Robert Farley of Lawyers, Guns, and Money, with whom I almost always agree, writes regarding the vote of the Colorado University's Regents to fire Ward Churchill:
There's obviously a danger of rush to judgment in such situations, but the fact that he was convicted of academic misconduct by a group of people with a deep, vested interest in maintaining the protections and integrity of tenure helps relieve me of the concern that Churchill was railroaded. While the initial investigation may have been motivated by Churchill's political statements, I think there's good reason to believe that the conclusion wasn't.
That's what I would have said too, a few months ago, but that was before I followed up on criticism of the faculty report, which claims Churchill committed "research misconduct" and "plagiarism."
- On the alleged "research misconduct," see this piece from Inside Higher Ed by John Wilson of the website College Freedom
- On the alleged "plagiarism," see this piece by Tom Mayer, CU Sociology Dept. Mayer's piece also raises serious doubts about the procedural fairness of the case, especially the role of the CU Provost.
- See also the discussion at Leiter Reports, which includes a link to the CU AAUP report that asks that the recommendation to fire Churchill be reversed due to the poor quality of the faculty report.
With these criticisms in mind, this seems a pretty clear case of CU caving to Horowitz, O'Reilly, et al. and using the flimsy faculty report as cover.
UPDATED July 25, 7:00 pm CDT: Here's a link to a Vail Daily News article, which includes the remarks of the one Regent to vote against firing Churchill:
Regent Cindy Carlisle, who cast the sole vote against termination, said Wednesday she felt the Regents should have accepted the advice of the last faculty committee to review the case, which recommended suspending Churchill for a year without pay and demoting him.
She also said the panel, the Privilege and Tenure Committee, had raised questions about three of the seven specific allegations against Churchill.
Asked whether she felt firing Churchill was unfair, she said: “I’m not going to characterize that. My vote speaks pretty strongly. I thought we should defer to the active faculty (the Privilege and Tenure Committee) for their recommendations for sanctions.”
UPDATED July 25, 8:15 pm CDT: It turns out that Hank Brown, former Republican Senator from Colorado, and the current President of CU, the one who went against the faculty's Privilege and Tenure Committee recommended penalties and instead recommended firing Churchill to the Regents, is a co-founder of the National Alumni Forum, the predecessor organization to ACTA, the noted right-wing agitprop organ which has pushed hard for Churchill's firing. Brown's co-founders of the group that became ACTA include the notable defender of academic freedom Lynne Cheney.
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