Colorado University Standing Committee Recommends Ward Churchill be Fired

Today the University of Colorado's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct voted 6 to 3 to fire Ward Churchill--terminate his employment completely. This is a substantially stronger result than was even recommended by the review panel. The recommendation will now go to the CU administration for their final decision.

Something isn't right about this. The more I read both sides of the story, the more I strongly suspect two things:

1. The investigation itself and the decision of the standing committee were politically motivated.

2. The facts in the case are problematic and in dispute:

a. the strongest charge seems to be the plagiarism, but as Tom Mayer pointed out in his powerful defense of Churchill, even Lawrence Tribe committed more egregious plagiarism and wasn't fired. Churchill has written elaborate responses to each plagiarism charge. At worst, there might be a slight preponderance of evidence in favor of plagiarism or a risk of plagiarism; it is far from clear that they were able to prove intent to plagiarize, which is probably why they recommended suspension rather than termination.

b. Churchill may have been factually incorrect about some of his conclusions and claims, but there was no INTENT to deceive proven by the review. At worst it seems that the committee concluded he had provided insufficient evidence to back up his historical claims. Since when does this constitute research MISCONDUCT as opposed to simply "bad research?"

c. CU has not, to my knowledge, responded to Churchill's allegation that the review process violated university rules concerning confidentiality. He wrote: "Under University rules, this report was part of a confidential personnel process. The fact that the committee convened a press conference to announce its findings and University officials immediately distributed the full report is but one indication of their willingness to violate my rights, as well as their own rules, in order to chill my speech and discredit my scholarship." Churchill cited many other procedural improprieties in his defense as well.

d. Again, there were no professors of Ethnic Studies on the review committee. I realize I've been over this before with some people, but my only argument here is that the conclusions of the review would have seemed much more fair, impartial, and informed if the committee would have selected any one of the HUNDREDS of qualified ES professors in North America to be on the commitee, or at least, for god's sake, to offer expert testimony in the review process.

I don't particularly like Ward Churchill's style of political engagement. I think he's set back some causes I support. But this whole process smells more and more like a railroading to me, and I was wrong when I didn't say so before.