Ward Churchill has finally been fired from the University of Colorado, but Matt Drudge gets the reason wrong; his headline reads “Professor Ward Churchill Fired After 9-11 Remarks.”
No. Churchill was fired for being a pluperfect fraud and phony. Recall that an investigation into his academics yielded
falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, failure to comply with established standard regarding author names on publications, and a ?serious deviation from accepted practices in reporting results from research.”
Also, don’t forget, his self-professed “Native American” status was honorary, not genuine, as his supposed fellow tribal members made clear:
Mr. Churchill was never able to prove his eligibility in accordance with our membership laws, but was to be honored because of his promise to write our history, and his pledge to help and honor the UKB. To date, Churchill has done nothing in regards to his promise and pledge.
Update, 10:38 p.m. Perhaps I was too hasty to criticize Matt Drudge earlier ? the AP story on Churchill’s firing carries the headline “Colorado prof fired after 9-11 remarks,” even though the story proper makes it clear that his remarks had nothing to do with it:
Brown recommended in May that the regents fire Churchill after faculty committees accused him of misconduct in some of his academic writing. The allegations included misrepresenting the effects of federal laws on American Indians, fabricating evidence that the Army deliberately spread smallpox to Mandan Indians in 1837, and claiming the work of a Canadian environmental group as his own.
But the essay that thrust Churchill into the national spotlight, titled “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” was not part of the investigation.
Lest I be imprecise about it, the AP with this headline is deliberately promulgating a lie.
