200 teachers sign ad asking that Churchill inquiry be dropped

[DearAbby]

200 teachers sign ad asking that Churchill inquiry be dropped


posted by: Dan Werner (Web producer)

Created: 2/26/2005 11:54 AM MST -

Updated: 2/26/2005 12:51 PM MST





BOULDER, Colo. (AP) -A full-page ad taken out by 200 University of Colorado faculty members calls for the school to drop inquiry into the writings of professor Ward Churchill.

Gov. Bill Owens and others have called for the firing of Churchill, a tenured professor, because of his comparison of Sept. 11 victims to Nazis.

The faculty members paid for the ad to run Monday in The Boulder Daily Camera.

It says the review of the professor, expected to complete by the middle of March, should be stopped immediately. The ad says the inquiry is the result of political pressure and not based on "any prior formal complaint of specific professional or academic misconduct on his part."

The 200 faculty members' statement defends Churchill's "right to speak what he believes to be the truth" based on academic freedom rules designed to prevent faculty members from being fired for unpopular views.


>snip<


LeCompte and the other teachers who signed the ad paid $1,600 to have it published.

"We're all thinking twice about what we're saying," LeCompte said, recalling the climate in the McCarthy era when professors were fired for alleged communist ties.







http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=5005756a-0abe-421a-0074-4b31c27f7ab0&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

[hlthe2b]

1. I've not weighed in on all these discussions, but today over coffee with

a very good and sincere progressive DEM friend, I got an earful of how successful the media campaign has apparently been in presenting the evil caricature portrayal. And, though she admitted she'd not read his writing in context, at this point it is too late to change her opinion.

I may be one of the few remaining who has not made a final judgement one way or the other on this whole issue, beyond being very concerned at how the REPUGS were manipulating it toward their larger goal of wiping out tenure and any other protections for opposing viewpoints in academia.

[DearAbby]

2. Probably something they wanted to do for a long time

gag free speech of those radical professors. And it is having that affect. Can't have them teaching critical thinking, can we?

[Enquiringkitty]

3. Anytime a government wants to brainwash it's citizens, first it must

silence it's intellectuals, writers, and professors because they have a combination of facts that have not been twisted by the government and the ability to state new ideas .... they keep the population asking questions.

[Zynx]

4. I don't know that I would call Ward Churchill an intellectual.

I would call him a fanatic and a lunatic. I'm sorry, not every left of center type is worth defending.

[starroute]

5. First they came for the lunatics . . .

. . . but I was not a lunatic, so I said nothing. . . . . .

[NorthSideCubsFan]

6. It's going to be tough to defend Churchill

if it turns out that any substantial amount of his academic credentials are bogus.

We are not exactly taking about someone in the Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn class here.

[AnnInLa]

7. No, you don't have to defend the fanatic,

but should defend his right to speak out and criticize his govt. First, they came for the teachers.....