred of the U.S. and capitalism (which is still considered very hip on most campuses), rather than espousing overt racism (which is no longer considered hip, thank God).
This is not a slam on the many people who are disgusted by Churchill’s writings but advance what I think are well-reasoned arguments against firing him. But I question whether there is any real dispute over whether there is a point at which a University should be able to excrete a guy like Churchill for what he says. I’m fairly certain the only question is whether he has reached that point.