(These are updates which were on our front page. For more current information, go to Churchill's site)
Ward Churchill Fired!!
- A Defiant Churchill
- "I’m not a victim. Never, ever call me a victim. OK? Don’t call me embattled either. I’m beginning to think that’s my first name (from its use in press reports). It’s ridiculous. I’m a target, not a victim. And you may notice, I don’t tend to roll over and get stepped on." – Ward Churchill, from an interview in Newsweek
On July 24, 2007, the Regents of the University of Colorado voted to fire Professor Churchill - for inaccurate footnotes and citation, they say, not for his politically controversial speech … Ward Churchill’s attorney David Lane filed suit against the University and the Regents on July 25, charging them with retaliatory termination in violation of Professor Churchill’s First Amendment rights.
This outrageous decision comes on the heels of the denial of tenure to Norman Finkelstein by the administration at DePaul. Taken together, it is clear that “purge” is not too strong a term to describe what we are witnessing against dissenting and critical thinking scholars in academia today, and in particular those whose work challenges the “official narratives” about this country’s history and international policy that powerful forces in this society are determined to maintain and restore. What is called for at this moment is to seize the opportunity to bring forward as significant a response as possible. One way to do this is in the form of Op Ed pieces and letters to editors. These could register a significant, even unexpected, response that signals to faculty, scholars, students and the broader public that this decision represents a danger, not just to academia but to society at this time in history, that cannot and will not be allowed to stand. Most of the media coverage of the decision gives no hint of the growing opposition to this attack on critical thinking and dissent among this country’s faculty, scholars and public intellectuals expressed in the Open Letter that we published in the NYRB in April; by the powerful statements sent to the Regents and to the April Emergency Forum that have appeared at the wardchurchill.org and defendcriticalthinking.org, sites; the articles at Counterpunch, Insidehighered.org and many, many more.
Please forward any op-eds and letters you write (published or not) to criticalxthinking@yahoo.com. And check out Ward Churchill's site for updates.
Video of the press conference at Boulder is available here.
You can also see Ward and his attorney, David lane, speaking here:
One of the better local newspaper articles from Tuesday is here:
Democracy did a show on Churchill - transcript available here:
Michael Slate, host of Beneath the Surface on KPFK, dedicated his show on July 24th to Churchill. Audio of the program can be listened to here.