Ward Churchill Solidarity Network

Ward Churchill Is Fired by the CU Regents — Summary of Developments, July 24-25, 2007

On July 24, 2007, the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado (CU) voted 8-to-1 to fire Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of American Indian Studies and former Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department.

In doing so, they overrode the recommendation of the review panel of the University’s Privilege and Tenure (P&T) Committee, instead endorsing CU President Hank Brown’s recommendation to fire. They also disregarded the University’s refusal to investigate the numerous research misconduct complaints filed against the May 9, 2006 Investigative Committee Report which provides the only justification for Brown’s recommendation.

Although relying on the May 9 Report to fire Prof. Churchill, the University now claims that Report wasn’t actually scholarship, and can’t be held to the same standards it applied to Prof. Churchill. (Click here, here and here to read the charges of falsification and fabrication of evidence, as well as plagiarism, against the Investigative Committee. Click here to read Ward Churchill’s response to the dismissal of those complaints.)

On July 24, the Regents convened at 8:00 am, simply to announce that they were moving into executive (i.e., closed) session. The Regents refused requests for public comment by students, faculty and community members. They denied Professor Churchill’s request that the presentations by the P&T Committee panel, the University, and Ward Churchill be open to the public. They did not seem to see the irony in citing Professor Churchill’s confidentiality rights as the basis for their decision. To read Ward Churchill’s submission to Regents, click here.

None of the Regents recused themselves from the vote, even those who had previously and publicly denounced Ward Churchill. President Brown had already refused to recuse himself, denying that he had had any involvement with Lynne Cheney’s neoconservative American Council of Trustees and Academics (ACTA) for a decade. (Brown was a founding member of ACTA, which issued its How Many Ward Churchills? report just before the May 2006 Investigative Committee Report was released. For more on the CU-ACTA connection, click here.)

The Regents were scheduled to re-open for their public vote at 4:00 p.m., but didn’t reconvene until nearly 5:30. Many speculate that they were attempting to convince the lone holdout, Regent Cindy Carlisle. Despite the 95 degree heat, hundreds of Ward Churchill’s supporters, recognizing the importance of this decision, remained in the packed auditorium. The Regents, surrounded by security, hastily took their vote and retreated to their scripted press conference. Most of the press, however, followed the Churchill supporters, led by the AIM drum and flag, to the press conference organized by CU students and faculty.

For some of the better media coverage of the day, see http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/25/145254. To get a feel for the event, see footage at http://www.dailycamera.com/video/cameratv/. (E-mail us at wcsn@wardchuchill.net if you’ve got other good video links.)

With the two and one-half year pretense that the University’s “investigations” weren’t really about Prof. Churchill’s constitutionally protected political statements finally completed, CU Pres. Brown immediately reported his accomplishment to CU donors. On the other side, David Lane immediately filed suit to vindicate Ward Churchill’s First Amendment rights.

A Denver jury will now decide have the opportunity to see if it thinks this was about footnotes and citation, or politics and money.