We touched just briefly on the story of the wacko University of Colorado professor the other day, but Belmont Club now has "The Ward Churchill Story" up for your perusal, supplemented now by Part Two, focusing on the U. of C.'s reaction to the controversy.
Wretchard suggests that Churchill's apparent exposure as a fraud (or worse) may not impact on the school's decision on whether or not the content of his speech has First Amendment protections. They should take one thing at a time. The right side of the blogosphere doesn't seem to be calling for Churchill's dismisal over his reprehensible rhetoric, as Glenn Reynolds notes. (Another great link-rich update from Glenn here.)
The best possible result is to have the man's words, credentials and background exposed to the light of day, even if the publicity that it gives him results in undeserved celebrity. Then let the parents of UC students decide if they want to spend their hard-earned money to have their kids fed this line of crap in Ethnic Studies class. Let the school's financial contributors, administrators and alumni decide if they want to put forth Ward Churchill as a representative of their university.
If it can be proven that he lied about being an American Indian in the first place, as seems quite plausible now, they would likely be justified in firing him on the basis of fraud. But his freedom to speak his little mind without losing his job should be defended staunchly by all conservatives on principle. Right now he serves our cause wonderfully as an example of the academic Left.
UPDATE 2/6: Roger Kimball weighs in eloquently (as always).
Posted by dan at February 4, 2005 11:14 PM