Ward Churchill Solidarity Network

An Open Letter Calling on the University of Colorado to Reverse its Recommendation to Dismiss Professor Ward Churchill

The following ran in The New York Review of Books, April 12, 2007:

The militarist reflex to rely on the war option for post-9/11 security is daily proving itself disastrously dysfunctional, and as its failures become more manifest, those American leaders responsible reaffirm their extremism, relying on a brew of fear, demonization, and global ambition to pacify a nervous, poorly informed, and confused citizenry at home. And where there are expressions of significant, principled opposition, the impulse of the rulers is often repressive. In such a setting it is hardly surprising that academic freedom is menaced, but not less troubling.

The relentless pursuit of and punitive approach of the University of Colorado at Boulder to Professor Ward Churchill is a revealing instance of the ethos that is currently threatening academic freedom.  The voice of the university and intellectual community needs to be heard strongly and unequivocally in defense of dissent and critical thinking. And one concrete expression of such a resolve is to oppose the recommended dismissal of Ward Churchill from his position as a senior tenured faculty member.  Faculty across the country are encouraged to circulate this letter among colleagues; send letters of protest and concern to the new Chancellor (Bud Peterson, Bud.Peterson@colorado.edu) and President (Hank Brown, Officeofthepresident@cu.edu), as well as to the Privilege & Tenure (P&T) Committee (Weldon Lodwick, Chair of the P&T Committee, Weldon.lodwick@cudenver.edu; and in general publicize and mobilize within and beyond the academy in opposition to the attempted dismissal of Churchill.

. . .  (click here to read full text)

Signed by:
Derrick Bell, Visiting Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Juan Cole, University of Michigan
Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers University
Richard Delgado, University Distinguished Professor of Law, and Derrick Bell Fellow, University of Pittsburgh
Richard Falk, Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University; Visiting Distinguished Professor (since 2002), Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Irene Gendzier, Boston University
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies; Director – Middle East Institute, Columbia University
Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Anthropology, Columbia University
Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar, Department of Sociology, Yale University
Howard Zinn, professor emeritus, Boston University