Peering out before a packed auditorium Tuesday night, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Chancellor Jack Miller admitted this would not be a typical Native Pride Week lecture.
Then again, the night’s guest speaker, University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, was not the typical academician invited to participate in the university’s annual look at Native American issues.
Churchill, caught in the center of a month-long controversy concerning an essay he wrote in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, made his long-awaited appearance on the Whitewater campus Tuesday following weeks of protest aimed at keeping the provocateur from speaking in Wisconsin.
Churchill had originally been pegged to detail racism against Native Americans to the Whitewater crowd. But little of the controversy over his visit centered on that subject, and Churchill seemingly recognized as much, deciding to devote the majority of his speech to the essay that sparked a national debate relating to free speech and academic freedom.
“I have an almost impossible assignment tonight,” Churchill acknowledged in explaining the need to stray from his scheduled speaking topic.
Churchill immediately lashed out at media coverage of his essay, in which he condemns American foreign policy and compares Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi official, saying he did not advocate the terrorist attacks.
“I never anywhere in that essay use the word ‘justify,’” he said. “I didn’t justify anything. I spoke to a phenomenon that I believe to be natural and inevitable.”
The attacks, Churchill said, were the result of the United States’ long-term abuse of third-world countries coupled with a flagrant disregard for standards of international law. He listed, among other incidents, the bombing of Baghdad, the U.S. invasion of Grenada and policy directed toward Palestine.
The United States has still not learned its lesson, Churchill said, citing Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez’s memo questioning the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to the United States.
Through all this, the American public has turned its collective back, Churchill asserted.
“The American public as a whole has taken upon itself such a divine entitlement that these things can go on … ultimately with absolute impunity,” Churchill said.
“I understand there’s a prayer vigil going on [with] lit candles out there,” Churchill said of a Republican rally outside the auditorium, adding sarcastically: “I’m sure it’s for the Iraqi children.”
Churchill asserted citizens will ultimately be responsible to stop the government from acting with such reckless behavior.
“The citizens of the United States are going to have to be the enforcing entity — you’re going to have to get your government on a leash,” he said.
Addressing the most controversial portion of his essay, Churchill said his comparison of the workers in the World Trade Center to Nazi official Adolf Eichmann has been repeatedly misrepresented.
Although Eichmann did not directly kill prisoners in German concentration camps, he was responsible for the structures’ daily operations. According to Churchill, the WTC workers acted in the same way — they merely ensured America’s profit-maximizing, capitalistic hegemony remained a well-oiled machine.
Toward the end of his nearly hour-and-a-half-long presentation, Churchill confronted widespread claims in the media disputing his Native American heritage. Churchill, who has repeatedly contended to be Native American despite a lack of evidence, acknowledged his native blood does not run deep but insisted he is of Cherokee descent.
The largely supportive crowd of students applauded at several points throughout the presentation. Outside the auditorium, a large police presence ensured Churchill’s speech, which had been canceled at other schools due to safety concerns, proceeded without incident.
“My concern was that there was nothing endangering students,” UW-Whitewater Associate Vice Chancellor Roger Pulliam said afterward. “I’m happy to see it end safely.”
Rallies outside auditorium
Before the speech, students and legislators from both sides of the Churchill debate gathered to emphasize their views while braving a chilling cold. Emerging from what began as a quiet afternoon in the small town, students quickly turned Highway 12 into an active demonstration area.
College Democrats and College Republicans put on rallies a mere block apart from each other, with both groups holding signs and yelling cheers as honking trucks and cars passed by Whitewater’s main thoroughfare.
According to UW-Whitewater senior and College Democrat Patrick Singer, students did not necessarily agree with Churchill’s comments but did not want to deny the professor the opportunity to speak.
“Basically we wanted to support the university,” Singer said.
Other students emphasized the benefit of Churchill’s lecture as a major bonus for the university at the national level.
UW-Whitewater College Democrat social chair Paul Anderson said part of the reason he attended the rally was to help the university get exposure.
“It’s really great for the university,” Anderson said. “What else can we ask for? We’re getting national press.”
While the small group of College Democrats and a few other non-student demonstrators supported Churchill, a significantly larger group of students and community members gathered to protest the visit and remember the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
WTMJ-Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes; chairman of the Walworth County Republican Party Tyler August; State Reps. Robin Vos, R-Racine, and Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, all delivered speeches as the 200-person crowd held a candlelight vigil.
Nass targeted Churchill’s more-recent dilemmas, including the question of his Native American heritage and scholarly credentials.
According to Nass, Churchill should never have been allowed on campus.
“The American Indian Movement has called Churchill an Indian fraud and an academic fraud,” Nass said. “Common sense, unfortunately, was assassinated during this particular decision.”
However, Anderson pointed out Churchill has been a Native American activist for quite some time and has significant knowledge of Native American culture. Still, Anderson believed if Churchill was guilty of academic fraud, action should be taken.
“If he’s an academic fraud, they should ban his tenure,” Anderson said. “But why is this coming up now? Why didn’t they do it when they were doing the tenure review?”
According to Sykes, supporters gathered in order to stand up against Churchill’s “hate speech.”
“With free speech comes a responsibility: the responsibility to speak back, to reject the kind of bigotry and hate Ward Churchill has brought to this community,” Sykes said.
Vos disagreed with the pertinence of free speech with regard to Churchill, saying it is “alive and well in America and it has nothing to do with Ward Churchill.” Vos added free speech is “alive because of the men and women who have died overseas.”
Sykes read a letter from Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Mark Green, who could not attend the event.
“Your message is so much louder, so much more clean than any vitriolic and irrational statement that Ward Churchill could ever make,” Green wrote in the letter.
IP hash: 97c10822
I’d boycott any of Churchill’s lectures simply because he is nothing more than a thoughtless loose cannon who only wants to provoke as many people as he can. None of his ideas could possibly be taken seriously…well, maybe some looneytune who still lives in his parents’ basement, but certainly not me.
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Churchill states that the US has to understand cause and effect. We have troops in the Muslim holy land (Saudi Arabia) and prop up regimes and dictators when it benefits us. On the other hand we slaughter thousands of Iraqi and send Americans to die or be maimed if that benefits us.
Anyone who has benefited from the stock market is most likely connected with corporations that have exploited these relationships of the US gov’t.
Some people, Republicans and Democrats alike, don’t want to hear the truth.
No one “likes” the terrorists. At least not any reasonable person, but what makes more sense? That these individuals were made mad enough to kill over our occupation and support or that they hate freedom after looked at the Bill of Rights and saying “Freedom of the Press? No way! We are going to go kill some Americans”.
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Everyone should just ignore Churchill. He’s quite stupid, and seeks attention. Complaining about him just plays into his hand. Some ideas are too stupid to even justify with a response. For instance, the comment directly above this one.
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The question is do we really know who Ward Churchill is?
Craig Silverman a liberal Democrat who voted for Kerry and Dan Caplis a registered Republican who voted for Bush are leading the bi-partisan effort here in Colorado to have Ward Churchill removed from his post as professor at the Univ. of Colorado. Dan and Craig have covered this topic daily on their radio show from 3pm to 7pm on KHOW 630am here in Denver.
Dan and Craig are graduates of the University of Colorado Law school. Dan was twice CU class president.
===
Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman played this audio from a Ward Churchill speech in August 2003 in Seattle where Churchill advises a follower how to commit a terrorist act in either downtown Seattle or on Wall Street in New York.
Here are the links: (Windows media player)
Churchill on Tape Teaching Terrorism
Churchill teaching terrorism (Seattle, WA or Wall Street in NYC) http://www.startcolorado.com/iac/KHOW-AM/churchill-110.wma
Churchill refers to 9-11 and asks audience, “Why did it take Arabs to do what people here should have been done a long time ago?” http://www.startcolorado.com/iac/KHOW-AM/churchill-114.wma
Churchill says, “Right on!” to 911 http://www.startcolorado.com/iac/KHOW-AM/churchill-117.wma
Churchill brags about damaging state property http://www.startcolorado.com/iac/KHOW-AM/churchill-118.wma
The transcripts at Michelle Malkin’s website: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001588.htm
Churchill and follower talk dirty bomb and Tim McVeigh http://www.startcolorado.com/iac/KHOW-AM/churchill-125.wma
Churchill advocating violence is a theme that is consistent in his speaking engagements that can be found on-line from 1999 through 2004.
===
The documents - Ward Churchill Claimed American Indian Heritage When He Joined the Faculty at CU
630 KHOW afternoon show hosts Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman have obtained numerous University of Colorado documents regarding Professor Ward Churchill through a freedom of information request.
The documents show that Churchill filled out an Affirmative Action form claiming American Indian heritage when he applied for a job as an Associate Professor. The record shows only two people were interviewed for the job and that both were American Indian.
In addition, Churchill claims Creek/ Cherokee heritage on his resume.
Churchill has claimed he is three-sixteenths Cherokee but has never provided any documentation to support the claim. A Rocky Mountain News investigation into Churchill's family tree failed to find any Native American relatives. The National American Indian Movement has accused Churchill of being an Indian fraud.
http://www.khow.com/img/churchill-affac-1.gif http://www.khow.com/img/churchill-affac-2.gif http://www.khow.com/img/churchill-affac-3.gif http://www.khow.com/img/churchill-resume.gif
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Another bizarre turn in the Churchill saga: Art fraud
Ward Churchill copies another artists work and sells them as his own originals.
http://news4colorado.com/topstories/localstory055200531.html
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001596.htm
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National AIM (American Indian Movement) statement on Ward Churchill
http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/churchill05.html
===
Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman make the case against Ward Churchill in a full page as run in the Boulder Daily Camera (March 2nd, 2005):
View full page ad here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1353956/posts
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For the even more info please visit the Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman web site at KHOW including links to Churchill academic fraud, spitting on a native American grandmother, praising the Oklahoma City bombing in class (giving a straight A student a D minus for challenging him on this), etc.
http://www.khow.com/hosts/caplis-silverman.html
Rocky Mountain News Ward Churchill archive so far:
http://cfapp.rockymountainnews.com/archive/archive.cfm?section=news&include=ward_churchill
Please forward this info to other faculty members and all of your students.
thanks,
Tony from Boulder, Colorado
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Its not free speech if you only allow what you like to hear.
I don’t care about the guy’s background, I am sure he is probably a loon- there is a probably reason that other profs are not sticking up for him and it’s not becasue they are all scared.
However, focusing on his background is another conservative trick. (Remember the Rather memos? They focus on the non-story to distract from the message) What is important is his message: The US needs to examine its role in the world and desgin foreign policies that will ensure its safety.
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“What is important is his message: The US needs to examine its role in the world and desgin foreign policies that will ensure its safety.”
That is a pretty soft version of his message to say the least. I would say it is a just plain inaccurate version.
Have you ever noticed that if someone said more minorities need to die it would be hate speech. For some reason when he just says more americans need to die it is free speech.
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I think it’s disgusting that any UW school would allow Churchill to speak. He has no credentials and furthermore is a disgrace to the Native American heritage. The fact that the group who brought him in as a speaker wouldn’t comment shows the lack of thinking on their part. You can claim freedom of speech, but what about common sense? Sure that man can say anything he wants, but why give him a podium from which to spout idiocy to a group of easily immpressionable college students?
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"It's really great for the university," Anderson said. "What else can we ask for? We're getting national press."
Is that really the kind of press that is good for the univeristy? When applications and donations are down at boulder after this all came about… this is the kind of press you want? interesting
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Ward Churchill has spoken. His 1st amendment rights are not the question. The content of his speeches, writings and art work are open to scrutiny. This is what he rails against.
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Wow, every one of the above posters is a fascist. Those are the only people who oppose free speech on a regular basis. So, while Churchill may be a crank, he has no right to speak? THat makes you all Nazis. Pure and simple. You’re all a bunch of hypocritical assholes.
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There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech.
How many of the Churchill supporters would support a KKK or neo-Nazi speech?
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Ward Churchill is living proof that hippies only get senile in their old age. Their followers are living proof that even the senile have a profound influence over others. All it takes is one idiot to follower and you have a cult. Kinda scary, eh?
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The issue is not whether Churchill should be allowed to speak. It is whether a reputable university should INVITE him to speak, and use taxpayer funds to pay for his speech. Universities should also consider how it is that someone like Churchill could ever have been given tenure in the first place. Most likely it is becase such mindless savages are a dime a dozen in ethnic studies departments.
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They should all be allowed to speek. “Hate speech” is just as protected (actually it’s more protected) as any other speech. Contrary to the above commenter there is not “free speech and hate speech.” There is just speech. The KKK has as much right to set up a soap box and hand out leaflets as Churchill does. Whitewater was correct not to back out of their contractual obligation. Coloradr is stuck with him due to tenure and academic freedom. But he’s still an idiot.
Also, fascists are not the only people who engage in censorship. Don’t forget communists and socialists, and religious zealots. Of course they’re all different sides of the same coin.
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No Taxpayer Dollars were used to pay for this event. However, nearly $100,000 in taxpayer dollars WERE wasted by Steve Nass and his thugs at the State Capital as they held up the state legislature for nearly 2 hours with his bigoted resolution against the University. Further proof that Republicans spend like drunken sailors
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The same principle applies to student fees. Refusing to waste student fees on nutcases like Churchill is NOT censorship. It’s embarassing even to have to point that out.
As for the legislature, it has the job of determining whether taxpayer money is being well spent. Legislators would be negligent if they habitually let it be spent on the Ward Churchills of the world. Of course there is the danger that governments will abuse that authority, but it’s a danger that occurs whenever you violate the separation of school and state.
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Commenting on an above post, i would most certainly let a KKK or neo nazi speak. Just because I don’t agree with their insane ideas doesn’t mean they don’t have a first amedment right. If you just ignore something that you consider hate speech then they will just look like a bunch of idiots speaking to an empty crowd. Don’t give them the publicity of a protest and they have nothing.
Furthermore I think it’s a shame that Churchill used the loaded nazi term because it makes him very easy to dismiss. The fact remains that if you take out that poor choice of words his argument isn’t totally without merit. Yes he probably shouldn’t have used those specific words. But just for a second consider the structure behind the thoughts.
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Ward Churchill is entitled to speak. He is NOT entitled to receive money or platform for his speech. Once public property or money are involved, the whole thing is a matter of public debate, not censorship.
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If america sucks so bad, whey doesn’t he just leave? I’m sure Canada would love to have him.
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Lizzy Lanche is absolutely correct in her comments. Of course this fool should be allowed to speak, but that doesn’t mean a public institution should pay him. Particulary now that everyone is entirely clear on his idiotic views.
Regarding the publicity of UW-Whitewater, is their intention to increase their out of state enrollment from 1% to 2%? We are talking about a community college here folks.
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Money that comes out of the same fund that went to pay Churchill also goes to pay for athletics, and I would much rather my student fees go to bring in a person academic credentials. And whether I agree with Ward Churchill he has a lot more to do with academia then our CC team or the basketball team at Whitewater. Whitewater isn’t a community college it has over 10,000 students enrolled.
Pual Anderson UW-Whitewater
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One of the benefits of attending a large university is that you are given access to hear famous and influencial speakers. These people got this way most likely because of a debatable stance on something. Whether its Churchill talking about 9/11 or Rushdie talking about the muslim religion and literature. The point is that I want my university to keep choosing dynamic and controversial speakers to come to my school. If everyone on campus had to agree on who talks and who doesn’t it would make for a very stale environment. If I have to deal with a fool like Churchill in order to be able to hear people like Rushdie speak then so be it. I don’t want universities to shy away from controversy when choosing guest speakers. For sure there will be people who I disagree with, but when they come to town I will just choose to not watch them. But there are plenty of controversial and smart people that I would love to hear talk, and it would be a shame if a university was scared of what might happen if they brought them to campus.
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quick question, how many people have actually read the full text of the paper which calls the victims “little eichmanns?”
he doesn’t straight out call dead people nazis, he instead makes a case that workers in the WTC during any period of time were cogs in a military-industrial machine that has oppressed people, overthrown governments (not just afghanistan and iraq), fueled wars, and been responsible for the suffering of millions of people worldwide.
as for his advocacy of violence, i don’t believe in taking part in that, but i do agree that it is more effective than marches. look at africa or south america, people don’t march to the capitol or write letters to government, because that’s ineffective; instead they have coups, and look at how significant the change is. even here, you really have to break shit before people start to take notice. some riots (in response to something, not just drunken mischief like halloween here) are a powerful political statement, think about the rodney king riots. while i don’t agree with the means in which al-qaida attacked, i really think you have to be stupid or just ignorant to be surprised that someone might actually shoot back when you shoot at them.
and i also like the art fraud claim backed up only by a michelle malkin blog post. whether or not he did that, you have to take into account the source, which is an asian american woman who defends the use of internment camps during WWII and advocates their use now with arab-americans, and also claimed that john kerry’s war wounds were all self-inflicted. she does have the right to say that.
but where is the line between “crackpot” and “making good points.” i think it is in the development of the argument. i could say things like “george bush is a pedophile,” and while i can say that as loudly as i want, it doesn’t mean it’s a valid statement. but if i were to lay out an academic paper about how cheney secretly supports gay marriage, and cite outside material, i think that you could still disagree, and i could still be wrong, but there is less ground to call me insane based on one idea, if the whole argument is valid (not necessarily correct).
so i urge all of you to read the entire paper, and try to debunk it based on his arguments. instead of telling him to get the fuck out of america because he hates america, or calling him anti-american because he doesn’t respect the innocent, look at his entire argument, because he pretty much explains his reasoning for comparing them to adolf eichmann.
you’re all in college, so look at this from an academic viewpoint.
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I agree, with the above statement. Sure, Churchill’s statements may be classified as hate speech, but we as Americans and academics should not be ignorant by not allowing him to speak. As far as taxpayers’ money goes, I’d have to say it was well-spent. This is what a university is all-about, the expression and spread of ideas regardless of how controversial or cracked-out. It is not up to legislators like Steven Nass or Robin Vos, nor is it up to radio hosts like Charlie Sykes. This is about what a university is. Ward Churchill was brought in to speak about Native American rights, he may not have done this, but that does not refute his expertise on the subject. These are his credentials. Let Colorado do what they will, they were too stupid to pick up on something like this early on.
I support allowing Ward Churchill to speak, I support the use of taxpayers’ money (which I actually think is false, didn’t Miller say no state funds would be used?), I do not think Ward Churchill did not pronounce what he was trying to say clearly. You’d be a fool to not recognize that terrorism is a reflex/irrational reaction to bad American foreign policy. Churchill’s remarks were too radical to keep people focused on what he was trying to say.
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Clarification on above post: I do not think Ward Churchill presented his idea clearly.
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If Ward Connely (anti-affirmative action) came back to UW-Madison, would the conservatives who dominate the online Herald still be protesting merit and limiting freedom of speech?
Would liberals still be saying everybody should have freedom of speech?
I think both sides act like idiots. That’s why I voted for Kodos.
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” art fraud claim “
Look at the originals of the stuff he copied - there is no doubt he’s a fraud.
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Someone created an overlayed a mirror image of Churchill’s “work” onto the painting that he copied. See the results:
http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/.Pictures/Ward-animated.gif
Just one more way in which Churchill is a fraud.
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So Lizzy, is there is a reason you have so much time on your hands? Maybe you ought to put more time into school or into looking for a good job.
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As long as you are spending so much time here lizzy you should at least get your facts right. It is simply not true that tax payer money was used, yet you kept harping on that claim.
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So Churchill is 3/16 Native American and he’s an authority on them?
Please.
He has every right to say what he wants to say. His message and claims of Native “heritage” speak enough about what kind of guy he is.
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“…because he pretty much explains his reasoning for comparing them to adolf eichmann.”
His reasoning would have supported the execution of ALL the Germans after WW II.
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Lizzy, shut up, you are so damn annoying.
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Ward Churchill has every right to make a pompous ass of himself. If pompous asses were stifled by censorship, then we would never know just who they were until it was too late. Remember, idiots had a hand in the history of the world too. The less there are, the better off we’ll be in the long run.
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Yes, let’s keep the focus on Churchill’s actual argument, rather than the dimwitted charges of censorship against his opponents.
Churchill says that the traders in the World Trade Center were like “little Eichmanns”, since by pursuing their own careers, they helped prop up the American hegemon. As Ann Althouse points out, that condemnation could apply to anybody who works for a living. But that’s not even the worst of it. Churchill simply assumes that supporting America makes you evil - just like supporting Nazi Germany. The United States took down the totalitarian butchers of communism, freeing hundreds of millions of people. It’s the same country that is now taking on the Islamofascists, and preventing them from imposing a Dark Ages theocracy. Yes, that is the country that Churchill believes is pretty much like Nazi Germany. No wonder the enemies of Western Civilization are so eager to defend him.
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www.hookahuniversity.net for wholesale hookah products
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Yeah, and in Nazi germany one of the first things to go was freedom of speech. Certainly no one here would agrue for that…oh, wait.
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More on Churchill’s views.
He says that he doesn’t support terrorist attacks. I don’t believe him. Here’s part of the State Journal:
“To lessen hostility toward the United States around the globe, he said, every American needs to engage in ‘some direct confrontation with power,’ and thus compel the government to follow appropriate international law ‘BY WHATEVER MEANS ULTIMATELY ARE REQUIRED TO BE EFFECTIVE.’” [emphasis added]
I’m sure that the Sterling Hall bombers would have known exactly what he meant by that.
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Yes, yes, yes. We know he’s crazy. But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t talk. Don’t take away free speech just because you disagree with the message. It’s that simple. Letting the Nazis or KKK have their rally is the epitome of free speech. Burning a flag is a huge part of free speech. When we all have the right to speak, it’s hoped that the Truth will be easier to see.
Remember that whole sifting and winnowing thing? It’s true! Don’t stop that process.
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This must have been the most exciting thing in Whitewater in decades.
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If we let George W. Bush say stupid and offensive things, then we also need to let Ward Churchil say stupid and offensive things.