The University of Colorado (CU) dismissed Ward Churchill from his position as a tenured professor of ethnic studies, citing academic misconduct. Mr. Churchill sued, claiming that he had been fired for unpopular political speech, in violation of his First Amendment rights. A six-member jury in Denver found for Mr. Churchill, but awarded him one dollar as damages. Churchill claimed that the money wasn’t important, he wanted his old faculty position back. Yesterday, Judge Larry Naves handed down his decision, in favor of the university.

Judge Naves noted that Mr. Churchill had failed to actively seek employment as an academic, or act to recoup his economic losses. Perhaps most importantly, Judge Naves found that forcing the university to re-hire Mr. Churchill would create a dysfunctional working environment for all parties, because Churchill is such a polarizing figure.

Legal scholars are examining the fine points or the decision (see the comments on the Volokh Conspiracy blog), but it would appear that there is some concern that the judicial system needs to protect the quasi-judicial review of faculty by appropriate university personnel. In Mr. Churchill’s case, no less than three separate university committees found he had engaged in academic misconduct, and the university fired him.

Why does all this matter? Because Churchill should never have been hired as a tenure track professor at a research university in the first place. He holds no earned doctorate, he has no actual training in the field he was ultimately hired to teach in, and he engages in academic misconduct such as mis-use of sources, fabrication of material, and plagiarism – all of which normally are grounds for failing a student. A good case can be made that Churchill’s hiring as a professor was possibly fraudulent, as he had claimed to be an American Indian, and was apparently hired largely on that basis. Careful investigative reporting by the Rocky Mountain news effectively disproved his claims, and showed him to be what most people took him for from the beginning – a mouthy white guy who was cynically playing at being an Indian so he could get a job he otherwise had no hope of obtaining.

Mr. Churchill pleased his employer and the most rabid anti-imperialists in the academy with his fire-eating rhetoric. However, form an early point, people carefully examined his work, and found it wanting. Most of his writing was not in academically strong journals or scholarly presses producing books with a careful peer review process, it was with very trendy but fringe publishers operating out of a garage. Careful scholars began to pick apart Churchill’s more outlandish claims. John LaVelle, a law professor and enrolled tribal member, demolished Churchill’s claims of a US Army sponsored effort to infect the Mandan tribe with smallpox laced blankets. His article, in a peer-reviewed academic journal, came out years before Churchill penned his essay claiming the World Trade Center attack victims on September 11, 2001 were ‘little Eichmanns’ who deserved to die. Virtually no one outside a few scholars working in US history or ethnic studies read the LaVelle article, and no one at CU paid any attention to the fact that there were serious academic claims suggesting their ethnic studies star was not performing at a level normally expected at a research university.

Once the public found out about the Churchill essay on the WTC attack, it reached a wide audience on the internet – and demands for Churchills firing poured into the university ans state governor’s offices. The university administration and the governor both expressed varying degrees of outrage over Churchill’s remarks,but the general trend was to stand behind his First Amendment right to be provocative. However, that fueled the calls to examine his academic qualifications and scholarship. As more material came to light, it became obvious to anyone except an ideologue that Churchill was not an enrolled member of any American Indian tribe, and that he was at best a very poor scholar, and possibly an academic fraud. The university followed its own internal review processes, and found that Mr. Churchill was, in fact, guilty of academic misconduct. While there was no unanimous agreement on the appropriate punishment, a significant number of CU faculty on the hearing committees agreed that dismissal was called for. The administration agreed, and Churchill was fired for academic misconduct.

A strong defense of Ward Churchill movement has developed on campuses, often listing professors who teach activism as a form of scholarship. However, despite their claims that Churchill was denied his constitutional rights, the university and the governor of Colorado have repeatedly stated that Mr. Churchill’s ‘little Eichmanns’ remarks are repulsive, but legitimate free speech, and his dismissal was for academic misconduct including misuse of sources, fraud, and plagiarism. For those who actually have taken the time to study the subject, the case against Mr. Churchill is a slam-dunk. His writing would earn a failing grade from any reputable professor of U.S. History. Mr. Churchill’s selective quoting out of context and mis-use of other scholar’s work to support his claim might be viewed as mere incompetence if it happened only once. However, the problems occur repeatedly, giving clear evidence that Mr. Churchill is no scholar. Perhaps more telling is the list of letters filed with Judge Naves’ court following the initial jury verdict for Mr. Churchill. Many people with long careers in American Indian studies have gone on record stating that Mr. Churchill has harmed the field by engaging in academic dishonesty, and his reinstatement would further damage the already weakened credibility of ethnic and American Indian Studies. As one remarked, a win for Ward Churchill would simply be yet another case of an unscrupulous white man victimizing Indians for his own profit. Indeed.

Mr. Churchill’s attorney, David Lane, has promised to appeal Judge Naves’ ruling. We can hope that the Colorado Court of Appeals will uphold Judge Naves, and Mr. Churchill will go into a long overdue retirement.