Professor Fired for being an Idiot?

Picture courtesy of University of Colorado

I should start off by first saying that I think Ward Churchill is a self serving intellectual moron that thinks that there are no consequences for his own words. It comes as no surprise to me that the man was fired not for saying that the victims of 9/11 were Nazis but for negligence in his duty as a professor to his students and college trust.

Over at the New York Times they have this to say about the Professor with an “I am so wicked smart” attitude….

Colorado Regents Vote to Fire a Controversial Professor
By DAN FROSCH
Published: July 25, 2007

BOULDER, Colo., July 24 — After more than two years of public tumult, the University of Colorado Board of Regents voted Tuesday to fire a professor whose remarks about the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks led to a national debate on free speech. But it was the professor’s problems with scholarship that the board cited as the cause for his termination.

The professor, Ward L. Churchill, was dismissed on the ground that he had committed academic misconduct by plagiarizing and falsifying parts of his scholarly research.

The board voted 8 to 1 to dismiss Professor Churchill.

“We wanted to do what was right for this university,” the board chairwoman, Patricia Hayes, said after the vote. “We did not address Professor Churchill’s freedom of speech as part of our discussion.”

The university president, Hank Brown, who recommended that the board fire Professor Churchill, said he deserved to lose his job because he had “falsified history” and “fabricated history.”

At a news conference after the decision, Professor Churchill, who cut a dramatic figure with his mane of gray-black hair, towering frame and dark sunglasses, criticized the process by which he was fired.

“I am going nowhere,” Professor Churchill said. “If there is a question in anyone’s mind to the political nature of the Regents, this should resolve it.”

He continued, “All this did was confirm what it was in the first place about the nature of the academic process and lack of integrity within this institution as a whole.”

Professor Churchill, a tenured faculty member at Colorado since 1991 who became chairman of the department of ethnic studies, caused an uproar when he criticized United States foreign policy in a 2001 essay written shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, characterizing some of the office workers killed in the World Trade Center as “little Eichmanns,” a reference to the Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who helped carry out the Holocaust. - New York Times

Ward Churchill thinks and believes that he is being fired based on his 9/11 statements and it could be argued that he just might be. Being a Professor at the University of Colorado grants you an audience of young minds that are not just there to be coerced into one professors ideology. Those students have parents that want their children educated with the highest of standards in mind. If my children attended the school I would question the professors teaching and the schools leadership based on such remarks.

Yes, Professor Churchill called the victims of 9/11 Nazis which I disagree with entirely for the record. Freedom of speech lets you do that sort of thing here in America. BUTT, (Big Old Hairy Butt) if you or I said that in our daily jobs, would your employer not look into what else you have said in the past? That is what the University of Colorado did and what do you know there just happened to be more than enough evidence to fire him for multiple reasons.

I was trying to think of why the University of Colorado would fire him given the controversy around him and all I can think of is money. This particular university is no different than any other in America and they all rely heavily on repeat business from their own alumni. If the alumni do not support the University with private donations as well as sending their children to the school then it gets real tough to pay the bills to keep the school going?

I’m thinking that Joe Q. Public that owns a corporation called ABC Widgets is not going to want his companies name on the same stationary as a professor that calls one of our nations greatest tragedies a self inflicted wound because they were Nazi’s? This professor was fired for being an idiot that thought he was better than his employer. The interests of his employer have never entered this mans mind in my opinion. Companies fire people that do that all the time and the University of Colorado finally served Professor Churchill his pink slip.

You can’t teach common sense at any school, it has to be learned the old fashioned way.

Apparently, the Professor was a little deficient in that department. Now that he is free and clear of the bonds of the University of Colorado he can scream at the moon what he thinks. In his mind, maybe the moon will listen and bow to his brilliant intellect.

Pack your desk and don’t let the door hit you in the ass Ward!

Papamoka

Follow up article from Newsweek...