U. of Colorado Will Investigate Allegations of Misconduct Against Controversial Professor By SCOTT SMALLWOOD
Administrators at the University of Colorado at Boulder have affirmed that the First Amendment protects statements made by Ward Churchill, the ethnic-studies professor who likened victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks to "little Eichmanns."
But a seven-week review of the professor's work, they said, turned up allegations of research misconduct that should be investigated by a faculty committee and could lead to disciplinary action, including his dismissal.
Philip P. DiStefano, interim chancellor of the Boulder campus, announced the results of his review on Thursday. The allegations, including charges of plagiarism and fabrication, will be referred to the university's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. In addition, Mr. DiStefano said, the committee would be asked to look into the question of whether Mr. Churchill has fraudulently claimed to be an American Indian in order "to gain credibility and authority for his work."
The chancellor prefaced the report by expressing renewed disgust at the comments in an essay written by Mr. Churchill. "Like many people in Colorado and around the country," he said, "I personally found the essay to be profoundly repugnant and hurtful to everyone touched by the tragedy of September 11, 2001." Nevertheless, he said, Mr. Churchill's political expression is constitutionally protected.
The professor said in an interview that the findings vindicated his free-speech rights and that the allegations of research misconduct were "politically motivated and utterly frivolous" and would be "easily disproven." He also described the review of his ethnicity as illegal and maintained that his identification as an American Indian "is perfectly consistent with federal law."
"This is absurd," he said. "There's no advantage to claiming that you're an Indian on the Boulder campus. If there were, we might have a few more."
In the report, the chancellor cited several instances of possible research misconduct.
John LaVelle, a professor of law at the University of New Mexico, has alleged that Mr. Churchill has misrepresented an 1887 provision in federal law on Indians.
Thomas Brown, a professor of sociology at Lamar University, in Texas, has argued that Mr. Churchill has falsely asserted that the U.S. Army knowingly distributed smallpox-infested blankets to Mexican Indians in 1837. Mr. Brown has written: "One must reluctantly conclude that Mr. Churchill fabricated the most crucial details of his genocide story."
Fay G. Cohen, a sociologist at Dalhousie University, in Nova Scotia, has maintained that Mr. Churchill plagiarized her work in the 1990s. She told Colorado administrators that she had not come forward earlier because she was intimidated by Mr. Churchill.
Mr. DiStefano said in an interview that he believed that those allegations had sufficient merit to warrant further investigation.
Roger Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, said he was relieved that any additional review would now be done by a faculty committee instead of administrators. "I think finally and at last he'll get a review by his peers," Mr. Bowen said. "This will be outside the political process. The peer review should depoliticize what has been an extraordinarily political process."
Mr. DiStefano announced the review of Mr. Churchill's writings and speeches in early February, saying that he and two deans would determine whether Mr. Churchill "may have overstepped his bounds." At first the review focused on the professor's controversial statements about the September 11 attacks, but it was broadened to include allegations of research misconduct.
Although the review did not initially focus on matters of research fraud, Mr. DiStefano said he would have been negligent to ignore the charges. "I believe the university's principles of academic freedom require that we pursue specific allegations of research misconduct no matter when they come up," he said.
In the seven weeks since the chancellor said he would review Mr. Churchill's work, the professor has remained at the center of controversy.
His case was cited as one of the reasons for Elizabeth Hoffman's resignation as president of the University of Colorado. Some of Mr. Churchill's speaking appearances have been canceled, but others -- including ones in Hawaii and Wisconsin -- have been held without incident.
For several days, rumors had swirled that the Colorado Board of Regents and Mr. Churchill's lawyer had worked out a settlement that would have bought out his contract. But that alleged deal apparently evaporated after the plagiarism charges became public.
And Thursday, the wider fallout continued as the board voted to create a panel to review how the university awards tenure and how professors are evaluated after they receive it.
Meanwhile, scholars across the country are coming to Mr. Churchill's defense. On Tuesday, a letter signed by 400 professors appeared as an advertisement in the Daily Camera, a newspaper in Boulder. They argued that the attacks by politicians and the news media against Mr. Churchill smacked of a new McCarthyism.
"Apparently," they wrote, "September 11 is now the third rail of American intellectual life: to critically probe into its causes and to interrogate the international role of the United States is treated as heresy."