Solidarity
Statements in Support of Professor Ward Churchill:
1. Gil Anidjar – Columbia
University
2. Bill Ayers – University of Illinois – Chicago
3. Dana Cloud – University of Texas
4. Drucilla Cornell – Rutgers University
5. Hamid Dabashi – Columbia University
6. Michael D’Andrea – University of Hawai’i
7. Richard Delgado – University of Pittsburgh
8. Richard Falk – UC Santa Barbara; Professor Emeritus,
Princeton University
9. Juan Gomez-Quinones – UCLA
10. Robert Ivie – University of Indiana, Bloomington
11. Robert Jensen – University of Texas
12. Peter Kirstein – St. Xavier University
13. Carlos Munoz, Jr. – UC Berkeley
14. Henry Silverman – Michigan State UniversityPaul Von
Blum – UCLA
15. Paul Von Blum - UCLA
16. Immanuel Wallerstein – Yale University
17. Howard Zinn – Professor Emeritus – Boston University
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Gil Anidjar
The attack on the university, on intellectual life and on
political engagement, indeed, on the political and ethical
significance of our profession is no more than the latest
round in a long struggle dedicated to the destruction – in
each of us – of that which thinks and weighs and learns and
judges with integrity, conviction and courage. Ward
Churchill is who he is precisely because he speaks truth to
power, because he reminds us of our obligations, as
scholars, activists, citizens and illegalized individuals.
He reminds us of our duty in the face of intimidation, in
the face of collaboration and silence, in the face of
hegemony, economy, carpet bombing and other kinds of mass
murders. He calls on us to stand up in a climate of ever
expanding fear. For it is fear, not conscience, that makes
cowards of us all. But it is also fear that moves those who
seek to silence Ward Churchill and we who follow his
example. They are the cowards who, armed to the teeth with
weapons of mass destruction, weapons of mass intimidation,
they who want us all to be cowards and never to stand up,
never to think and act responsibly, never to have the
courage to think and weigh and learn and judge. The war on
terror should start with them, with the fear mongers. That
is why Ward Churchill is our example and our model: he puts
an end to the reign of fear. That is what tenure, in the
true sense of the term, is. And that is why Ward Churchill
will never lose his tenure. Ward Churchill has already won.
And we “most dangerous professors,” at Columbia University
and elsewhere, we will make sure he continues winning. With
Ward Churchill, we will continue to join in that fight. And
together with him, we will win. We are winning.
Gil Anidjar
Associate Professor
Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures
Columbia University
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Ward Churchill
by Bill Ayers
Dear Colleagues,
In Brecht's play Galileo the great astronomer sets forth
into a world dominated by a mighty church and an
authoritarian power: "The cities are narrow and so are the
brains," he declares recklessly. "Superstition and plague.
But now the word is: since it is so, it does not remain so.
For everything moves my friend." Intoxicated with his own
radical discoveries, Galileo feels the earth shifting and
finds himself propelled surprisingly toward revolution. "
It was always said that the stars were fastened to a
crystal vault so they could not fall," he says. "Now we
have taken heart and let them float in the air, without
support... they are embarked on a great voyage---like us
who are also without support and embarked on a great
voyage." Here Galileo raises the stakes and risks taking on
the establishment in the realm of its own authority, and it
strikes back fiercely. Forced to renounce his life's work
under the exquisite pressure of the Inquisition he
denounces what he knows to be true, and is welcomed back
into the church and the ranks of the faithful, but exiled
from humanity---by his own word. A former student confronts
him in the street: "Many on all sides followed you with
their ears and their eyes believing that you stood, not
only for a particular view of the movement of the stars,
but even more for the liberty of teaching--- in all fields.
Not then for any particular thoughts, but for the right to
think at all. Which is in dispute."
The right to think at all, which is in dispute----this is
what the Ward Churchill affair finally comes to: The right
to a mind of one's own, the right to pursue an argument
into uncharted spaces, the right to challenge the church
and its orthodoxy in the public square. The right to think
at all.
It's no surprise that this outrage against Professor
Churchill occurs at this particular moment --- a time of
empire resurrected and unapologetic, militarism proudly
expanding and triumphant, war without justice and without
end, white supremacy retrenched, basic rights and
protections shredded, growing disparities between the haves
and the have-nots, fear and superstition and the
mobilization of scapegoating social formations based on
bigotry and violence or the threats of violence, and on and
on. There's more of course, and this isn't the only story,
but this is a recognizable part of where we're living, and
a familiar place to anyone with even a casual understanding
of history. Here the competing impulses and ideals that
have always animated our country's story are on full
display: rights and liberty and the pursuit of human
freedom on one side, domination and war and repression on
the other. The trauma of contradictions that is America.
Ward Churchill is under a sustained, orchestrated, and
determined attack because of his political beliefs and
statements and activities, and nothing more. No one doubts
his productivity or his accomplishments. But the attack on
Churchill is neither isolated nor innocent--- the high
school history teacher on the west side of Chicago gets the
message, and so does the English literature teacher in
Detroit and the math teacher in an Oakland middle school:
be careful what you say; stay close to the official story;
stick to the authorized text. If someone of Ward
Churchill's stature and standing for so many years at the
University of Colorado can suffer this kind of campaign,
what chance do I have?
Every committee, every investigation, every report plays
out under a shadow of the star chamber; everyone must
choose who to be and how to act in response. For this
reason I support Ward Churchill unequivocally,
unapologetically, whole-heartedly. I urge my colleagues and
my students and everyone who values education as a grand
enterprise geared toward enlightenment and liberation to
speak out forcefully and fearlessly now on behalf of the
liberty of teaching and learning, on behalf of the right to
think at all.
Sincerely,
William Ayers
Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University
Scholar
University of Illinois at Chicago
billayers.org
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Dana Cloud
To my colleagues and comrades:
I stand today with Ward Churchill against the right wing
culture warriors who have set their sights on critical,
progressive, and radical faculty on campuses across the
United States.
It is obvious that the charges against Professor Churchill
did not originate with questions about his research, but
about the political arguments he made after 9/11. We all
have the right as citizens to speak our minds and hearts on
matters of importance. We must defend this right every time
it comes under attack. If Professor Churchill’s scholarship
were really the issue, the administration would have found
fault during his tenure review or subsequent
promotions—including promotion to Chair of his department.
No, these attacks are politically timed and motivated and
we must see them for what they are.
David Horowitz and the American Council of Trustees and
Alumni, among others, are engaged in a well-orchestrated,
well-funded, and coordinated assault on faculty across this
country, under the cynical guise of a campaign for academic
freedom. They know that real academic freedom is what has
made universities in the U.S. and around the world spaces
of critique and democratic dissent throughout modern
history. In this context, we are threats to the bullying,
racist, imperialist warmongering, lying, cheating, and
stealing, anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-freedom ruling
class that is running our country.
They spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a devastating
war for oil, an atrocity, a massacre that we should grieve
at least every bit as intensely as we do those young people
in Virginia. We see the ruin and waste even as we know 46
million Americans do not have access to health care,
Medicare is in jeopardy, children around the world starve
while too much food is produced in the West to sell, and
the money spent destroying Iraq could actually end world
hunger. We stand together to challenge the sick priorities
of a society organized for profit rather than human need
and freedom.
We can only stay strong in those struggles if we hold the
line on the most basic struggle that ties us together: for
the right to fight at all.
There can be no doubt that ACTA and Horowitz and their
minions are licking their chops waiting to see if Professor
Churchill will fall. We have done everything in our power
to stop the University of Colorado Administration in its
efforts to fire him. If they go through with this
decision—and I hope they will be wise enough to think
again, but if they go through with it, it will bring shame
on them and leave a devastating scar in the intellectual
and political landscape.
And if this thing comes to pass, it will be a warning to
those who have held back from standing in solidarity with
Professor Churchill.
Many of us are vulnerable. But we cannot afford caution. We
may have legitimate differences with and criticisms of each
other. But we cannot become so mired in difference that we
cannot see the urgency of standing together. We must have
each others’ backs. We stand today for Ward Churchill. In
doing so, we are asserting the fundamental principle of
freedom of thought and action in a world that desperately
needs our courageous voices, powered by our collective
strength.
In solidarity,
Dana Cloud
Associate Professor, Communication Studies, University of
Texas (identification purposes only; I do not speak for the
University in this matter)
Horowitz antagonist
Longtime member, International Socialist Organization
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Ward Churchill
by Drucilla Cornell
Ward Churchill has been a brave and important scholar. I
have followed his work carefully and I have learned so much
from him. But I am defending him because there is more than
just his work involved. We are fighting for academic
freedom for all of us. We cannot let ward Churchill's case
set a dangerous precedent.
Drucilla Cornell
Professor of Political Science, Women's Studies, and
Comparative Literature,
Rutgers University
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Ward Churchill
by Hamid Dabashi
I write this note on behalf of Professor Ward Churchill who
in my estimation today stands for all of us in the U.S.
academy. The crucial task of cultivating critical judgment
for responsible citizenship has scarcely been a more urgent
task in the long and tumultuous history of this country.
With Ward Churchill it is the very inviolable principle of
free and fearless exercise of democratic dissent that is
today on trial.
There is a magnificent scene in Stanley Kubrick’s
“Spartacus” (1960), when a Roman general stands before the
captured slave army and demands that they turn over
Spartacus, or else face vindictive punishment. To save his
comrades, Spartacus stands up and says “I am Spartacus.”
But one after another of his comrades immediately stand up
and say “I am Spartacus!” Today, every single professor
teaching in the remotest parts of this country with an
abiding conviction in the moral duty of democratic dissent
is Ward Churchill. In the company of that magnificent
chorus of hope for the democratic future of this country, I
too am Ward Churchill.
In Solidarity,
Hamid Dabashi
Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and
Comparative Literature Columbia University
_________________________________________________________
Michael D’Andrea, Professor
Department of Counselor Education
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, Hawaii
Why I support Wade Churchill
To Allies in the struggle for justice and peace:
The United States in suffering from a colossal crisis in
moral, political, and academic leadership. Although this
crisis is reflected in failed leadership in all areas of
our society, it is most obvious in the Bush
Administration’s incompetence and dishonest handling of the
War in Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan.
These recent military ventures represent only 2 of a long
legacy of military interventions that are purposely
designed to protect the economic and political interests of
a small number of persons in leadership positions in this
nation.
The individuals who benefit from the immoral and failed
foreign and domestic policies that perpetuate the suffering
and death of millions of persons in our nation and around
the world understand the importance of silencing those
persons who present clear and accurate critiques of the
immoral and ineffective leadership that continues to exist
in our country.
These persons also understand the importance of
discrediting and removing those scholars in higher
education who assert the courage to unveil the crisis in
moral leadership that exists in the political, educational,
and corporate institutions in the United States.
Attacks on progressive scholars continue to increase on
campuses across the country as is reflected in the case of
Ward Churchill at the University of Colorado. Students and
faculty who are committed to the principles of democracy
and freedom are coming together on April 28, 2007 from
various parts of the nation to publicly express their
support for Ward Churchill and the many professional and
social contributions he has achieved as a scholar and
activist.
The stellar academic career of Ward Churchill and his
commitment to promote justice and freedom through his
scholarly endeavors far outweigh the criticisms of those
who seek his termination as a faculty members.
With this in mind, I want to have my voice counted among
those advocates for free speech and academic freedom that
are assembling on April 28, 2007 in Colorado and across the
United States to support Ward Churchill. As a progressive
scholar who was recently banned from the University of
Hawaii for my work as a social justice and peace advocacy
and critique of the crisis of administrative leadership in
our country and on our campus, I join in solidarity with
all of those meeting in Colorado to support Ward Churchill.
Now is the time for all of us to join together to support
Ward Churchill and his right to free speech and academic
freedom.
Now is the time to support all progressive scholars whose
social-political critiques mark them as targets to be
silenced, discredited, and removed from their faculty
positions.
Now is the time to join together against those persons who
seek to undermine our collective efforts to promote justice
and peace in our world.
Now is the time to express our unity with Ward Churchill
and publicly acknowledge our respect for his many
contributions as a scholar and social justice advocate.
Now is the time to stop the coordinated attacks on the
voices of dissent that are being raised by millions of
people committed to promoting justice and peace in our
world.
In the continuing struggle for justice and peace I submit
my support for Ward Churchill and other progressive
scholars in this world,
Michael D’Andrea
Professor
University of Hawaii
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Richard Delgado
The issues the Ward Churchill case poses are of vital
interest to all students and vaculty members concerned
about academic freedom. They include selective prosecution
and the legitimate role of critics and others who voice
unpopular ideas. They are of special concern for racial
minorities, Native Americans, students, and workers. We
must all insist on justice for Professor Churchill and the
assurance that travesties, like those that marred his case,
do not happen again.
Professor Richard Delgado
University Distinguished Professor of Law & Derrick
Bell Fellow
University of Pittsburgh School of Law
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Richard Falk
All of us who value academic freedom should now stand in
full solidarity with Ward Churchill. The outcome of his
case at the University of Colorado is the best
litmus test we have to tell whether the right-wing’s
assaults on learning and liberty will stifle campus life in
this country. Never in my lifetime have we in America more
needed the sort of vigorous debate and creative controversy
that Ward Churchill's distinguished career epitomizes. We
all stand to lose if his principled defense fails.
Richard Falk
Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton
University;
Visiting Distinguished Professor (since 2002), Global
Studies,
University of California, Santa Barbara
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Juan Gomez-Quinones
Ward Churchill is a uniquely productive scholar in areas of
social history research seminal to the ongoing evaluation
of the present United States society. If there is to be a
substantive mass of informed analysis which would be of
critical assistance in charting a more economically just
and more ethically governed society, Professor is already
surely a key contributor. The appropriate site for critical
research and critical discourse is the university. Clearly,
the university which would not collegially accommodate a
productive, recognized scholar would weaken and tarnish its
unfolding role in fulfilling its claim to being an
institution of learning, the site of scholarly production
and the sharing of knowledge. Consequently a university
must safeguard through specific acts protecting specific
scholars such as Professor Ward Churchill. The punishment
being designated for Professor Churchill ending his
University of Colorado scholarship and removal from this
university is a confession he is being persecuted as a
scholar. As I hereby do, I ask scholars who are committed
to the practice of academic freedom and civil liberties to
join in solidarity the defense of Professor Ward Churchill
and support his continuance in his university position.
Professor Juan Gomez-Quinones
Department of History, UCLA
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Robert Ivie
Anyone who believes in the democratic value of academic
freedom, who understands that protecting unfettered
scholarly inquiry is crucial to developing and sustaining a
healthy democratic society, and who know that the very
purpose of exercising academic freedom is to hold
orthodoxies – whether political, religious, social, or
economic – accountable to critical thinking , also
understands how easy it is for institutions of higher
learning to rationalize violations of academic freedom,
especially in what is perceived to be dangerous times. To
succumb to inevitable political pressure, especially when
the fruit of the university’s internal investigation of a
targeted professor has been so overtly poisoned by forces
external to that university, amounts to a mockery of the
principle of academic freedom and a failure to serve the
very purpose for which the institution was founded. Robert
L. Ivie, Professor of Communication and Culture, Indiana
University, Bloomington.
Robert L. Ivie, Professor
Rhetoric and Public Culture
Department of Communication & Culture
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Robert Jensen
Many of us with left/progressive values have been targeted
by forces that want to undermine independent, critical
inquiry in the universities. But in recent years no one has
been targeted with the ferocity with which reactionary
forces have gone after Ward Churchill. Defense of his
academic freedom stands at the center of the struggle for
not only our universities but for a democratic political
culture.
Professor Robert Jensen
University of Texas at Austin
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Carlos M. Munoz, Jr.
"The attack on the academic integrity of Professor Ward
Churchill is an attack against all of us who cherish the
principles of academic freedom. In particular, it is an
attack against those of us who have long labored to develop
the disciplines of Ethnic Studies in the academy. We must
continue to demand that those who govern the University of
Colorado immediately stop the witch hunt against Professor
Churchill, one of the most prolific Ethnic Studies scholars
in the nation."
Carlos Munoz, Jr., Professor Emeritus, Department of Ethnic
Studies,
UC Berkeley
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Peter N. Kirstein
If one looks at America today, one sees the thunder of the
right as a strategic threat to higher education. Ward
Churchill's persecution and silencing before his scheduled
appearance at Hamilton College, and the possibility of the
revocation of his "continuous" tenure is symptomatic of the
persecution of progressive faculty. It is essential that
American Association of Unviersity Professor guidelines be
addressed to reverse this execrable auto da fe. “Teachers
are entitled to full freedom in research and in the
publication of the results…” American Association of
University Professors, “1940 Statement of Principles on
Academic Freedom and Tenure.” I have been persuaded by both
the AAUP C.U. president and other analyses that the alleged
academic misconduct of Professor Churchill was either scant
or non-existent. I have seen nothing that would suggest he
should be fired. The 1970 Second Interpretive Comment of
the 1940 Statement also pronounced: The intent of the
statement is not to discourage what is “controversial.”
Controversy is at the heart of the free academic inquiry
which the entire statement is designed to foster.
Also suspension cannot be levied unless there is an
imminent threat to the individul or to others. That is the
ONLY basis of a suspension according to many A.A.U.P.
documents such as the ninth “1970 Interpretive Comment” of
the “1940 Statement of Principles of Academic Freedom and
Tenure,” the “1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in
Faculty Dismissal Proceedings” and the revised 1999
“Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom
and Tenure.. I was suspended for an anti-war e-mail to the
Air Force Academy and I know the literature quite well.
C.U. would do well to fully apply this epochal statement
and other A.A.U.P. academic freedom policies to the current
controversy over Professor Churchill's status as a tenured
full-professor. My statement, however, is my own.
Peter N. Kirstein
Professor of History
Saint Xavier University
Vice-President Elect, A.A.U.P. Illinois Conference
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Henry Silverman
Ward Churchill has been a controversial writer, speaker and
teacher, someone who has stimulated much needed discussion
and debate. He comes from a long tradition of provocative
university thinkers who have suffered from the recent
ascending arc of right-wing intimation. This campaign from
right-wing thought police is attemping to define what is
acceptable speech and behavior in our academic
institutions. The Ward Churchill firestorm has chilled free
speech at our universities. To stifle dissent is to stifle
education. All who cherish real educational values should
speak out in his behalf.
Henry Silverman
Professor and Chairperson Emeritus
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Paul Von Blum
I vigorously oppose the continuing attacks on academic
freedom, exemplified by the politically inspired assault on
Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado. A
university must be a bastion of free and open expression,
including (and especially) those views and opinions that
challenge dominant ideologies and values. The targeting of
Professor Churchill is ultimately an attack on the deepest
values of a democratic society.
Professor Paul Von Blum
African American Studies and Communication Studies
UCLA
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Immanuel Wallerstein
For me the issue is very simple. I do not know Ward
Churchill and I have not read much of what he has written.
But the whole move for his dismissal was precipitated by
his criticism of the U.S. government's reaction to
September 11, which caused some Colorado legislators to
call for his dismissal. This is direct and dangerous
interference with academic freedom. Furthermore, it
undermines the legitimacy of political dissent, without
which no country can pretend to be democratic. We must all
defend such dissent, whether or not we agree with it.
As far as I can see, the university administration, knowing
that they could not openly accede to such illegitimmate
political pressures, did an end run and sought to find an
excuse, a thin one in fact, to dismiss Ward Churchill on
other grounds. They knew what they were really doing, which
was responding to political pressure. And we know that it
is shameful. They should rescind all action along these
lines.
Immanuel Wallerstein
Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scholar
Yale University
_________________________________________________________
Statement in Support of Professor Ward Churchill
by Historian Howard Zinn
I have declared my support of Ward Churchill because to
defend him is to defend the principle of academic freedom,
the idea that no one should lose his or her job or status
in education because of factors outside of teaching and
scholarship. Those factors -- political, ideological -- are
evident in his case, and they are joined by a
mean-spiritedness which does not belong in an academic or
any other environment. The attack on Ward Churchill comes
at a time in our nation's history when constitutional
rights are under attack by the national government, when
war threatens the lives and well-being of all, and
therefore we need the marketplace of ideas to be as open as
possible. If we want to live in a democracy we must protect
that openness. That is why defending Ward Churchill has an
importance far beyond his particular situation.
Howard Zinn
Professor Emeritus, Boston University
