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March 22, 2005
Ward Speaks Out
When I saw this AP article on CNN entitled “Embattled professor won't back down,” I thought “hmmm, what could this be about.”
Why it’s about everyone’s favorite abused professor whose rights are being trampled on, Ward Churchill. Let’s go over some of my favorite quotes from the article.
In one message, liberal scholar Noam Chomsky calls Churchill's achievements of inestimable value.
Ha! Way to go, Noam.
[Churchill] acknowledged the uproar now dominates his life and makes it difficult to focus on his job as a tenured professor of ethnic studies."I'm struggling desperately to be able to deliver to my students what they signed up for," Churchill said. …“Every day there's a new idiocy.”
Ain’t that the truth. (Okay, I’ll admit it, I shamelessly deleted sections of the excerpt to make it appear to say something that it actually doesn’t, merely for the value of humor. That was very wrong of me.)
The latest charges are that Churchill plagiarized others' work and threatened physical violence against critics. He denies both claims.
Yes, there’s absolutely no truth to those claims.
Churchill said his critics have mangled the facts in their rush to condemn him.He said the inquiry is not merely an investigation of his work but a pretext for a broader campaign to discourage critical thinking and reduce higher education to "an advanced vo-tech" where students are taught skills useful to corporations.
Churchill, on the other hand, teaches students skills that are of absolutely no use at all, unless you want to fabricate stuff. Plus he's a paragon of critical thinking. See this next quote.
"That's why I'm so in-your-face. You will not ignore this, purport to innocence while applauding genocide. You may not be directly culpable, but you're not innocent," he said.
Gee, that sounds familiar.
Update: Via Michelle Malkin, see this story about Ward striking a blow for academic freedom by banning recording devices at a speech "in the spirit of creating an open forum for debate and discussion."
Posted by illuminaria at March 22, 2005 12:54 PM