Spring Break
Professor fired for voicing opinions on 9/11 victims
Robert Zaller
Issue date: 4/17/09 Section: Ed-Op
In our land of free speech, you can lose your job for criticizing the boss or simply speaking your mind on a public issue. That's how it is when the free market (free for the boss) trumps everything else.
One of the few bastions of unfettered speech in America is the university, where a privileged minority, the tenured faculty, is at least notionally free to exercise its First Amendment rights without fear of termination. That the faculty seldom exercises these rights in any politically significant way, is another matter.
Ward L. Churchill, chairman of the Ethnic Studies department at the University of Colorado, is that nearly impossible animal, an outspoken academic. On September 12, 2001, he wrote an essay in which he described some of those working in the World Trade Center towers as "a technocratic corps at the heart, the very heart of America's global financial empire." You may think this a good choice of words on another occasion or a bad choice of words on any occasion. It was certainly the wrong choice of words for that occasion, but that's my opinion - neither truer nor falser than Mr. Churchill's, just my own.
Churchill went further, though. He called some of the financial workers in the towers "little Eichmanns," i.e., agents of oppressive capitalism. This remark, like the rest of Churchill's essay, attracted little attention at the time, but gradually acquired notoriety on the Internet and in 2005 ignited a firestorm of protest. Churchill was fired in 2007, a decision he appealed in court.
The ostensible reason given by the university for Churchill's dismissal was not his 9/11 essay, but for his claim in a scholarly work that smallpox had been deliberately spread among American Indians by white settlers. This claim, it was argued, lacked substantiation. In other cases, Churchill was accused of plagiarism and falsifying evidence.
Needless to say, these issues had not come to the surface before the general demand for Churchill's head among Colorado legislators, trustees and other members of the public.
One of the few bastions of unfettered speech in America is the university, where a privileged minority, the tenured faculty, is at least notionally free to exercise its First Amendment rights without fear of termination. That the faculty seldom exercises these rights in any politically significant way, is another matter.
Ward L. Churchill, chairman of the Ethnic Studies department at the University of Colorado, is that nearly impossible animal, an outspoken academic. On September 12, 2001, he wrote an essay in which he described some of those working in the World Trade Center towers as "a technocratic corps at the heart, the very heart of America's global financial empire." You may think this a good choice of words on another occasion or a bad choice of words on any occasion. It was certainly the wrong choice of words for that occasion, but that's my opinion - neither truer nor falser than Mr. Churchill's, just my own.
Churchill went further, though. He called some of the financial workers in the towers "little Eichmanns," i.e., agents of oppressive capitalism. This remark, like the rest of Churchill's essay, attracted little attention at the time, but gradually acquired notoriety on the Internet and in 2005 ignited a firestorm of protest. Churchill was fired in 2007, a decision he appealed in court.
The ostensible reason given by the university for Churchill's dismissal was not his 9/11 essay, but for his claim in a scholarly work that smallpox had been deliberately spread among American Indians by white settlers. This claim, it was argued, lacked substantiation. In other cases, Churchill was accused of plagiarism and falsifying evidence.
Needless to say, these issues had not come to the surface before the general demand for Churchill's head among Colorado legislators, trustees and other members of the public.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Z
posted 4/20/09 @ 8:34 AM EST
Zaller. He was fired for having horrid taste in commentary after a national tragedy; it was more of an inter-organization political play more than anything. (Continued…)
michael burke
posted 4/20/09 @ 2:14 PM EST
You can't fire Ward Churchill for being a jerk or being personally offensive? Why not? How does that in any way intefere with his freedom of speech? Churchill has a right to talk like an idiot; he does not have a right to employment - by the U. (Continued…)
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