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Ward LeRoy Churchill (born October 2, 1947) is an American writer, activist, and academic. He is a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and author of over twenty books and hundreds of essays. Churchill was widely discussed and criticized in the mass media during 2005, stimulated by publicity given to a 2001 essay in which Churchill questioned the innocence of many of the people killed in the World Trade Center attacks, labeling them as "technocrats" and "little Eichmanns."

Background

Early life and education

Churchill was born and grew up in a blue-collar family in Elmwood, Illinois. His parents, Maralyn and Jack Churchill, divorced while Ward was still a toddler. In March 1950, his mother married Henry Carlton Debo, an employee of Caterpillar in downstate Peoria, as a result of which Churchill has two half-brothers, Tom and Danny, and a half-sister, Terry. When he enrolled in Elmwood High School, Churchill went by the name Ward Debo, taking his stepfather's surname, but when he graduated in 1965, he was listed in his yearbook, the Ulmus, as Ward L. Churchill.

He was drafted by the U.S. Army and saw active service in the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1968. Military records through the Freedom of Information Act show he was trained as a projectionist and light truck driver. Radio host Bob Newman published these military records to dispute alleged 1987 claims by Churchill that he had served as a paratrooper trained in reconnaissance.Template:Inote Churchill later received his B.A. and M.A. in Communication from Sangamon State University, now the University of Illinois at Springfield.

In 1990, he joined the University of Colorado at Boulder as an assistant professor and was granted tenure the following year.

Writing

As a scholar, Churchill has written on Native American history and culture, and is particularly outspoken about the genocide inflicted on the indigenous peoples of North America by European settlers — repression that continues to this day.

In Fantasies of the Master Race (1992), Churchill examines the portrayal of Native Americans and the use of Native American symbols in popular American culture. He focuses on such phenomena as Tony Hillerman's mystery novels, the film Dances with Wolves, and the New Age movement, finding examples of cultural imperialism and exploitation. Churchill calls author Carlos Castaneda, who claims to reveal the teachings of a Yaqui Indian shaman, the "greatest hoax since Piltdown Man."

Churchill's Indians 'R' Us (1993), a sequel to Fantasies of the Master Race, further explores Native American issues in popular culture and politics. He examines the movie Black Robe, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation killings, Leonard Peltier, sports mascots, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, and blood quantum laws, calling them tools of genocide. Churchill is particularly outspoken about New Age exploitations of shamanism and Native American sacred traditions, and the "do-it-yourself Indianism" of certain contemporary authors.

Struggle For The Land (reissued 2002) is a collection of essays in which Churchill chronicles the U.S. government's systematic exploitation of native land and the killing or displacement of the Native Americans who once inhabited it. He details Indian efforts in the 19th and 20th centuries to prevent defoliation and industrial practices such as surface mining.

Churchill's A Little Matter of Genocide (1998) is a survey of ethnic cleansing from 1492 to the present. He compares the treatment of North American Indians to a number of genocides in history, such as those in Cambodia and Armenia, and those of the Gypsies, Poles, and Jews by the Nazis.

In Perversions of Justice (2002), Churchill argues that the U.S. legal system was adapted to gain control over Native American people. Tracing the evolution of federal Indian law, Churchill argues that the principles set forth were not only applied to non-Indians in the U.S., but later adapted for application abroad. He concludes that this demonstrates the development of America's "imperial logic," which depends on a "corrupt form of legalism" to establish colonial control and empire.

In Agents of Repression (1988), co-authored by Jim Vander Wall, the authors describe "the secret war" against the Black Panther Party and American Indian Movement carried out during the late 1960s and '70s by the FBI under the COINTELPRO program. The COINTELPRO Papers (reissued 2002), also with Jim Vander Wall, examines a series of original FBI memos that detail the Bureau's activities against various leftist groups, from the U.S. Communist Party in the 1950s to activists concerned with Central American issues in the 1980s.

Activism

Churchill has been active since at least 1984 as the co-director of the Denver-based American Indian Movement of Colorado, an autonomous chapter of the American Indian Movement. In 1993, he and other local AIM leaders—including Russell Means, Glen Morris, Bob Robideau, and David Hill—broke with the national AIM leadership, including Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt and Vernon Bellecourt, claiming that all AIM chapters are autonomous. The schism continues, with the AIM claiming that the local AIM leaders are tools of the government being used against Indians.

Churchill has been a leader of Colorado AIM's annual protests in Denver against the Columbus Day holiday and its associated parade. These protests have brought Colorado AIM's leadership into conflict with some leaders in the Denver Italian-American community, the main supporters of the parade. Churchill and others have been arrested while protesting for acts such as blocking the parade.

Initially, some local American Indian support and advocacy organizations in the Denver metro area believed that the activities of the Colorado AIM chapter damage the work of the Colorado Indian Commission and Denver Indian Center. This was back in the early 90's. Since then, thousands of local indians annually particpate in the protest.

In April 1983, Churchill traveled to Tripoli and Benghazi as a representative of the AIM and the International Indian Treaty Council to meet Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya while a U.S. travel ban to that country was in place. The visit was intended to seek support from al-Qaddafi regarding the U.S. government's violation of Indian treaties.

Artwork

Apart from his academic position and writing, since the 1970s, Churchill has attained a certain notoriety as a visual artist. Works by Churchill, such as lithographs, woodcuts, and drawings are fairly widely exhibited in galleries of the American Southwest, and to some degree elsewhere. As with the work "Winter Attack", discussed below, Churchill frequently takes as subject matter of visual compositions historical photographs or other past works, particularly ones associated with Native American figures. Screen prints and other signed works by Churchill are often available on eBay. The online journal Artnet mentions Churchill's artwork.

9/11 essay controversy

The essay

Churchill wrote an essay called "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" about the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which he argued that American foreign policies provoked the attacks, describing the "technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire" working in the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns."

Churchill argued that the impact on the population of Iraq of decade-long economic sanctions, together with the Middle East policies of President Lyndon Johnson, and the history of Crusades against the Islamic world, had contributed to a climate in which 9/11 was what he called a "natural and inevitable response."

The "roosting chickens" phrase comes from Malcolm X's comment about the assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy that Kennedy "never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon."

Churchill explained what he meant in a February 2005 interview with Democracy Now!:

If you want to avoid September 11s, if you want security in some actual form, then it's almost a biblical framing, you have to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. As long as you're doing what the U.S. is doing in the world, you can anticipate a natural and inevitable response of the sort that occurred on 9/11. If you don't get the message out of 9/11, you're going to have to change, first of all, your perception of the value of those others who are consigned to domains, semantic domains like collateral damage, then you've really got no complaint when the rules you've imposed come back on you.

In an allusion to Hannah Arendt's depiction of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann as an ordinary person promoting the activity of an evil system, Churchill referred to the "technocrats" working at the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns." He wrote:

As for those in the World Trade Center, well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire, the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved and they did so both willingly and knowingly.

He wrote that the victims were:

... too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.

Churchill compared the American people to the "good Germans" of Nazi Germany, claiming that the vast majority of Americans had ignored the civilian suffering caused by the sanctions on Iraq during the 1990s, which he characterized as a policy of genocide.

The essay was later expanded into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, which won Honorable Mention for the Gustavus Myer Human Rights Award in 2004.

Imbroglio

National attention was drawn to the essay in January 2005, when Churchill was invited to speak at Hamilton College as a member of a panel during a debate entitled "Limits of Dissent".

The text of the essay was quoted on the January 28, 2005 edition of the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor. Bill O'Reilly initiated a campaign against Churchill, imploring his viewers to e-mail the college to cancel Churchill's invitation. A flood of 6,000 e-mails resulted. In the ensuing uproar, the lecture was changed to a larger venue, but was ultimately cancelled by the college's president, Joan Stewart, because of what were called "credible threats of violence". Churchill has written that he received threats against his life as a consequence of the news coverage.

In response to what he called "grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks," Churchill clarified his views:

I am not a "defender" of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

He continued:

It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to justify target selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American "command and control infrastructure" in an ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade Center itself into a "legitimate" target. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than "collateral damage". If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these "standards" when they are routinely applied to other people, they should not be surprised when the same standards are applied to them.

On January 31, 2005, Churchill resigned as chairman of the Ethnic Studies department at the University of Colorado, but remains a tenured professor.

Colorado Republican governor Bill Owens and other state lawmakers publicly called for Churchill's dismissal. The Colorado House of Representatives unanimously adopted a resolution condemning Churchill's statements.

The Board of Regents of the University of Colorado, meeting in executive session on February 3 2005, adopted a resolution apologizing to the American people for Churchill's statements, and ratifying interim chancellor Phil DiStefano's review of Churchill's actions. DiStefano was directed to investigate whether Churchill had overstepped his bounds as a faculty member and whether his actions were cause for dismissal. The university's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct agreed that his words were protected by the university's academic free speech code, but agreed to investigate subsequent charges made against Churchill of plagiarism, falsification, fabrication and ethnic fraud (see below).

In response to the cancellation of Churchill's speech at Hamilton, Hawaiian Studies professor Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask invited him to speak at the University of Hawaii on February 22, 2005, where Churchill responded to his critics.

"Allegations of a new McCarthyism"

When Churchill's comparison of "technocrats" who died on 9/11 to a notorious Nazi was first widely publicized in early 2005, a media firestorm erupted, driven by Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly and other conservative pundits. A number of academics and activists on the left mounted a counter-offensive. One of Churchil's fellow professors in the Ethnic Studies department at the University of Colorado, Emma Perez, alleges that the attacks on Churchill are an organized "test case" by neo-conservatives to stifle liberal criticism of the War on Terror, and to undermine the funding of ethnic studies departments nationwide. . Campus Watch and many other organizations have similarly characterized the efforts to negatively characterize Churchill, and anyone who defends him, as a "witch hunt". For example,

Hoffman went on to express her support for academic freedom. She said she feared a "new McCarthyism" in the uproar over Ward Churchill, and added, "We are in dangerous times again," to the applause of the faculty.

This was enough. A cry arose for her to resign.

After all, this campaign against Ward Churchill has been endorsed and given official legitimacy by the governors of Colorado and New York and other elected officials at every level, from one end of the country to the other. It has been promoted by the prominent Republican strategist Newt Gingrich, by the editorial pages of many major newspapers, and by the screeching Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, and by the whole rightwing radio and TV talkshow circuit.

The conservative Denver newspaper, Rocky Mountain News has run numerous and ongoing articles alleging misconduct. Supporters of Churchill's academic free speech take the frequency, content and tone of these articles as evidence of Churchill's having become a political bête noire among Colorado conservatives. (see below Rocky Mountain News links).

In the spring of 2005, Ward Churchill won a teaching award, receiving 54 votes from the 2,085 students at the University of Colorado at Boulder who voted for its annual Teaching Recognition Award. The University of Colorado Alumni Association, which sponsors the award, announced that they would withhold the award from Churchill until the investigation on the charges that he committed research misconduct had been concluded. Given annually for 44 years, this is the first time the award was withheld from its winner.,

The University of Colorado has reaffirmed Churchill's right to academic free speech, and has declined to pursue any actions against him based on his controversial statements about the 9/11 victims.

Allegations against Churchill

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Following widespread reporting in 2005 on Ward Churchill's controversial essay "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" about the September 11, 2001 attacks, many allegations against Churchill became the subject of debate in the media and on Internet weblogs. In that essay, written in September 2001, Churchill argued that American foreign policies provoked the attacks, and described the "technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire" working in the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns". These disputes included questioning of his claim of partial Native American heritage, and allegations of academic fraud and plagiarism. University of Colorado administrators ordered an investigation, which is currently underway, into the allegations of research misconduct, which include plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification. He has also been accused of intimidating his colleagues, and has allegedly made remarks advocating that soldiers kill their commanding officers.

Questioned ethnicity

Churchill has said that he is less than one-quarter Indian , and that he was an associate member of the Keetoowah tribe. In an article in Socialism and Democracy magazine, he stated, "I am myself of Muscogee and Creek descent on my father's side, Cherokee on my mother's, and am an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians."

The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, on May 19, 2005, issued a Final Statement from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians Regarding Ward Churchill which indicates that he is not a current member of their tribe, but was formerly an honorary associate member:

Ward Churchill received an “Associate Membership” from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma (UKB) council in May, 1994. He was not eligible for tribal membership due to the fact that he does not possess a “Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood” (CDIB) which is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Interior / Bureau of Indian Affairs. Because Mr. Churchill had genealogical information regarding his alleged ancestry, and his willingness to assist the UKB in promoting the tribe and its causes, he was awarded an ‘Associate Membership’ as an honor. However, Mr. Churchill may possess eligibility status for Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, since he claims 1/16 Cherokee.

The Denver Post reported that a review of Churchill's matrilineal genealogy on Ancestry.com shows no evidence of Native American ancestry going back to his great-great-grandparents. Based on Census and Social Security Administration records all matrilineal ancestors of Ward Churchill are listed either as "White" or as "race unknown." The Rocky Mountain News did a similar a review of Churchill's family records and reached the conclusion that Churchill's claims of American Indian ancestry are not supported, writing that "an extensive genealogical search by the Rocky Mountain News identified 142 direct forebears of Churchill and turned up no evidence of a single Indian ancestor among them."

In an interview in The Rocky Mountain News, Churchill stated: "I have never been confirmed as having one-quarter blood, and never said I was. And even if (the critics) are absolutely right, what does that have to do with this issue? I have never claimed to be goddamned Sitting Bull".

It is not unusual for Americans who claim some Native American ancestry, but whose families live within the mainstream community, and who know their heritage only from family tradition, to encounter difficulty proving their claim to Indian ethnicity to the satisfaction of administrators of affirmative action programs. Many universities use membership in a recognized tribe as the legitimate marker of Indian identity for AA purposes.

Some members in the Native American community also question Churchill's claim of partial Indian heritage. Indian activist Suzan Shown Harjo indicated that Churchill could not name his family members that are enrolled in the Creek Tribe. Creek-Cherokee historian Robert W. Trepp did not find Churchill's family members on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation rolls. Dennis Banks a co-founder of the American Indian Movement, and opponent of the breakaway American Indian Movement of Colorado which Churchill and fellow AIM co-founder Russell Means founded, has stated that Churchill does not represent the American Indian Movement and is not an Indian.

Effects on career

Churchill's critics argue that his assertion of Native American ancestry without the ability to prove it might constitute misrepresentation and grounds for termination.

The University has stated in response that they do not hire on the basis of ethnicity:

iven the fact that equal opportunity is the law of the land and that positions in the public sector are to be awarded to all persons regardless of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and based only on their ability to do the job, the university does not believe that any attempt to remove Mr. Churchill because of his ethnicity or race would be appropriate.

Even if Mr. Churchill is not an American Indian, as he claims, Title VII protects Caucasians as well as persons of color. Further, it has always been university policy that a person's race or ethnicity is self-proving.

However, there is indication that Churchill's asserted ethnicity influenced his hiring. Communications chair Michael Pacanowsky, in an email on Jan. 10, 1991 wrote: "Ward's file was circulated to sociology and political science, and they did not agree to roster him in their departments. Because Ward's graduate degree, an MA, was in communications, we were contacted next." Pacanowsky characterizes Churchill's work as not being part of the "mainstream in our discipline," then argues that by appointing Churchill, the department would be "making our own contribution to increasing the cultural diversity on campus (Ward is a native American)." (Rocky Mountain News, Febrary 19, 2005)

The University of Colorado's Research Misconduct Committee conducted a preliminary investigation into whether Churchill misrepresented his ethnicity in order to "make his scholarship more widely accepted." However, the Committee declined to pursue ethnic fraud charges against Churchill, as such issues are not covered in the official definition of "research misconduct."

Claims of research misconduct

In February 2005, during the height of the media firestorm surrounding his "little Eichmans" comments, Churchill publicly challenged anyone to find fault with his scholarship. The media took up the challenge and a number of allegations of research misconduct were reported. Federal regulations that define "research misconduct" specify three types of misconduct: fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. Churchill is currently under investigation by CU for all three types of misconduct.

Was there a smallpox blanket genocide?

In several essays, Churchill argues that the U.S. Army deliberately distributed smallpox-infected blankets to the Mandan Indians in 1837 to spark a smallpox pandemic, and that hundreds of thousands of Indians died of smallbox as a consequence. Other scholars who have studied this episode agree that smallpox killed many Indians in this time frame, but deny that there is any evidence to support Churchill's allegations of deliberate genocide by means of smallpox blankets. They also charge Churchill with exaggerating the death toll and with falsifying the sources he cites in support of his claims.

In November 2004, Guenter Lewy, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, published an essay charging Churchill with misrepresenting his sources. Lewy says Churchill's assertion that the U.S. Army intentionally spread smallpox among American Indians by distributing infected blankets in 1837 is false. "He just makes things up," said Lewy. Lewy calls Churchill's claim of 100,000 deaths from the incident "obviously absurd".

In an article entitled "The Genocide That Wasn't: Ward Churchill's Research Fraud", sociology professor Thomas Brown also accused Churchill of fabricating the incident and falsifying his sources.

Of Churchill's cited sources, the two authors still living both reject Churchill's interpretation of their work. RG Robertson comments:

I believe history is history. Facts are facts. And trying to color them or change them I don't agree with. And I think that obviously, Churchill has his own agenda, although I don't know the man. I wonder whether or not he understands that Fort Clark was not a military post. That was a trading post. The military didn't have anything to do with it. The Indians were the trading company's customers...It made no more sense for them to want to kill their customers than for J.C. Penney to shoot people coming in the front door."

Another of Churchill's cited sources for his smallpox blanket genocide thesis—the Cherokee scholar Russell Thornton, who is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UCLA—has publicly objected to Churchill's citation of his book in support of the smallpox genocide hypothesis. Thornton characterized Churchill's claim that the U.S. Army perpetuated a smallbox blanket genocide against the Mandans as "out-and-out fabrication. It depends on how you want to look at it, but in one sense, it's just making up of data, and that kind of thing shouldn't be tolerated in scholarship or science."

Churchill called one of his critics--Professor Thomas Brown--"a snot-nosed punk,", and asked: “Is he a Zulu seven-footer ready to go out for the NBA or is he a dwarf? Can he walk? Nobody knows anything about Thomas Brown.”

Churchill continues to maintain that his description of events at Fort Clark is correct, and that he has new data that he did not cite in his first six versions:

"What happened at Fort Clark was far worse than I indicated. Far worse...And now I've got the documentation, the paper, to prove it. So next time I iterate it, it's going to be a much sharper finding on genocidal intent with Fort Clark."

George E. Tinker, a professor of American Indian cultures and religious traditions at the Iliff School of Theology, is critical of Brown's accusations:

not an expert on the period in question, the charges “don’t ring true to me.”

“Ward has written 24 books, always heavily annotated, and we all write stuff that can be challenged. That’s part of the academy,” said.

Tinker said that he has known Churchill for 20 years and found him to be “absolutely honest in every interaction.” He said that these new accusations are “an attempt at character assassination” and “part of the national right wing attempt to purge the university.”

The General Allotment Act

In two articles published in the 1990s, University of New Mexico law professor John LaVelle alleged that Churchill has repeatedly published false claims about the General Allotment Act, mistakenly attributing a "blood quantum" standard of Indianness to the Allotment Act. , Churchill acknowledges that the term "blood quantum" is not used in the General Allotment Act, but maintains that the term is an accurate summary of the what he describes as the eugenics component of the Act:

No, it doesn't say that word in the Dawes Act itself, the General Allotment Act per se You look at it as a whole, and every single thing I say about it is absolutely correct.

According to Churchill (as characterized by the News): blood-quantum standard through intermarriage, future generations of Indians would be of progressively less native blood, until they couldn't meet the legal standard and tribes would disappear altogether. (ibid) Churchill adds:

Ultimately, there is precious little difference, other than matters of style, between this and what was once called the "final solution to the Jewish problem." (Churchill, Indians Are Us? Culture and Genocide in Native North America.)

LaVelle agrees with Churchill that the Act represents a contemptible effort by Congress...to strip Indian tribes of all collectively held lands, force Indian people to assimilate into white society, and generally undermine the tribes' territorial sovereignty. However, LaVelle argues that Churchill has falsified the Act in order to support his eugenics charges. LaVelle notes that the Code of Federal Regulations gave tribes free reign to define their membership in any way they choose for the purposes of allotment, and that the tribes themselves have chosen to set blood quantum standards for membership. LaVelle argues that Churchill's attack on the tribes' standards constitutes an attack on tribal sovereignty. LaVelle complains that Churchill disguises his attack on tribal blood quantum standards by falsely attributing the source of those standards to the Allotment Act.,

According to LaVelle, Churchill has not responded directly to LaVelle's specific charges to explain in detail how the Act introduced a blood quantum. LaVelle went through Churchill's works essay by essay, and says that Churchill had not cited evidence for his claim that the Allotment Act imposed a blood-quantum standard: This lack of a supporting citation is explained by the fact that...the (Dawes Act) never contained any such federally imposed eligibility 'code' at all.

Churchill notes of LaVelle's academic reputation:

In academia, you measure the influence of your publications via what's called the "Citation Index," that is, a literal count of the number of times your material is cited by others. Neither of LaVelle's essays on the Allotment Act, the first of which came out in the American Indian Quarterly almost a decade ago, has ever been cited by an Indian legal scholar. Not once.

In contrast, Churchill observes of his own reputation:

Maybe it's appropriate to point out by way of contrast that I was, as of mid-2001, the most cited ethnic studies scholar in the country. I've not checked lately, but that's likely still true. My interpretation of the Allotment Act alone has been cited well over a hundred times, way more, if you add in the stuff I published under Jaimes' name and pseudonyms.

LaVelle states that part of his initial concern was that Churchill's claims about the Dawes Act—which LaVelle characterizes as a "hoax"—were "seeping" into the scholarly literature.

Plagiarism allegations

John LaVelle was also the first to publicly note that several of Churchill's essays share similarities with an earlier essay by Annette Jaimes, Churchill's ex-wife. Additional plagiarism allegations stem from portions of an essay Churchill published in 1993 that closely resemble a 1992 essay published by Rebecca L. Robbins. However,

LaVelle did not accuse Churchill of plagiarism, one of the most serious offenses in academia. On the contrary, LaVelle speculated that Churchill might have been the author of all the works.

"The ideology, rhetoric and writing style" of the Jaimes piece are "interchangeable" with positions that Churchill takes in his books, LaVelle wrote.

Churchill also asserts that he is the original author of the material in question, and thus has not plagiarized either Jaimes or Robbins: "I'm free to make disposition of my ideas and my material any way I see fit...That's my understanding of the situation...If there's an issue around that, then there's an issue around that." Churchill says that he ghostwrote the material to help Jaimes' career: "All you need to do is take a piece of Annette Jaimes' material, which is published - and she's published things that I didn't (write) - take her stuff, stack it up next (to mine), set it side by side, and read the two...You tell me who's writing this. We don't need to get into forensics to do it."

Jaimes denies that Churchill wrote the material in dispute, and calls him "a liar." Jaimes complains that Churchill is jeopardizing her career to defend himself from the plagiarism allegations, and said "He's despicable." Robbins has refused to comment publicly on the matter, but Jaimes says that she saw an early draft of Robbins' essay, and that the matter in question is orginal to Robbins.

University of Colorado's Research Misconduct Committee is also investigating allegations that Churchill has repeatedly plagiarized a pamphlet entitled "The Water Plot"--originally published by Dam the Dams, a Canadian activist group in 1972--and republished it under his own name several times.

Churchill is alleged to have first republished the "Water Plot" essay in 1989, when he credited the piece both to the original authors as well as to the "Institute for Natural Progress." In subsequent publications, in 1991 and 2002, Churchill took sole credit for substantially the same essay. Churchill says that he did not plagiarize the essay in 1989, but rather that the editors of Z Magazine incorrectly excised Dam the Dams from the byline. Churchill also says he did not plagiarize in 2002, because he added additional material of his own to the essay, and because he cited Dam the Dams as one of his sources in the footnotes.

Churchill is also alleged to have plagiarized the work of Professor Fay G. Cohen of Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, and republished it in a book edited by his wife Annette Jaimes. The previous year, Churchill had edited his own book of collected essays, which had included Cohen’s chapter on fishing rights. Churchill then solicited Cohen’s essay for republication in his wife’s book. Cohen refused to grant Churchill and Jaimes permission to republish the essay.

In Jaimes’ book, the essay in question is attributed to the “Institute for Natural Progress,” the same pseudonym under which Churchill had previously published the disputed "Water Plot" essay. In the back matter, Jaimes writes that Churchill “assumed the lead role in preparing" the essay.

After the Jaimes book was published, Cohen asked lawyers at her university to assess her rights in the matter. An internal Dalhousie University report concluded that "he article ... is, in the opinion of our legal counsel, plagiarism," Dalhousie spokesman Charles Crosby said, summarizing the report's findings in an interview with the Rocky Mountain News. Cohen also accused Churchill of telephoning her and threatening her.

Churchill has acknowledged that Cohen’s essay was reused in his wife’s collection, but says that he was not at fault: "The appearance is - and I'm not going to argue with , I think she's probably correct - is that there's portions of her essay in my '91 book that appear in that ...I think she's on pretty firm ground...But, and it's fairly important to note, she doesn't say I did it.".

Churchill’s says that his wife—the book’s editor—had given him the Cohen essay to rewrite. Churchill characterized his role as similar to a newspaper’s “rewrite man,” who takes materials gathered by others and works them into a final version for publication. "I have a role in that , and it was to take what was handed to me by the authors, specifically by Jaimes, which may or may not mean she was the lead author, I don't know...She was the link. She was the book editor. And (she) said, 'Can you go over this and make it read well,' which I did." Churchill says that he has not committed plagiarism because he never said he wrote the essay.

There are allegations that "Winter Attack", a 1981 serigraph signed by Ward Churchill, may be a copyright infringement of a 1972 drawing by Thomas E. Mails. , . Churchill has responded that "he whole issue is utterly contrived." He said he spoke to Mails about adapting the imagery before using it, an adaptation which he said "here was nothing unusual about." Ryan Mails, the son of the late Thomas Mails, said that he could not imagine that his father "would ever grant permission to anyone to copy one of his pieces."

Three other authors have come forward to accuse Churchill of publishing their work without their permission. Robert T. Coulter, a lawyer and member of the Potawatomi Nation, has accused Churchill of taking a class that Coulter taught on the status of American Indian nations and having publishing notes distributed in the class without written permission. Coulter has criticized Churchill's republication of the handout, but also Churchill's addition of his own endnotes. He said: I would never have permitted that—especially Ward Churchill. He's not a lawyer. He doesn't have the skill or expertise to add to a paper on my own subject.

The University of Colorado's Investigation

Several of the misconduct charges against Churchill are currently being investigated by the University of Colorado's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. The Committee has defined its jurisdiction narrowly in Churchill's case, limited to the three dimensions of research misconduct that are specified in the federal regulations. The Standing Committee has declined to pursue the various charges of copyright violation related to Churchill's use of Thomas Mails' artwork, and to Churchill's republication of other scholar's work without their permission. Copyright violations that do not meet the legal definition of "plagiarism" are not covered in the federal misconduct regulations. The Committee has appointed an investigative subcommittee to look into the various charges of plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification, brought by Professors Brown, Lavelle, and Cohen, as well as Churchill's alleged plagiarism of the "Water Plot" pamphlet. The investigation is ongoing at present.

Critisism by the governor of Colorodo

In an April 2004 interview with Satya magazine, Churchill said:

If I defined the state as being the problem, just what happens to the state? I've never fashioned myself to be a revolutionary, but it's part and parcel of what I'm talking about. You can create through consciousness a situation of flux, perhaps, in which something better can replace it. In instability there's potential. That's about as far as I go with revolutionary consciousness. I'm actually a de-evolutionary. I don't want other people in charge of the apparatus of the state as the outcome of a socially transformative process that replicates oppression. I want the state gone: transform the situation to U.S. out of North America. U.S. off the planet. Out of existence altogether.

Colorado governor Bill Owens called this comment "treasonous," arguing that "Churchill has clearly called for violence against the state, and no country is required to subsidize its own destruction. That's what we're doing with Ward Churchill." On February 6, 2005, the Denver Post reported that this comment would be included by the university in its review of Churchill's tenure. Although there has been some suggestion that the constitutionally overturned Smith Act should be invoked in order to prosecute Churchill for his remarks, the debate is mostly focused on whether the First Amendment protects the tenure of a professor of a public university. Many, including Governor Owen, argue that the University of Colorado (or any other public university) is not required to support faculty that support the overthrow of the government.

On June 23, 2005, Churchill told an audience in Portland, Oregon:

For those of you who do, as a matter of principle, oppose war in any form, the idea of supporting a conscientious objector who's already been inducted in his combat service in Iraq might have a certain appeal. But let me ask you this: Would you render the same level of support to someone who hadn't conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit? ... Conscientious objection removes a given piece of cannon fodder from the fray. Fragging an officer has a much more impactful effect.

When asked by a member of the audience about the officers' families, Churchill responded, "ow do you feel about Adolf Eichmann's family?"

Rocky Mountain News on the "Churchill affair"

• Churchill's essays lack originality, says N.M. law professor By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News February 11, 2005
• Red-flagged career Churchill's tenure at CU marked by warnings of trouble By Charlie Brennan And Stuart Steers, Rocky Mountain News February 17, 2005
• Churchill's quick rise 'doesn't compute' Former CU official who backed his hire surprised by tenure By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News February 17, 2005
• Shadows of doubt (Rocky Mountain) News finds problems in all four major areas before CU panel By Charlie Brennan, Kevin Flynn, Laura Frank, Berny Morson and Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News June 4, 2005
• The charge: Plagiarism Did Ward Churchill publish the work of others as his own? By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News June 7, 2005
• 'Connect the dots' a wild goose chase By Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News June 9, 2005 Ward Churchill provided some cryptic directions 11 years ago when questions were raised on the University of Colorado campus about his Indian heritage.
• CU asks for more info on professor Documents sought to pursue alleged research misconduct By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News July 27, 2005
• Complaints by former wife's family sent to Churchill panel By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News August 27, 2005
• Charges of Research Misconduct at CU, 7 of 9 charges forwarded to a more thorough investigation by experts, 2 charges deemed inappropriate, charge by former wife also considered outside the mandate of the initial investigating committee. Churchill claims to be unfazed, but will be denied sabbatical. September 10, 2005
• Rocky Mountain News article on Churchill's heritage, February 5, 2005
• Paul Campos, Rocky Mountain News: "Truth Tricky for Churchill"
• Keetoowah band's statement that Churchill is not a member of their tribe
• "Churchill's membership in tribe honorary only"

Works

Books

• Marxism and Native Americans, edited by Churchill (South End Press, 1984, paperback: ISBN 089608177X, hardcover: ISBN 0896081788)
• Culture versus Economism: Essays on Marxism in the Multicultural Arena (Indigena Press, 1984)
• Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, co-authored with Jim Vander Wall (South End Press, 1988, paperback: ISBN 0896082938, hardcover: ISBN 0896082946)
• The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret War Against Domestic Dissent, co-authored with Jim Vander Wall (South End Press, 1991, ISBN 0896083594)
• Struggle for the Land: Indigenous Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide and Expropriation in Contemporary North America (Common Courage Press, 1992, ISBN 1567510000, hardcover: 1993, ISBN 1567510019). Released in a revised and expanded edition as Struggle for the Land: Native North American Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide, and Colonization (City Lights Publishers, 2002, hardcover: ISBN 0872864154, paperback: ISBN 0872864146)
• Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature, Cinema, and the Colonization of American Indians (Common Courage Press, 1992, ISBN 0872863484)
• Cages of Steel: The Politics of Imprisonment in America, co-edited by Jim Vander Wall (Activism, Politics, Culture, Theory, Vol. 4, Maisonneuve Press, 1992, ISBN 0944624170). Re-released as Cages of Steel: The Politics of Imprisonment in the United States (AK Press, 2004, ISBN 1904859127).
• Indians Are Us?: Culture and Genocide in Native North America (Common Courage Press, 1993, paperback: ISBN 1567510205, hardcover: ISBN 1567510213)
• Since Predator Came: Notes from the Struggle for American Indian Liberation (Aigis Press, 1995, ISBN 1883930030)
• From A Native Son: Selected Essays on Indigenism 1985-1995 (South End Press, 1996, ISBN 0896085538)
• Islands in Captivity: The International Tribunal on the Rights of Indigenous Hawaiians (South End Press, 1997, paperback: ISBN 0896085678, hardcover: ISBN 0896085686, out of print). Re-released, co-edited by Sharon Venne (South End Press, 2005, hardcover: ISBN 0896087387).
• Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America, with Mike Ryan, an introduction by Ed Mead (Arbeiter Ring, 1998, ISBN 1894037073)
• A Little Matter Of Genocide: Holocaust And Denial In The Americas 1492 To The Present (City Lights Books, 1998, hardcover: ISBN 0872863433, paperback: ISBN 0872863239).
• Draconian Measures: The History of FBI Political Repression (Common Courage Press, 2000, out of print, hardcover: ISBN 1567510590, paperback: ISBN 1567510582)
• Acts Of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader, (Routledge, 2002, paperback: ISBN 0415931568, library binding: ISBN 041593155X)
• Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Angloamerican Law (City Lights Publishers, 2002, paperback: ISBN 0872864111, hardcover: ISBN 0872864162)
• On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality (AK Press, 2003, ISBN 1902593790)
• Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools (City Lights Publishers, 2004, ISBN 0872864340).
• Speaking Truth in the Teeth of Power: Lectures on Globalization, Colonialism, and Native North America (AK Press, 2004, ISBN 1904859046)
• To Disrupt, Discredit And Destroy: The FBI's Secret War Against The Black Panther Party (Routledge, 2005, paperback: ISBN 041592958X, hardcover: ISBN 0415929571).
• Confronting The Crime Of Silence: Evidence Of U.S. War Crimes In Indochina, co-edited by Natsu Saito (forthcoming from AK Press, 2006, ISBN 1904859216)

Audio and video

• Doing Time: The Politics of Imprisonment, audio CD of a lecture, recorded at the Doing Time Conference at the University of Winnipeg, September 2000 (AK Press, 2002, ISBN 1902593472)
• Life In Occupied America (AK Press, 2003, ISBN 1902593723)
• In A Pig's Eye: Reflections on the Police State, Repression, and Native America (AK Press, 2002, ISBN 1902593502)
• US Off The Planet!: An Evening In Eugene With Ward Churchill And Chellis Glendinning, VHS video recorded July 17, 2001 (Cascadia Media Collective, 2002)
• Pacifism and Pathology in the American Left, 2003 audio CD recorded at a AK Press warehouse in Oakland (AK Press Audio)
• Z Mag Ward Churchill Audio
• Ward Churchill talking at the University of Colorado, 2/9/2005, search the C-Span website
• Churchill Speaks About Academic Freedom - Free Speech Radio News February 09, 2005
• Ward Churchill Under Fire - Free Speech Radio News, February 03, 2005
• The Justice of Roosting Chickens: Ward Churchill Speaks The Pacifica Network Show, Democracy Now! from February 18, 2005 features extended Audio/Video exclusive interview with Churchill

External links

General

• Ward Churchill's Faculty page at University of Colorado
• Ward Churchill ZNet Homepage
• The Seven Faces of Ward Churchill by Victor Davis Hanson writing for National Review.
• "The General Allotment Act "Eligibility" Hoax: Distortions of Law, Policy, and History in Derogation of Indian Tribes" (by John P. LaVelle) (PDF file)

Articles related to 9/11 essay

• Churchill's answer to criticism of his 9/11 remarks
• "CU prof's essay sparks dispute: Ward Churchill says 9/11 victims were not innocent people" (Rocky Mountain News)
• "Take a Good Look at Kirkland Project"
• "College Cancels Speech by Professor Who Disparaged 9/11 Attack Victims" (New York Times, February 2 2005)
• "Professor resigns chair after 9/11 essay prompts protests" (CNN, January 31, 2005)
• Ward Churchill Press Statement (Denver Post, February 01, 2005)
• ABC News/Associated Press Colo. Regents Weigh Prof's 9/11 Comments January 30, 2005
• Corrected remarks from University of Hawaii speech
• Hamilton College Statement
• "CU leader chills speech" (by Jon Caldara, OpEd, February 27, 2005
• "Professor Ward Churchill, The First Amendment and Free Speech on Campus" (Capitalism Magazine)
• Complete Text "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" plus other links
• Professor Stoolpigeon
• "No License to Lie" (a legal case for firing Churchill)
• Text of Colorado State House resolution Ward Churchill (Associated Press/Denver Post, February 02, 2005)
• "Ward Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11" (a perspective by Prof. Robert Jensen)

References

• Cesarani, David. Adolf Eichmann: The Mind of a War Criminal, (BBC.co.uk, February 1 2002) Retrieved May 31 2005
• Newman, Bob. 'Ward Churchill's Military Claims Proven False', Mens News Daily (Guerneville, CA: Java King, February 11 2005). Retrieved August 11 2005.

• 1947 births
• Activists
• American political writers
• Marxists
• Native American activists
• Political causes célèbres
• American essayists