07/08/2009
In a remarkable victory for the University of Colorado (“CU”), former Ethnic Studies professor Ward Churchill’s prior apparent court victory over the University for wrongful termination was vacated by the trial judge. District Court Judge Larry J. Naves, in a detailed order (which you can view in pdf form here), not only refused to reinstate Churchill in his teaching position but also refused to award him any monetary damages.
While Ward Churchill’s lawyers will certainly appeal, Naves’ order seems all but bullet-proof, as he is not simply overruling April’s jury verdict but rather vacating it “as a matter of law” based on the fact that the Regents of the University of Colorado were functioning in a “quasi-judicial” manner and therefore have immunity from lawsuit against their actions.
It is infrequent for the firing of a college professor to make national news, but Churchill was a nationally known self-promoting fraud who attempted to defend repeated academic misconduct (pdf) by arguing that the misconduct was a side issue and that he was actually fired for an essay he wrote comparing victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center to “little Eichmanns.”
It is likely that Churchill’s repeated plagiarism (not just of writing, but also of at least one painting) might not have been uncovered had people not started researching him after his hateful comments. And it may be true that without his essay we may never have learned that Churchill is almost certainly lying about the Cherokee heritage he claimed to qualify for the academic position he took away from a true Native American. Nevertheless, the University went through a painful and public process of hearings which focused only on issues of academic misconduct, finding repeated serious violations, and terminating him after following their process to the letter.
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Ward Churchill Verdict Vacated by Trial Judge - HUMAN EVENTS
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