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| More Ward Churchill | | Date Created: Feb 20, 2005, 02:49 PM |
 This Churchill thing is really getting up there with other famous media firestorms in Boulder -- Jon Benet Ramsey and the CU football recruiting witch hunt come to mind.
The Boulder Daily Comrade has been running front page, top of the fold banner headlines as if war had been declared. Friday's was: Churchill gets support at forum Crowd: Legislature should 'stay out of it' Former boss questions actions. Are they reporting the news and letting you decide? Saturday's was Churchill's file details rise at CU Professor rewarded after Sept 11, 2001, essay written Department familiar with conflict Now comes the Sunday edition. It's on the front of the Commentary section and it's taken from an issue of Indian Country Today. The author is Suzan Shown Harjo who takes pains to make it clear she's the real deal. The title is Ward Churchill, Pseudo-Indian False claims do real harm to Native people. This wasn't the title in the original. Also, I thought PC rules require one to refer to American Indians as native-americans, but apparently those who consider themselves Natives have their own ideas, including how to deal with people like Ward Churchill. On the other hand, there's another editorial in Indian Country Today too.
Here's the end of the piece printed in the Camera. See what you think:
"(This note is for any reporters and editors who are confused: Churchill is the Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley of American Indian studies, but without their talent. Churchill simply makes it up, too, plus he invents Indian credentials. Keep in mind that no one accused their papers of violating free speech when they fired frauds for cause.)
The University of Colorado and all universities should respect Native nations at least as much as they respect schools and other employers, but they don't. They frown on people who falsify their written material and wrongly claim degrees they did not earn and jobs they did not hold. But when people falsely claim to be Native, it is seen by some as less serious, less offensive and something anyone besides the Indians ought to decide.
Churchill got jobs, promotions, tenure and the Ethnic Studies chair at the University of Colorado because he portrayed himself as American Indian.
Now he's wrapped himself in the First Amendment, carefully draped over his Indian blanket. He's threatening to sue if he's fired for breach of contract or for the shameful things he said about the 9/11 victims.
The university should fire him because he has perpetrated a fraud, and moral turpitude is a deal-breaker. The university shielded him from those who tried to reveal the truth and looked the other way as he attacked a lot of decent Native people.
If he sues, he will have to come into court as the American Indian man he has claimed to be, and how is he going to do that? It is time for the university to end this charade."
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