U. of Colorado Will Investigate Allegations of Misconduct Against
Controversial Professor

Scott Smallwood, Chronicle of Higher Education

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."