[lbo-talk] Ward Churchill to be Fired

[Auguste Blanqui]

I'm not talking about defending him on those grounds, but rather, pointing
out that this inquiry into him would never have taken place without the
right-wing smear campaign.  That outweights ultimately his scholarly sins,
which are immense and inexcusable.  It's uncomfortable and difficult to do
because we essentially have to cop-out and say, "Yeah, what you say about
his scholarship IS true, but you never would have discovered it in the first
place if..."  But the forest is ultimately that right-wing apparatus and the
intimidation and chilling effects it will likely now exert (even more so if
the left just remains completely silent on the Churchill matter rather than
simultaneously condemn his crap scholarship AND the conditoins under which
the committee was formed.)

On 6/26/06, Michael J. Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net> wrote:
>
>
> > On Jun 27, 2006, at 10:08 AM, Auguste Blanqui wrote:
> >
> > > Ugh, not to revive last week's discussion, but I don't think we could
> > > have asked for a worst "first major academic freedom case" than one
> > > requiring us to defend the likes of Churchill...
>
> Does anybody need to defend Churchill? His own institution,
> for better or worse, gave him tenure. Now they want
> to revoke it. The only relevant question is why they changed
> their minds, and the answer is plain to the meanest intellect.
> It's not because they found something out about him that
> they didn't already know.
>
> --
> --Michael J. Smith
> -- mjs at smithbowen.net
>
> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
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