I respectfully dissent. (1) The purported purpose of the legal profession as a whole is to help clients (including the state, when represented by criminal prosecutors) get a fair shake out of the law – not to “uphold the law,” nor to uphold the status quo in any sense. (2) The purpose of an organized state bar is to maintain certain professional and ethical standards among practitioners, for the sake of (1), and just because high ethical standards are a Good Thing. But there is no obvious reaon why revolutionary politics would be incompatible with either of these purposes. Of course, a lawyer/revolutionary would be subject to criminal prosecution by the state, just like any other revolutionary, if he or she does something illegal and gets caught at it, and then disbarment would be the least of one’s worries. But that’s just the risk you run if you want to be a revolutionary; and there is also a possibility of success. “When treason prospers, none dare call it treason.”
Weren’t a lot of our Founding Fathers lawyers – and revolutionaries?
Even though “academic freedom” doesn’t necessarily defend offensive speech like this, I’m still not sure he’s fireable. At least not by conventional higher ed standards.
It would be different if he were commiting misconduct, mistreating students, falsifying research, that sort of thing. But having provocative, questionable (even offensive) ideas isn’t usually cause for firing from a faculty position. I know it’s galling because he’s a “public employee” and his salary is partly paid by state taxpayer dollars. But the standards on a college campus are different. Faculty at public universities do have incredible leeway, more so than the typical public employee in my experience, more so than other employees on that same campus.
You may not like the convention, but it’s there, and thus I think his firing is unlikely on these grounds (his nasty opinions). If his scholarship proves to be crap, that may be another matter.
But keep in mind that speech like this reaps its own reward. Professors may be free to say dumb things, but they will suffer professional and social consequences. He already has. Just because he hasn’t been shitcanned doesn’t mean he’s getting off scot-free.
But there’s two sides to that. Before this flap, Churchill was just an obscure ethnic studies prof at a state university. Now he’s a national figure with a national following of sympathizers. According to the article linked in the OP, demonstrations about the Churchill issue at the U of Co have been evenly divided, with as many supporters of Churchill as detractors. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, is there?
Did anybody see The Daily Show last night? Stewart showed a clip of the very loud and irate Churchill blathering about how (I’m paraphrasing because I don’t have the exact transcript) “It is our job in academia to stir up controversy and challenge the status quo and make accusations that force a response and force open a dialogue” to which Stewart responded “Or you can teach”.
It didn’t get half the laughter and applause it should have.
Updates on the disgusting nature of this man’s character are coming every day.
Now it appears Churchill, in the past, copied artwork done by another man and passed it off as his own. When confronted with this, he responded by hitting the TV cameraman.
Now that’s something for which an academic could get fired . . . I think . . . Certainly a tenured professor could be fired “for cause” if proven guilty of plaigiarism. But I don’t know whether this art forgery would qualify, being entirely outside Churchill’s academic field, and dating from 1980, which is probably before he went to work for U of Co (the wikipedia article on him doesn’t say when that was). Are there any profs on this board who can shed some light on this?
Then it’s time to reopen some union contracts, write conduct standards, etc. The convention must change. I think it’s completely reasonable for the public to expect not to pay people who are actively conspiring to kill them.
All this dirt, if substantiated, does of course reflect poorly on Churchill’s character – but, again, like the alleged art forgery, the controversy over his claimed Indian heritage, and his history of involvement with the Weather Underground, it has nothing to do with the reasons for which the right-wingers are persecuting him. Nobody cared about this stuff until his recent book came out.
Well, you may have a point there. But that will mean that the various outrages on the board about Bush’s service record, his statements in public, and his general character similarly don’t matter, and are not the reason the American Left hates him.
:dubious: Of course we can. The character we have a right to expect of a POTUS and the character we have a right to expect of a professor have absolutely nothing to do with each other. If a professor is personally dishonest or otherwise immoral, the worst that can happen is that his or her students can’t get the benefit of him or her as a moral example, assuming they would. If a president is dishonest or immoral, that can cost lives by the thousands.
The difference is only in degree; surely you can see that.
My point is that Churchill is a low and dishonest human being, his politics aside. His defects of character are so numerous and serious that he is unworthy of the protections of academic freedom. I don’t think he’s worthy to be called an academic at all.
Academics should have an interest in the truth that Churchill, in his own life and in his political activism, simply doesn’t have.
I’ll strike you a bargain: I’ll get behind the firing of Ward Churchill when you get behind the impeachment, conviction and deposition of George W. Bush (that slimy, lying, murdering, unpatriotic traitor who has sold out his country to serve the interests of his class). Agreed?
Nope, for the simple reason that I don’t think it has been shown at all that Bush is a liar or a traitor.
A strong case can be made against Churchill on both counts, yet you condemn Bush for this perceived behavior and excuse it for Churchill. This is hypocrisy borne out of an excess of political passion.
manny, I take it all back. I apologize for everything I ever said about you. You were, in fact right.
I opened this thread thinking “Who’s Ward Churchill?” figuring this was some kid of the late PM who’d gotten into trouble or something. Imagine my surprise.
Anyway, I take it all back. BrainGlutton, you need a serious intellectual spanking. This being Saturday, I have lots of stuff to do, but rest assured the virtual paddle will be ready when I get back. Your cluelessness is bottomless.
Well, this touches two personal issues for me.
First off, I assume that I would qualify as a “little Eichmann” in Churchill’s twisted brain.
Secondly, a lot of these leftist loonies inhabit academe these days, far as I can tell, and I do not relish the thought of sending my son into their arms in a couple of years, and paying big bucks for the privilege of having him taught by one of these nutcases.
So, my purpose here is to dispense with the idiotic idea that what the US does overseas, in terms of oppressing people through either its foreign policy or its economic dealings, explains 9/11.
Yes, what the US does overseas may, maybe, explain it, but it ain’t because of any oppression. Realpolitik, as practiced by the US for so many years against communism in general and the USSR in particular, led to many absurd alliances. The most absurd, we can now see with the pleasure of hindsight, was our alliance with the Afghan mujahadeen against the USSR.
Now to me this exposes the logical flaw in this alleged realpolitik, because to me it always appears that it involved doing things with the short-term stuff directly in front and not stepping back to calculate longer-term consequences. In short, what the right very often says about left interventions in the economy being subject to The Law of Unintended Consequences, can be said for US interventions in foreign conflicts in which we are not one of the attacked parties. We trained the mujahadeen, and they turned around and attacked us, when they were done with the USSR. This is because they were an enemy of our enemy, but they were not our friends. It would have been nice if the interventionists, not all of them of the right, btw, who were all for allying with the mujahadeens, had thought through the consequences of allying with and giving guns to people who really never liked us, and likely never will.
This is vastly, vastly different from saying that our oppression generated the 9/11 attacks. The statement that our oppression produced 9/11, embodied in the statement that “As for those in the World Trade Center, well, really, let’s get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s “global financial empire” the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved - and they did so both willingly and knowingly.”, followed by BrainGlutton’s elaboration:
is just, well, horseshit.
This puts forward the idea that America’s riches is gained at the expense of the Third World, firstly, and secondly, that the chief mission of US foreign policy is oppression, or some such nonsense like that. The first is economically illiterate leftist claptrap, the second reveals an immature understanding of national interest.
Taking the economics first, if this were so, it would be seen in the patterns of trade; you’d see lots of stuff being imported from the Third World, or being exported to it. In short, the Third World would actually count for something in the economic activity of the US.
It doesn’t. Economically advanced nations trade, mostly, with other advanced nations. All nations mostly trade with their neighbors. Geography still counts.
You can see this in the US’s list of trading partners from the CIA World Factbook:
Imports:
Canada 17.4%, China 12.5%, Mexico 10.7%, Japan 9.3%, Germany 5.3% (2003)
Exports:
Canada 23.4%, Mexico 13.5%, Japan 7.2%, UK 4.7%, Germany 4% (2003)
Our neighbors to the north and south, and then other advanced countries, are our partners. The Third World simply doesn’t count.
Do we matter disproportionately to Afghanistan? Yes, we’re their customers:
Exports:
US 27%, France 17.5%, India 16.6%, Pakistan 13.3% (2003)
Imports:
Pakistan 30.1%, South Korea 9.2%, Japan 7.6%, Germany 6.9%, Turkmenistan 5.4%, Kenya 4.6%, US 4.5%, Russia 4% (2003)
Now it might happen that a lot of what we import is opium, but that has nothing to do with the US’s global financial empire, such as it is, and everything to do with the private decisions of private dope addicts. Somehow, I don’t think they would have inspired OBL to topple the towers.
But the terrorists were from Saudi Arabia! Yes, they were. We oppress exactly no one over there. Their royal family does a nice job of it all by themselves. OBL’s tiff with us has to do with the fact that we had troops on Saudi soil, and that he thinks we support “apostate” regimes that oppress Muslims. This is Muslim fundamentalist conspiracy stupidity, with no relation to anything having to do with any actions taken by our “global financial empire”, but perhaps something to do with the short-term realpolitik engaged in by our political classes, who never stop to think why we always have to be the ones taking the lead in Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq, or anywhere else outside of our actual sphere of influence over here. Our riches are not dependent on these interventions, and if anything are undermined by them. But the political classes like these things because it gives them power, and that is especially true of our Presidents, who all revel in the idea of being Commander in Chief. This has dick to do with America’s riches, though, or its alleged “global financial empire”.
The actions of the “little Eichmanns” are twofold:
-for the ordinary workers, to make a buck. They do this in all sorts of ways, but generally speaking, they do it by making deals, and the essence of a good deal is - pay attention now - that both sides profit.
-for the “technicians”, or CIA agents, or whatever: well, the technicians were also just making a buck, assisting the dealmakers. If they were assisting the CIA agents, then they were engaged in attempting to advance the interests of the US, and in defending its soil. You are entitled to think that some of the actions taken to advance US interests might be oppressive, and that is a legitimate political position to take. But it is, as a simple matter of fact, anti-American to believe that these CIA agents deserved death at the hands of a wealthy Muslim fundamentalist who never spent a day of his life oppressed by the US or any of its policies, a man who, as a simple matter of fact, was actually helped, at one point in his life, by those policies. That he turned around and attacked us is an argument against helping people simply because they are the enemy of our enemies, a lesson which I hope is learned, but which I fear hasn’t been.
So, manny is right: you are, in fact, anti-American. As is Ward Churchill.
No, I don’t “excuse” Churchill. I argue that tenure protects him and should protect him from being fired for his writings and statements alone, however inflammatory they might be. Doesn’t mean I respect him or approve of him. He is apparently dishonest, sleazy, anti-American, and a sympathizer of terrorism. But he is still a better man and a better American than George W. Bush.
My opinion of Mr Churchill is much lower after reading this thread. But not because of any information touted by Ms Malkin. Lacking a record of the entire speech we can’t know the context for the bits we are given.
Actually, I was given to understand that he had some other work as a speaker before this. He generally spoke on Native American issues and prison issues. He may not have been a well-known public figure, but it seemed to me, given his role as a provocateur on several panels, that he was not “obscure.” Did I misunderstand his previous work?
Also, I think “supporters” of Churchill may include people who don’t like the man or what he has to say, but object to the idea that he should befired for that essay. That doesn’t mean (at least to me) that the publicity is, therefore, positive.
I am sure this has earned him some ‘fans’ but it has also earned him scorn, ridicule and death threats. I can’t speak for him, but I’d find those latter three things awful.
Maybe this is because I live and work among just this sort of nutcase, but I don’t see him as “actively conspiring.” I see him as an arrogant guy shooting his damn fool mouth off. One day he may get his own head blown off for it, an event that wouldn’t particularly shock or dismay me. I have seen little that convinces me, however, that this guy is going to successfully fund or instigate an attack against Americans.
I suppose, however, that if public colleges did take this stance (public university means faculty are held to a higher standard) then there would be some interesting results for public education. Obviously I am not keen on the idea, but as an intellectual exercise it’s intriguing to imagine how they’d carry out the change in contract. What would the mechanism for judging someone’s offenses be? Should that be done inside or outside the academy? How many people in the AAUP would drop dead of apoplexy? How would they decide whether offense are fireable? How far back into one’s writings would you go? Would you grandfather things written before the contract change? Could faculty speak or write as “unaffiliated” (that is, not advertise their position) and not be accountable? My god, I’ve got the makings of a seminar on my hands.
Presumably you’d quickly get rid of the most inflammatory people. However, you’d also probably lose some pretty decent scholars (and decent people) too. I don’t think it would effect faculty in the sciences so much (unless they left on general principle), but I’d imagine faculty in the humanities might be more likely to head to the private institutions when recruited. You’d have a different sort of person employed at the state institutions, though it would take more imagination then I have to envision how much that would impact the education of students there. I’d guess the overall answer would be “not much” but on some levels the differences might be pretty meaningful.
