Table of Contents
Colorado Releases Report on Churchill Academic Misconduct Charges
The University of Colorado has released its leveled against ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill, and it is a whopper at 124 pages. In the report, a panel of scholars concluded that Churchill had engaged in some serious academic misconduct such as plagiarism. Inside Higher Ed has a fairly of the report that’s worth reading.
One thing that is worth noting is that both the report’s authors as well as outside scholars reported serious reservations about the fact that these charges, many of them fairly old, were not even investigated until the last year’s uproar over Churchill’s calling the World Trade Center victims “little Eichmanns” in an essay about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. ֭, in fact, expressed these concerns early on in the case. Churchill’s sentiments were not new; as the report itself noted, “At the time [Churchill] was hired, the university was aware of the type of writing and speaking he does.” It remains disturbing from the standpoints of those concerned about both free expression and academic integrity that only after these sentiments were made known to the broader public did the university see fit to investigate these apparent instances of academic misconduct on Churchill’s part.
A decision on whether Churchill, a tenured professor, will continue to teach at the University of Colorado is expected in the coming months.
Recent Articles
Get the latest free speech news and analysis from ֭.
Princeton president misunderstands FIREdata — and campus free speech
Princeton’s president misreads ֭’s free speech data — and his own campus climate — while defending a flawed view of academic freedom.
The global free speech recession
After Charlie Kirk’s murder, Trump’s war on free speech blurs the line between words and violence — eroding America’s moral high ground.
What I told the Senate Commerce Committee about 'jawboning'
֭’s Will Creeley urges Congress to end “jawboning,” whereby officials pressure private entities to silence disfavored speech.
FIRESURVEY: Colleagues and faculty unions fail to defend scholars targeted for speech
FIREreached out to the over 600 academics listed in the Scholars Under Fire database who were targeted between 2020 and 2024, of whom 209 completed our survey.