CU President Hank Brown Overrides Faculty Appeal Committee; Recommends that Regents Fire Ward Churchill

June 12, 2007 on 3:25 am | In Analysis

On May 3, 2007, the Privilege & Tenure Committee’s appeal panel found that the University had not met its burden of proof on several of the charges against Professor Ward Churchill and recommended by a 3-2 vote that Prof. Churchill be demoted and suspended for one year rather than fired.

On June 1, the panel informed Pres. Brown that, despite his recommendation for dismissal, it stood by its decision. Nonetheless, on June 7, Brown decided to override the faculty committee’s recommendation and sent his recommendation to the Regents to fire Prof. Churchill.

Ward Churchill had requested that Brown recuse himself from this process due to his biases, including his ties to ACTA (the neo-conservative organization founded by Lynne Cheney), but Brown declined to do so. (Click here for more on the ACTA connection.)

Brown also chose to disregard the two sets of research misconduct charges recently filed against the Investigative Committee which wrote the Report on which Brown’s recommendation rests. According to the professors and attorneys filing these complaints, the falsification and misrepresentation of evidence found in the Report seriously undermines its credibility and suggests that the investigation was heavily biased against Prof. Churchill. (Click here and here to read their charges.)

The case will now go to the Regents, who are expected to make a decision in July.