Attacks On Academic Freedom

National Project in Defense of Dissent
> and Critical Thinking in Academia
>
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> Contact:
> Reggie Dylan: (626) 319-1730
> Matthew Abraham: (773) 682-9322
> Email: criticalxthinking@yahoo.com
> Website: www.defendcriticalthinking.org
>
>
> Opposition Mounts as University of Colorado President
> Calls for Ward Churchill to be Dismissed
>
> In a letter to the Board of Regents,
> University of Colorado President Hank Brown has called
> for the dismissal of tenured Ethnic Studies Professor
> Ward Churchill. His recommendation goes beyond that
> of the faculty investigative committee that examined
> charges of research misconduct; and of the faculty
> Privilege and Tenure (P&T) committee that recently
> heard Churchill's appeal. Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado
> joined Brown in calling for the firing of Churchill,
> as his predecessor Bill Owens did two years earlier.
> The Board of Regents is expected to make a final
> decision in this case at a public hearing some time in
> July.
>
> A growing number of scholars see CU's
> investigation of Churchill's scholarship as completely
> illegitimate and a dangerous precedent threatening
> dissent and critical thinking in the universities.
> The CU - Boulder chapter of the American Association
> of University Professors (AAUP) has written that "we
> believe that the investigation now is widely perceived
> to be a pretext for firing Churchill when the real
> reason for dismissal is his politics." The
> investigation was launched in the wake of controversy
> provoked by an essay Churchill wrote after 9/11.
>
> Churchill noted in response to Brown's
> letter that "the University had received no formal or
> written complaints about my scholarship when it
> initiated this 'investigation.' All of the
> allegations investigated were either solicited or
> brought directly by University administrators." He
> also noted that "The Investigative Committee charged
> with conducting a 'fact-finding, nonadversarial'
> investigation was chaired by law professor Mimi
> Wesson, who - in February 2005 - had compared me to
> 'charismatic male celebrity wrongdoers' like O.J.
> Simpson, Michael Jackson and Bill Clinton, and had
> already come up with the faulty 'traffic stop' analogy
> the Committee used to justify its conclusions." The
> committee included no American Indians or experts in
> American Indian Studies, and scholars that had used
> Churchill's research in their own work were removed
> from the committee.
>
> The report of the committee hearing
> Churchill's appeal found that Churchill proved by a
> "preponderance of the evidence" that "but for" his
> exercise of his protected first amendment rights, the
> subsequent investigation of his scholarship would
> never have been initiated.
>
> In a recent open letter to colleagues
> around the country Dr. Margaret LeCompte, President of
> the Boulder AAUP Chapter, wrote: "What has happened at
> the University of Colorado makes a mockery of both due
> process and academic freedom protections, AND what
> faculty believe. It is a cruel violation of the
> delicate balance between faculty rights and
> administrative responsibilities. The entire process
> was a sham---imitating the form, but not the intent,
> of due process and fair, objective, scholarly
> investigation."
>
> Two faculty groups that have examined the
> report of the investigative committee claim that the
> report is seriously flawed. In an unprecedented
> action, both have now filed formal charges of academic
> misconduct against the members of the faculty
> committee. The most recent group to do so, made up of
> principally Indigenous scholars from around the
> country and Canada, documented "many instances of
> fraud, fabrication, plagiarism and/or serious
> deviation from accepted scholarly practices" which
> "demonstrate a consistent pattern of deliberate
> misrepresentation intended to discredit Professor
> Churchill's larger body of scholarship." Eric
> Cheyfitz, Ernest I. White Professor of American
> Studies and Humane Letters at Cornell University, has
> found "the Report turns what is a debate about
> controversial issues of identity and genocide in
> Indian studies into an indictment of one position in
> that debate."
>
> The implications of this case go beyond
> the threat to Churchill's reputation and career, as
> serious as those are. The attack on Churchill is seen
> by many in academia as part of a much broader attack
> on academic freedom and critical thinking and dissent.
> Dr. LeCompte notes, "It is not limited to Colorado. In
> fact, it is a test case by the US right wing to
> emasculate faculty rights in US universities."
>
> This is illustrated by the recent denial of tenure
> for DePaul University political scientist Norman
> Finkelstein. Though he was supported by his
> department, Finkelstein was denied tenure after an
> intense campaign spearheaded by Harvard Law School's
> Alan M. Dershowitz, who called Finkelstein "worse than
> Churchill." Many DePaul faculty and others were
> alarmed at Dershowitz's heavy-handed tactics and saw
> them as an attempt to punish one side of a
> controversial debate. Finkelstein said that DePaul's
> decision was based on "transparently political
> grounds" and was an "egregious violation" of academic
> freedom.
>
> Churchill noted in his response to Brown's
> letter that "President Brown, his new VP Michael
> Poliakoff, and Regent Tom Lucero, like Bill Owens, are
> key players in Lynne Cheney's American Council of
> Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). ACTA and similar
> neoconservative groups have received generous funding
> [from] Castle Rock (Coors), Scaife, Bradley and Olin
> foundations to eliminate Ethnic, Gender and Peace
> Studies Programs and to purge higher education of
> those who think critically, challenge historical
> orthodoxy, or otherwise threaten the status quo."
>
> Opposition to this impending firing has
> been increasing nationally, as more and more academics
> recognize the stakes involved in the Churchill case.
> An open letter signed by numerous prominent scholars,
> including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Derrick Bell and
> Immanuel Wallerstein was published in the New York
> Review of Books in April. Scores of others have
> written letters of support, and there was a recent
> Emergency National Forum in Boulder of academics and
> supporters. The Society of American Law Teachers has
> written a letter arguing against a firing.
>
> Richard Falk, visiting Distinguished
> Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara
> recently wrote: "All of us who value academic freedom
> should now stand in full solidarity with Ward
> Churchill. The outcome of his case at the University
> of Colorado is the best litmus test we have to tell
> whether the right-wing's assaults on learning and
> liberty will stifle campus life in this country. Never
> in my lifetime have we in America more needed the sort
> of vigorous debate and creative controversy that Ward
> Churchill's distinguished career epitomizes. We all
> stand to lose if his principled defense fails."
>
> # # #
>
>
> Signed:
>
> Matthew Abraham - Department of English, De Paul
> University.
>
> William Ayers - Distinguished Professor of Education
> and Senior University Scholar, University of Illinois
> at Chicago.
>
> Derrick A Bell - Visiting Professor of Constitutional
> Law, New York University School of Law.
>
> Timothy Brennan - Departments of English and Cultural
> Studies & Comparative Literature, University of
> Minnesota.
>
> Renate Bridenthal - Emerita Professor of History,
> Brooklyn College, The City University of New York.
>
> Bob Buzzanco - Department of History, University of
> Houston.
>
> Dana Cloud - Associate Professor of Communication
> Studies at the University of Texas (Austin).
>
> Drucilla Cornell - Professor in the Departments of Law
> and Political Science at Rutgers University.
>
> Sandi E Cooper - Professor of History, College of
> Staten Island and the Graduate School, The City
> University of New York.
>
> Richard Delgado - University Distinguished Professor
> of Law and Derrick Bell Fellow, University of
> Pittsburgh.
> Richard A Falk - Albert G. Milbank Professor of
> International Law and Practice at Princeton
> University; Visiting Distinguished Professor (since
> 2002), Global Studies, University of California, Santa
> Barbara.
>
> Seth Kahn - Assistant Professor of English, West
> Chester University of PA.
>
> Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies,
> Middle East Institute, Columbia University.
>
> Vinay Lal - Department of History, University of
> California, Los Angeles.
>
> Gary Leupp - Professor of History at Tufts University,
> and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion.
>
> Henry Silverman - Professor and Chairperson Emeritus,
> Department of History, Michigan State University.
>
> Immanuel Wallerstein - Senior Research Scholar, Yale
> University.
>
> Tim Wise - Author of "White Like Me: Reflections on
> Race from a Privileged Son," and "Affirmative Action:
> Racial Preference in Black and White."
>
>
>
> For more information, contact us at
> (626) 319-1730
> Criticalxthinking@yahoo.com
> www.defendcriticalthinking.org
>
> Or contact any of the faculty listed below to arrange
> an interview:
>
> Matthew Abraham: matthew.mabraha2@gmail.com; (773)
> 682-9322.
>
> Timothy Brennan - brenn032@umn.edu; (651) 228-0965.
>
> Dana Cloud - dcloud@mail.utexas.edu; (512) 471-1947.
>
> Drucilla Cornell - sgkcornell@aol.com; (212) 260-9730.
>
> Seth Kahn - skahn@wcupa.edu; (610) 436-2915.
>