Cornell American Indian Studies Professor Cheyfitz Condemns CU’s Report
February 11, 2007 on 9:58 pm | In AnalysisA small group of students and professors gathered this week in A.D. White House at Cornell University to discuss the maelstrom that has erupted over Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado who has been subject to academic review and public scrutiny for his comments on the victims of the World Trade Center attacks.
The statements, posted to a blog a day after the attacks and expanded into an essay in 2003, refer to the office workers in the Twin Towers as “little Eichmanns” and called into question the presumption of their innocence.
“True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break,” Churchill wrote. “They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire.”
Cornell Professor Eric Cheyfitz, who testified before a review board at the University of Colorado in defense of Churchill, led a discussion that shifted alternately between academic freedom and the particular allegations levied against Churchill, whose dismissal a university hearing board has recommended.
“(The report of the Standing Committee on Research and Misconduct) turns an academic debate about how we are to understand U.S. history into an indictment,” Cheyfitz said . . . . read more.
