Place your bets here on Ward Churchill

[Rain Man]

Ward Churchill is the person who holds a professor position at the University of Colorado, and has come under quite a bit of scrutiny for the quality of his work after he gained attention by coming out in favor of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The full report of the investigation is here: http://www.colorado.edu/news/reports/churchill/download/WardChurchillReport.pdf

The shortest summary of conclusions in this very obtusely written document is this, found on Page 94, titled "Summary and Conclusions":

The Committee’s investigation of the seven allegations before us has unanimously found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Professor Churchill committed several forms of academic misconduct as defined in the policy statements of the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Colorado system:231

1. Falsification, as discussed in Allegations A, B, C, and D.

2. Fabrication, as discussed in Allegations C and D.

3. Plagiarism, as discussed in Allegations E and G.

4. Failure to comply with established standards regarding author names on publications, as discussed most fully in Allegation F but also in Allegations A, B, and D.

5. Serious deviation from accepted practices in reporting results from research, as discussed in Allegation D.

We did not find plagiarism in Allegation F.

[Rain Man Note: Allegations A through F are in the report if you're interested. They're too voluminous to produce here.]

[Rain Man note: They didn't investigate other non-academic issues such as Churchill's stated record of promoting terrorist acts, his on-record speech advocating vandalism of state property and his own history of doing so, and the fact that he Xeroxed the art of a Native American artist and then sold it as his own work. Some other academic violations also were reported after the committee had closed the investigation.]

From page 102 of the report, we get the committee's findings:

While we are unanimous in finding that Professor Churchill’s research misconduct is serious and that we should express the degree of that seriousness through a recommendation about sanctions, our discussions have not led to unanimity about what particular sanctions are warranted. What follows, then, is the only portion of our report that presents multiple views.

• Two members of the Committee conclude and recommend that Professor Churchill should not be dismissed. They reach this conclusion because they do not think his conduct so serious as to satisfy the criteria for revocation of tenure and dismissal set forth in section 5.C.1 of the Law of the Regents, because they are troubled by the circumstances under which these allegations have been made, and because they believe that his dismissal would have an adverse effect on the ability of other scholars to conduct their research with due freedom. These two members agree and recommend that the most appropriate sanction, following any required additional procedures as specified by the University’s rules, is a suspension from University employment without pay for a term of two years.

• Three members of the Committee believe that Professor Churchill’s research misconduct is so serious that it satisfies the criteria for revocation of tenure and dismissal specified in section 5.C.1 of the Laws of the Regents, and hence that revocation of tenure and dismissal, after completion of all normal procedures, is not an improper sanction. One of these members believes and recommends that dismissal is the most appropriate sanction; the other two believe and recommend that the most appropriate sanction is suspension from University employment without pay for a term of five years.

The Committee is in complete agreement that it will not disclose to anyone the individual votes of its members concerning sanctions.

[Donger]

I think he should be terminated just because he looks like the scary Indian dude in Body Double.

[Rain Man]

Okay, now my editorial note.

I can't believe the chicken-faced nature of the idiots on that committee (other than the one who voted for firing). If a student was found guilty of several acts of plagiarism, falsifying facts, fabricating facts, misreporting of research, and "deviation from research standards", what would the University do in that case? This same bunch of two-faced, lying, self-serving idiots would pitch that student out on their ear in 12 seconds flat. But since they want to protect their own job security, they're willing to let someone CONTINUE TEACHING who does these things? With the exception of one person who is unfortunately lumped in with the others, these people are completely without integrity and honor. They're just protecting the system that feeds them and doesn't hold them accountable for their actions. As a result, they're damaging the reputation of their occupation badly.

Here are the names of the cretins.

Voting Members of the Committee
(for biographies, see Appendix A)

Chair: Marianne Wesson, Professor of Law, Wolf-Nichol Fellow, and President’s Teaching Scholar, University of Colorado at Boulder

Robert N. Clinton, Foundation Professor of Law,
Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University

José E. Limón, Director, Center for Mexican-American Studies and Mody C. Boatright Regents Professor of American and English Literature,
University of Texas at Austin

Marjorie K. McIntosh, Distinguished Professor of History,
University of Colorado at Boulder

Michael L. Radelet, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology,
University of Colorado at Boulder

And as for the bogus concern that he should not be punished in proportion to his crimes because of the reason that his work came under scrutiny, that's just stupid. He wrote all of his papers as an alleged academic, and it's anyone's right to read and critique those papers. The reason why one gets caught shouldn't distract from the fact that THE PERSON GOT CAUGHT!

What a bunch of idiots we have at that university up there. I wish the state would shut it down and make Colorado State University the flagship university.

[HC_Chief]

Wow... what a bunch of spineless turds.

I have an aunt & uncle who are professors of geology at CU. Both find Chuchill revolting; both would love to see the guy booted, post haste.

The tricky part is he's tenured... which basically guarantees him the job for as long as he wants to keep it. Short of killing the dean, little can be done to sever tenure.

[frazod]

He'll get a slap on the wrist.

I'm sure my ideas on what he SHOULD get would not be popular with the committee. :#

[Rain Man]

From page 99 of the report, here's an interesting little shot:

The [Laws of the Regents of the University of Colorado] also stipulate that:
Faculty members have the responsibility to maintain competence, exert themselves to the limit of their intellectual capacities in scholarship, research, writing, and speaking; and to act on and off the campus with integrity and in accordance with the highest standards of their profession . . . [and] while they fulfill this responsibility, their efforts should not be subjected to direct or indirect pressures or interference from within the university, and the university will resist to the utmost such pressures or interference when exerted from without.247

Thus the decision to hire, and especially to confer continuous tenure on, a faculty member is a deeply consequential one for the University, for by making this decision the University commits itself to the defense of the individual’s work, so long as he or she lives up to the University’s expectations. We believe that the University of Colorado may have made the extraordinary decision to hire Professor Churchill, a charismatic public intellectual with no doctorate and no history of regular faculty membership at a university, to a tenured position without any probationary period in part because at that moment in the institution’s history, it desired the favorable attention his notoriety and following were expected to bring. This notoriety was achieved to some extent by the publication of some of the very essays that have now come under scrutiny because of their scholarly shortcomings. The hiring was, in short, largely the consequence of Professor Churchill’s effectiveness as a polemicist.

In light of the explicit requirements of the Regents’ Laws requiring the university to resist outside interference and pressures, it is at least ironic that the Interim Chancellor of the University has now become the formal complainant in this much-publicized proceeding. The University has perhaps gotten more than it bargained for when it made its high-risk decisions about Professor Churchill in the early 1990s, but there is very little about the present situation that is not foreshadowed by developments across the last fifteen years. For us, the indignation now exhibited by some University actors about Professor Churchill’s work appears disingenuous, as they and their predecessors are the ones who decided to hire him.

I like this little shot at the public as well. The people on this committee simply do not live in the real world.

There is another factor as well that we believe requires consideration by those who must decide on the proper sanction for Professor Churchill’s misconduct: the role of some media outlets and certain public figures in stirring up public animosity toward him and the University of Colorado. Political interference in the University’s processes and decisions has recently undergone one of its periodic spikes, causing in some cases only a regrettable waste of resources, but in others actual threats to academic freedom and the best traditions of higher education. Although the great majority of the University of Colorado’s funding comes from other sources, the State continues to provide some support. We appreciate that citizens of the State are entitled to take a proprietary interest in the way the institution conducts its business, despite the declining role of state financial support. Indeed, those of us on the Colorado faculty depend in many ways on the citizens of Colorado and their loyalty and (in the best case) affection. The two of us who teach at other state universities also recognize this relationship in our own States. Moreover, we cannot deny that the University has, in many instances during the past few years, mismanaged its affairs in a way that lends support to its critics. (Some of us have been among those critics.) But at the same time we have seen some elected officials exploit the legitimate concerns of their constituents and transform them into an agenda that weakens higher education in Colorado.

And last but not least, I appreciate their concern about the ability of people to share their opinion if they're not university professors.

The role of the public and press in attacking Professor Churchill is part of a more general opening up of the academic world to wider participation over the past 20 years. Debates that would previously have been conducted within the academic world itself by scholars who worked in a given field are now matters of public knowledge and sometimes of considerable public interest. Everyone is able to express opinions about academic issues by contacting the media, posting ideas on the web or internet, or sending e-mails directly to the scholars involved. While this expansion of discussion has many positive features, it contains some worrying characteristics too. Members of the press have acquired considerable power to advance or harm scholarly reputations, especially for people who frequently appear in public venues and who advocate controversial positions about contemporary issues. Circulation figures rise if news media prepare accounts that grab public attention, sometimes irrespective of complete accuracy. Short news segments do not lend themselves to balanced reports of complex arguments. The ease of posting or sending anonymous statements on the web or e-mail has weakened previous expectations for accuracy and civility in debate over public issues.[Rain Man note: so does the maintaining of dishonest, unethical university professors, but apparently the committee doesn't view that as a problem.] It may be difficult to assess the reliability of such statements and impossible to determine the motives of those who send them. Scholars who are described in negative terms in the news are sometimes subjected to vicious personal attacks on web pages or by e-mail.

[chagrin]

Nothing is going to happen to that dicknose, nothing

[jettio]

How is this gonna effect the playboy party school rankings?

CU has been known to show up there.

CU sure did get is azz handed to them at the end of last football season.

That is a lot more important than having special investigations of a guy because of his political remarks. That is political correctness run amok, as Churchill's enemies like to say, on every occasion not involving him.

[jettio]

And why is this thread in the football forum?

Don't the Big XII championship game results mean anything?

[StcChief]

Force him to Sabbatical abroad middle East
where he can hone his LWNJ skills.

Maybe he will be captured or shot.

[Bob Dole]

Proven academic dishonesty should be reason for dismissal regardless of tenure.