CNN: Prof Churchill falsified, plagiarized research

BOULDER, Colorado (AP) -- An investigation of a professor who likened some of the September 11 victims to a Nazi found serious cases of misconduct in his academic research, including plagiarism and fabrications, a University of Colorado spokesman said Tuesday.

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Churchill, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, said the report was contradictory and in some cases false.

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http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/16/professor.ap/index.html

Looks like they are not only railroading him but, his wife as well. I like how CNN reports on his statement against the report, making it seem like "Well, they got me on SOME things, but, not all! And its contradictory too!" I think they wanted to just wait until the firestorm around him died down, show that they support their version of academic freedom, and then give him the boot. Really classy on their part. His wife resigns, obviously under pressure from her department, and they are just licking their chops to get Churchill out the door.

~Almost

But I don't think he said it very well. He certainly hasn't been very successful is advancing any agenda, positive or otherwise.

So I guess that's an inaccuracy on his part.

I mean, unless someone is forced to PLAY Nazi or something.

But no way can a fascist be a victim.

Think, "Night of the Long Knives", those fascists were victims of their own leadership. What Churchill was saying is that much of the misery in poor, third-world countries came from the machinations and greed of the people who were working in the WTC. I don't think he was saying that that justified what happened, he was saying that that was the rationale behind the attacks. The "terrorists" were striking against people they saw as the equivalent of Nazis. A sort of "live by the sword, die by the sword" thing...

Excuse me? I guess this is some kind of weak and frankly, stupid attempt to condemn capitalism? The guy seems to be a poster boy for what's wrong with what I'll call the "loony left."

You either accept the responsibility for what has gone on in your name or you don't. It is all a matter of degrees as almost everything is. Capitalism is an extremely flawed system. It works very well for the rich and privileged, and not very well for everyone else. Churchill made his statement in the context of a much larger critique; you'd really have to read it all to know what is being talked about...

Everyone knows it has flaws. That's true just on general principles. Also, no one has posted the whole critique. We're all replying to the comparison of those lost lives with facists who lost their lives due to their own leadership. That to me sounds like just another way of blaming the United States for what bin Laden did. I am sure and certain that the policies of this country over time have contributed to the circumstances that breed the kind of hatred we saw on 9/11. But please, don't try to sell me on the idea that the people who lost their lives are guilty merely by having gone to work that day. If that's your meaning, or his, then yall can go fuck yourselves.

:hi:

:sarcasm:

Here's a link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eugene-volokh/ward-churchill_b_21132.html

on edit:

Media summary of investigative committee findings
http://www.colorado.edu/news/reports/churchill/download/ChurchillRe...


Report of investigative committee findings
http://www.colorado.edu/news/reports/churchill/download/WardChurchi...

If it is indeed true that he actually cited himself, ghostwriting under someone else's name as a source, I would have to say dismissal may well be appropriate. I say this with a big "if", it seems that he would have been working with the author to create the article / contribution, so, he may well have taken their thoughts and ideas and simply put them into writing. I just don't know.

However, if the report is accurate, if indeed he did cite articles he wrote as reference sources (talk about a perfect source!), and if he did plagerize, then he doesn't deserve to be a member of academia. His points are still totally valid, his ideas are solid, but, I can't support him at an institution of learning if he does things that get students tossed unceremoniously. Time for him to hit the lecturing circuit!

If the charges are true, and in my opinion they're compelling (but I've been wrong before so they may not be), then he shouldn't be teaching and he should hit the lecture tour. It doesn't mean everything he says is false -- far from it. But he shouldn't be teaching.

In addition: He might find hitting the lecture tour more rewarding, less inhibited and more profitable.

Although, I grant it is different when an academic does it.

when you examine the evidence it looks like Churchill did exactly what he's being accused of.

I hope Churchill is never heard from again. He is pompous, arrogant and embodies most American negative stereotypes of liberals.

they've been acting like political appointees at re-appointment time: lots of finger-pointing, blame-gaming and "Shocked! Shocked, I tell you!!" coming out of the uni's spin team. (Not just on this -- UC Boulder is in about 8 different pots of hot water. This is just the only one that won't cost them lots MORE money to fix.)

Yeah, Boulder has a share of liberal leftie loonies, but being a liberal leftie loonie is not a good reason to fire someone, and investigating someone because he's a liberal leftie loonie who made statements people didn't like isn't good academics, either. The speech that is most offensive to us is the speech we have to work hardest to protect. As for academics, I'm still wading through the report. So far, it's looking pretty vague and dithering.

(I've met the man at some staff and faculty events. Meh. There are worse folken on campus. Believe me, there are others who need to pass out in Boulder Creek ahead of him.)

At least he had that going for him for awhile.

The Gov and a majority of congress critters have been critical of Churchill, and have made it quietly known that funding increases are on the state's chopping block. And the Uni's got student problems, civil rights problems, rape problems, an athletic financial problem...

This is an easy problem to "make go away" compared to some of the other crap they've stepped in.

As for plagiarism, that's a tough one. Anyone who reads widely will end up with borrowed phrases and ideas because phrases and ideas are memes, and successful ones reproduce. I'd bet that if we looked at any professor's body of work with the fine eye towards incrimination, we'd be able to find seven instances in a couple million published words. But we don't look that hard unless we (as a species) have an axe to grind. Skimming the text of the big document, their definition of misrepresentation, falsification and fabrication may be overbroad (i.e. interpreting an ambiguous idea from another scholar as supporting one historical theory or another, when in fact the author meant something else; restating historical actualities to accurately reflect the effect they had rather than the language of the reporting of the event and collaborating on sources that he later used to support his own work). If he did ghostwrite the articles that he is accused of ghostwriting, then there are two more academics who need to be investigated, since that kind of academic dishonesty may in fact be worse than just ghostwriting.

After checking names on the 5 member panel... three of them are at UC Boulder, so they're being materially affected by the controversy and may not be able to be impartial. That worries me.

However, the committee does admit that they're skeptical that several of the charges were only pushed after politics came into it. (The academic community knew about the difference of opinions on calling White/First Peoples contacts genocide and about some documentation errors.) And the uni knew he was a stemwinder when they hired him, so they can't say they weren't seeking to cash in on his notoriety as an AIM leader.

It's awfully convenient, is all I can really say. The uni has a tendency to shuffle about its more difficult troublemakers, especially those that make the AP wire. The fact that Churchill is defending himself makes him a bigger target than if he'd just said "yeah, I screwed up my references. Let me publish a correction." Had he done the latter (and the latter would have been pretty much ignored) the Uni would not have wasted as much time and gotten as much controversial ink. And the civil rights, drugs and rape issues would be less important, because the national wire wouldn't already be on campus. But NO... Churchill and UCBoulder had to stretch it out....

I think they all need to take a long vacation in reality, but there's a reason I'm not a student anymore and won't be going back to UC Boulder for my future coursework.

My take is that had Churchill not been sloppy about leaving the "little Eichmann" crap on the web, he never would have gotten into this in the first place.

It was sloppy scholarship. That made him the perfect political target.

The rest is politics.

that they'd rather not be judged upon. The web just doesn't go away. We can all be sloppy, but archives are forever. Even had he pulled the offending piece, the archive of it would still be there, and the fact that he pulled it would be just as incriminating as leaving it up. Pretty much damned if he did, damned if he didn't.

It was an intentionally inflammatory comment, but compared to some of the econ (Marxist or Voodoo), phil and history prof comments that haven't been investigated...

I still think it's about money and reputation. Churchill is the only problem on the CU plate right now that can be made to go away without costing the university more money. The rapes, the athletes, the culture of alcohol, the civil liberties violations... all of those are going to cost them to settle. But they're hoping that Churchill will just shut up and go away out of disgust. But like the rest of their problems, it's going to blow up in their faces before it's done.

doesn't it? Before you make yourself a target, ensure that nothing can come back and bite you in the ass- I'm not talking about little things, but in a world with a photographic memory, this type of thing will almost always come out.

in as much it provides a reasonably concise history of American overseas policy, and some internal policy aspects as well, back to the year dot. If nothing else it should help your children learn that which they were denied access , as a matter of educational policy , in modern history at school.

The book was not presented as being scientific research and so if it contained some mis-statements, without creating historic events which simply did not occur ,then so what.

...Churchill engaged in scholary misconduct that would get an undergrad tossed out of school.

Students who plagiarize are rarely booted these days. I wish it weren't true, but it is.

He cited articles ghost written by himself in order to give the impression that he had independent sources for his theories. That is a serious breach of research ethics.

Whether or not he broke the established academia rules, I respect him tremendously for his outlook and outspokenness.

Go away, Ward.

The only embarrassment is for those who stridently defended a fraud because he said things they agreed with.

He some kind of ultra left-wing crackpot who's spent a lot of time bashing the Democratic party as well as the nation.

But he did smoke Horowitz like a cheap cigar. I never had much of an opnion of him unti lhis infamous comments, but he knows how to debate.

I mean, I read the damn thing, all of it, and if that's all they could come up with, I'm not sure what the fuss is all about. At a minimum I want to hear what he has to say in his defense.

.. Churchill said the committee's findings were false. "They're proceeding on the basis of incomplete data. If you look at the report it's internally self-contradictory. They say one thing on one page and accuse me of the opposite on the next," said Churchill ..

Churchill's attorney, David Lane, said if CU does fire the professor, they plan to take the case to federal court ..

Governor Bill Owens (R-Colorado), who has made it clear he wants Churchill fired, reacted to the panel's report, telling 9NEWS "I think the university is dealing with it appropriately. I think the committee has found unanimously that Ward Churchill has lied and cheated, in essence stolen and on a spilt vote has voted to remove him from office. I think it's appropriate and the sooner the better."

In response, Churchill said, "I will return the compliment. I will accept Bill Owens' resignation anytime he wishes to tender it" ..

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=406e35d1-0abe-421a-0179-032549443fa5&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

5/17/2006, 6:44 p.m. ET
By DAN ELLIOTT
The Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — Research misconduct investigations like the one roiling the University of Colorado are rare nationwide, and the case against the Colorado professor .. is only the third at the school since 1992, experts said Wednesday ..

The university ordered the investigation after concluding he could not be fired over those remarks. The research investigation did not include that 2001 essay.

University spokesman Barrie Hartman said the most recent previous research inquiry at CU was in 2003, and a faculty committee dropped the case after deciding it did not warrant a full investigation.

A 1992 case did get a full investigation, but a faculty panel concluded there was no misconduct. Hartman declined to release any details of the cases, citing personnel privacy considerations ..

http://www.silive.com/newsflash/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-17/1147900466150640.xml&storylist=simetro

Without taking a stand on the research issue, I find it interesting that the school declines to discuss other cases ('citing personnel privacy considerations') but promptly released the report on Churchill ..

A lot of public universities have some sort of academic self-governance. They're self-policing.

No academic wants to take valuable time to sit on a committee; no academic wants to ponder another academic's faults, lest he fall victim to it. Just labelling it 'political' scares them: that a serious bit of academic dishonesty that should lead to censure is exposed or pushed because of politics doesn't alter the fact that a serious bit of academic dishonesty is exposed that should lead to censure. Some of them know full well that a syllogism that gives a true conclusion, even if based on completely spurious premises, is nonetheless a true syllogism. They just don't believe it.

The general wisdom at UCLA: Don't bring charges against a professor. The dept. will punish you for it, some legitimate grounds will be found to dispose of you, and the professors won't punish their own, anyway.

Self-policing. Unless you kick faculty in their butts, with an explicit "If you dont' get off your keister your nuts will be next," they simply can't be bothered with things like academic integrity or even, sigh, student welfare.

I think anyone who defends this man's statements is as much a lunatic as he is.

This guy is a joke and his fifteen minutes are up.

We love people that pretend they give a shit about the authenticity of Native Americans.

when it comes to the 'little eichmanns' comment. All he was saying is that people 'over there' identified people in the WTC with the system that was/is oppressing them. He wasn't justifying what happened. But why is it so hard to think that if somewhat lobbed a cruise missle into your village and killed your family you might grow up with a burning hatred of the entity behind the attack and plan a retaliation. I mean how would you retaliate against a 'state' particularly a democratic one that keeps harping about how great it is becaue all its citizens are represented in its actions!? I believe violent retaliation is wrong but one only has to watch any myriad of hollywood movies and see that revenge is celebrated to the high heavens. So it's a little rich to be so flabbergasted that some people would identify any american (and i know many in the WTC weren't) as a target. Vengeance is always wrong but if any one should at least have an understanding of it, it's an american citizen because they grew up on a cultural diet of it.