This cartoon is based on a suggestion from Rich Chandler.
Colorado University Professor Ward Churchill first gained national notoriety when it became widely known that he referred to some victims of the 9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attack as "little Eichmanns" in a paper titled "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens." FoxNews reported: 9/11 Prof Says He Mourns U.S., Iraqi Dead.
But it didn't end there. Los Angeles Times has the latest charges against the professor and a good overview of controversy: One Issue Triggers Firestorm of Doubt About Professor (free subscription required).
[Churchill's] claim to be an American Indian, his scholarship, whether he promotes violence and how he got tenure so quickly are issues now under scrutiny. Most recently, he's been accused of art fraud, replicating paintings by the late Thomas Mails and selling them as his own. He said Mails gave him permission. ...Churchill in the past had ties to militant organizations. On his resume, under the heading “political activism,” he wrote that after returning from a combat tour in Vietnam -- Army records list him as a light vehicle driver -- he became an organizer for the Students for a Democratic Society, a radical protest group.
"Later that year I became a member of the Weathermen faction and liaison to the Black Panther Party chapter in Peoria," he wrote. In a 1987 Denver Post story, Churchill said he taught the Weathermen, who bombed two dozen buildings in the late 1960s and early 1970s, how to make explosives.
Other information on the charges regarding academic plagiarism, artistic fraud, Indian ancestry, and terrorist training.
UPDATE -- March 28: More on Churchill, by Jonathan Rick: The Ward Churchill Debate.
Posted by Forkum at March 13, 2005 10:32 PM
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