The Kids Get the Point…

May 27, 2007 on 4:47 pm | In Analysis

CU President Hank Brown will soon, no doubt, be announcing his recommendation to fire Ward Churchill, despite the fact that the majority of both the “investigative committee” and the P&T appeal panel voted for lesser sanctions … and despite the many fallacies and misrepresentations in the Investigative Report which continue to surface.

This all goes back, of course, to Ward Churchill’s “controversial” remarks about the 9/11 attacks, and CU’s efforts to find a pretext to fire him without appearing to violate the First Amendment. Those remarks continue to be mischaracterized in the mainstream press.

We’ve recently received a March 2005 interview published in a middle school newspaper. Passing up interviews with folks like Geraldo, Ward Churchill talked with then-12-year-old Stephanie Mathewes, who published what appears to be the most accurate explanation of his remarks to date:

What was it exactly that you said to make people so upset, and when did you write this paper?

“I wrote this paper the evening of 9/11 and what it basically said was when you kill other people’s babies and act like it doesn’t matter people are going to get angry and they are going to get back at you. A way to prevent that is just don’t kill people’s babies or anyone for that matter. Obey the law. It is illegal to kill children and people for no reason, so obey the law.”

Do you feel that people have misunderstood/mistreated you and the issue?

“I think that they have deliberately misrepresented the issue. I think that people have twisted what was said because they refuse to hear what was said. They think it is ok for Americans to kill but not ok for us to be killed.”

. . . He also wanted people to know “it’s not that I don’t care about children on 9/11. I do not care any less than what happened to the Iraqi children.” He does not want this for any children. He wants it to end.

Out of the mouths of babes…