Why all the fuss over Ward Churchill?

Great Debates
1

Sampiro already started a Pit thread on this – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=300055 – but I think it merits GD treatment.

Ward Churchill is a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado. He’s a noted writer on historical issues from a left perspective, including the extermination of the American Indians. (There is some controversy over whether Churchill is of Indian descent as he claims.) But he did not become a figure of national controversy until quite recently. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill#September_11_essay_and_controversy:

In response to this flap, UC’s Board of Regents issued a public apology to the American people and pressured Churchill to resign as chairman of the Ethnic Studies Department (he remains a professor).

Now I admit most Americans would not agree with Churchill’s views – but since when is it pushing the boundaries of academic freedom simply to say that sometimes the United States is in the wrong? I don’t think a single reputable academic would try to justify the Indian Wars, and it’s certainly acceptable in academic discourse to argue that the Vietnam War was unjust. Why should these writings keep Churchill out of a panel discussion on "The Limits of Dissent, of all things? I guess it shows us those limits are narrower than we realize.

Here’s Alexander Cockburn’s take on the story, from The Nation, 2/21/05:

Really, what is objectionable about any of Churchill’s writings quoted here by Cockburn? Of course, the analogy breaks down because the 9/11 hijackers were simply criminals, not soldiers in any lawfully organized national army – but if they had been soldiers, then Churchill would be perfectly right: The WTC was a “legitimate target” by standards proclaimed by the U.S. government itself, and was made so by actions of the U.S. government itself.

2

You really don’t have a sense of morality, do you?

Open season on the employed in America, according to Mssr.Churchill.

3

Brutus has apparently not bother to rad anything by Churchill. He does not, at any time, suggest that average people are subject to an open season.

he does however, and rightfully so, decalre that American foreign policy and the behavior of American corporates, is in part responsbile for 9/11. Guess what? he is right. You can only abuse people for so long before they bite back. They bit.

Was it a good idea? No. Innocents were killed. Fascinating that those innocents only seem important when they are American though. In other countries you call them “collateral damage”.

4

I just quoted the part where Mssr.Churchill said that those killed were not innocent. Don’t defend what you want him to have said; deal with what he actually said.

5

That bothered me too, but it is not one of Churchill’s passages quoted by Cockburn (read closely before you post!); and Churchill did, later, make clear that he was not referring simply to “the employed.”

I’m not saying the CIA agents working in the WTC were “legitimate targets,” nor is Churchill; he says only that they were “legitimate targets” in an international conflict by standards the U.S. has proclaimed and acted upon, and that their presence there, by those same standards, made all the other victims acceptable “collateral damage.”

As for the business execs who “formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire” – they were not “legitimate targets” even by U.S. standards, and their deaths are a crime; nevertheless, I think Churchill has an at least debatable point when he says they were not entirely innocent. And that’s because I have a sense of morality.

6

To quote Dennis Leary:

A! S S! H O! L E! He’s an asshole!
No, really, about the size of it. He’s making overblown comparisons to seek attention. Well, he got it. Can we call people in RL trolls? Cause he strikes me as one. The speech was suicide by mod.

7

Ward Churchill, or Bill O’Reilly? :slight_smile:

8

My sense of morality tells me we should hold ourselves to the same standards we hold others to.

9

In this article , he basically says there should be more 9/11s. And calls for the U.S.A. to be replaced by “500 indigenous groups.” Now there’s a recipe for violence if I’ve ever heard one. I really don’t care what he says, he’s obviously a froot-loop.

10

Who were they, BrainGlutton? I know – I know many of them by name. Which of these bond traders or insurance adjustors or Port Authority bureaucrats were ‘debatably’ not entirely innocent? What crime did the guy making and unmaking 10-year treasury strips for Cantor Fitz commit? Or the guy formatting research reports for Sandler O’Neill? What was David Alger’s alleged crime which you’d like to debate, BrainGlutton?

And while you’re at it, where in the World Trade Center was the CIA? Do you even know? I do.

11

If so, why would that justify excluding him from a conference on “The Limits of Dissent,” or from the faculty of UofCol.? Academic freedom is supposed to be broad enough to cover froot-loops.

12

Yep. Something like 9/11 was inevitable. Revenge is human nature.

13

Well, that’s why Churchill likened them, with some little justice, to “little Eichmanns.” Adolf Eichmann (according to Hannah Arendt’s portrayal in Eichmann in Jerusalem) was this really nice, dull-witted, very ordinary guy, who never killed anybody nor ordered anybody killed. His job was just to make the trains run on time. But the trains in question were carrying Jews to concentration camps.

Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to liken the American global financial empire to Hitler’s murderous racist imperialism (though the horrible crimes committed against Third World debtor nations by the IMF and WTO do give one pause); but the American global financial empire is arguably the main impetus behind the American global military hegemony – which is still not equivalent to Hitler’s rule, but it comes a hell of a lot closer. It is, in many respects, a fundamentally predatory system, and nobody deeply involved in making it work can really be classed as entirely innocent. I won’t say the friends you mention deserved to die, of course they didn’t. But I wouldn’t place any flowers on their graves, and I hope you wouldn’t either! :dubious:

Do tell!

14

I was going to type a full response, but actually your post is perfect on its own. Anyone care to back this guy up? Anyone want to defend that?

Or hey, here’s an opportunity – any liberals want to respond to this in the way that I know you’re capable of? I’ve been telling you since the election how to reclaim the party, and some of you have been claiming that the people I’m talking about don’t exist. For purposes of this board at least, here’s your Sister Souljah all on a platter.

In other news, the CIA station was in 7 World Trade Center, across the street from the towers which were hit. It fell only because it happened to have a big fuel tank in it. There were no casaulties from 7 World Trade Center. The CIA, the day care center and the other tenants were evacuated successfully.

15

Consider the logic that 2 wrongs don’t make a right. I consider those who masterminded the WTC attack to be evil. However, I consider US actions in the Middle East evil. Far more evil in fact. I refuse to defend the actions of either side in this case.

16

Indeed they don’t. The actions of the US in the Middle East (and deamned near everywhere else) have been, for decades, nothing short of despicable. To put it another way, if the US was being treated so poorly by another nation, would anybody be surpri0sed at a 9/11 style attack against that other country?

17

I think one of the reasons this whole controversy has legs is the fact that he’s a college professor. There are plenty of people in the U.S. who have said or written things worse.

I think people feel particular outrage because of his role as a college professor. I don’t necessarily believe these hold up as reasonable when closely examined (IMHO), but here’s a quick list:

Concern over professors’ access to (and influence over) America’s brightest young impressionable minds. We all know the concern over liberal bias on campus, intensified since Horowitz’s oft-quoted study. Even people who are fine with liberalism on campus may be concerned over, well, crackpot bias.

General skepticism about “area studies.” Some people question the usefulness, relevance, and scholarly rigor of such departments and their courses and faculty. Worse, they are seen as a harbor for faculty (and students) who were recruited for AA-related reasons and who couldn’t cut it in other disciplines.

Envy and suspicion of the tenure system. To outsiders this looks like a promise of employment for life, and it’s an almost unheard-of privilege. There are few other jobs in the U.S. with that sort of security.

Scorn for faculty and their “cushy” jobs. “Those who can’t, teach.” Plus they get summers off, only have to spend a few hours in the classroom each week, get paid to sit around and B.S., enjoy year-long sabbaticals, etc.

General ill-will towards academe (for the reasons above and more). Colleges and Universities are seen as overpriced, out-of-touch, unable to prepare students for real jobs.

I think Ward Churchill is a neatly-wrapped up package of the worst view of academe. I think he’s a nice lightning rod for a lot of these issues. Even if the focus stays on the 9/11 comments, I think he reinforces some of these other negative impressions.

18

After 9/11, airport security was radically overhauled (effectively or not). It seemed obvious that, on a pragmatic level, the mechanics of airport security could be much better; likewise, the overall U.S. intelligence apparatus and its handling of counter-terrorism. Yet no one was so crass as to suggest that, due to lax airport security or poor inter-departmental co-operation, that those who died in the World Trade Center deserved to die. And yet, when the pragmatic consequences of U.S. foreign policy are raised for debate, the conservatives on the board immediately cry “you’re blaming the victim! You’re saying we deserved it!”

Why is it not obvious that, morality aside, U.S. foreign policy has an effect in the world, and that effect can be more or less conducive to breeding enemies with the will and capability of launching attacks like 9/11? A foreseeable consequence is not an intended consequence; it may be an acceptable price to pay for a moral action. When Ward Churchill makes asshole comments with the sound underlying logic of pragmatic effects, why is it impossible to debate the underlying logic?

19

None.

Here’s the problem. Osama’s logic runs thus: in WW2 we considered Nagasaki and Hiroshima legitimate targets, despite them being targets of innocent civilians, because we hoped that destroying them would bring about a greater good: our objective, the end of the war. In other words, we demonstrated what we were willing to do if we didn’t get our way.

Osama argues that his attack on the towers was in the exact same vein: demonstrate what his organization was willing to do if the US didn’t comply to a laundry list of get the hell out of the Middle East so that they can set up their crazy empire.

I agree that the ends Osama is after are both ridiculous and evil. And I agree that the end of the US in WW2 was a good one: peace. But when we legitimate particular sorts of tactics, we do so without being able to veto good or bad ends for those particular means. We argued that the citizens of Japan were fair game because they were supporters of an enemy empire. Osama feels the same way about our citizens, in fact moreso because we are a democracy.

We can oppose Osama and everything he stands for, but we have got to take some sort of consistent stance on whether terrorism is ok or not. Osama argues that we thought it’s just dandy when it suited us, and we’ve never repudiated that view. And he has a pretty good argument there which I don’t think the West has responded to in the way it needs.

That said, in the broader context, I have no idea why any college would employ this bleepity bleep. Then again, things like ethnic studies are a haven for lousy scholarship and wackjobs, so you reap what you sow.

20

Ward Churchill’s writings aren’t all that noted. His 9/11 article strikes me a fairly typical radical musings.

CU’s hometown newspaper (The Boulder Daily Camera) has done some of the only research on the man. They are now devoting a lot of coverage to him. I’m sure none of us could stand this scrutiny.

As some examples of what the Daily Camera has dug up:

  1. His claim to indian ancestory rests on an ancestor’s marriage to an indian woman after his first wife died. The first wife gave birth to the child Prof. Churchill decends from. Prof. Churchill is probably 0% american indian.

  2. The professor got his first job with the University as a research assistant in 1978. In interviewing his former bosses, the paper lets us know he did ok. He was not spectacular nor incompetent. He worked hard.

  3. His application to the University lists his ancestory as American Indian - Creek/Cherokee. While his former boss (Norbert Hill ) knew the claim of ancestory was “marginal,” it didn’t matter for the position. Prof. Hill now says he should “politely get off the backs of Indians.”

  4. CU considered hiring him for an associate professor job in 1991. Somehow they managed to give him a tenured position instead. This happened because of a special program to give minority candidates tenured positions without requiring a PhD nor the six year tenure track of scholarship and vetting.

A lot of details threats he has made and poor scholarship are now pouring out. Once the media turns to you, watch out.

Because of the media buzzsaw surrounding the 9/11 article, the university is in the awkward position of defending a man that scammed the system. If a student had fraudulently claimed to be a minority to gain admission, they would be expelled. This public firestorm is clearly showing the holes in the system. A certain level or radical politics and brazen bluster can take you far in academia. His writings are now getting the vetting they should have had before the award of tenure.

I feel bad for Ward Churchill and CU. The chickens are certainly coming home to roost.