Ward Churchill: It Finally Got To Me, Too

I just took up much too much comment space writing this response on Critical Mass. Here it is, essentially unchanged. My point: Colorado got what it paid for. They have to live with it. Their reasoning is dangerous for us all. Bet Critical Mass wishes I'd said that succinctly.

I'm going to venture a very unpopular position here: in spite of the deficiences in his scholarship, Churchill should get his job back. I was appalled, am appalled at interviews I've seen with students on his campus (not all of whom oppose his return) who say that he should not get his position back "because of the horrible things he said." And, I'd add, if his plagiarsim were as clear as, say, Doris Kearns Goodwin's, he'd have to go. But when you read the committee's findings, it's not so clear as that. As for the fact that he does not have the usual degrees or terminal degrees in his field, this again brings up the issue of a college's right to hire (and it is often the faculty, not the administration, in many places, who really do the hiring) and to retain someone whose teaching, writing, or other expertise warrants the rank. I grant you that this is a horribly complicated question in Churchill's case. Many very selective places do have, though the instances are less and less, full professors who do not hold the expected Ph.D. Reed, for example, and Kenyon, and Oberlin (if I remember correctly) had several still into the nineties and may now. I do not mean MFAs or MBAs, because those degrees are often taken to be the terminal degree in the field. If Colorado once saw itself in that vein, it must live with what it has wrought. There was also a time that one could declare an ethnic identity by proving an identification with it, e.g. by participating in the activities of, and becoming even an honorary member of, a tribe. It is hard for me to write this, because I am very disturbed by the inaccurate and insensitive piece on the tragedy of 9/11, and I find his claims about how he went about his scholarship to reveal a sloppy, egotistical approach to scholarship (he limns plagiarism, but does not really engage in it, if as everyone seems to agree, he "plagiarized" himself). Colorado should have to keep him, but they should ---and should have--- censured him. He should be knocked down a rank/pay grade, he should not serve on certain committees or in certain positions, whatever their faculty regulations will permit. If they do not have these mechanisms of censure, he should stay on as a lesson to them all. "Scholarship vs. polemic" is also a very dangerous standard to begin to use to examine someone's work. For many a radical (many better spoken and more scholarly radicals) their work is a polemic. Presumably, universities hire them not to have a department full of them, but so that their students will be exposed to how a person like that thinks. One assumes the rest of the department, the rest of the college, offers counterbalance. Colorado got what it wanted, promoted Churchill, and made him a large part of their curricular design. If they have decided that moment is over, i.e. that he is an artifact of a culture they can no longer support, they are going to have to separate their own polemical stance from the various weaknesses and ugliness of Churchill's writings. His actions are perhaps censurable, but not cause for detenuring him, vile as he may seem to some now. I can barely stand to hear myself support the guy, but I can face myself: I was happy he won; the grounds for outright dismissal are far too shaky. Colorado should negotiate, perhaps with the AAUP's help (it is supporting Churchill. It often supports tenured people. If you're not tenured, it will support the college), a way for Churchill to exist on campus. Finis.