FREEDOM FOR A FRAUD
NEW YORK POST
Opinion
May 21, 2007 -- He's been exposed as an academic fraud and a serial plagiarist. But it's starting to look like embattled University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill may keep his job, after all.
You remember Churchill: He's the guy who prompted a national uproar after he published an essay in which he called the 3,000 victims of 9/11 "little Eichmanns," referring to the man in charge of the Nazi Holocaust.
That led officials to take a closer look at Churchill's record.
Last June, a damning 125-page report by the school's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct recommended his firing, citing his record of plagiarism, outright fabrication and "pattern of failure to understand the difference between scholarship and polemic."
Indeed, it turned out that Churchill - a self-professed Native American activist and head of the school's Indian Studies program - isn't even an Indian, as he'd claimed.
University President Hank Brown agreed with the recommendation and moved to fire the teacher. But Churchill demanded - and got - a separate hearing from the faculty's Privilege and Tenure Committee.
Now, that body has upheld the original charges - but called for Churchill to receive only a one-year suspension, saying that he committed "misbehavior, but not the worst possible misbehavior."
Which means, according to the committee, that no one's life was actually threatened.
Now Brown has to decide whether to stick with his original decision. But if he does, Churchill has more aces up his sleeve, thanks to the system.
He can ask the committee to issue a second report. And if Brown still wants to fire him, he'd have to send his recommendation to the regents - who would have to give Churchill a private hearing before taking action.
The lengths to which some at the University of Colorado will go to protect a proven academic fraud is astonishing. Even Churchill's defenders are stuck with the lame argument that, "well, he could have been worse."
It's hard to imagine how.
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