Apologies if this seems like shameless double-dipping, but the following entry is cross posted from a posting on a communications studies discussion board to which I belong. After I wrote it, I realized it would also be appropriate for this blog as well. The discussion is about Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor who wrote, just after 9/11, that those who were killed could be considered "little Eichmanns." A committee at Colorado found some problems with plagiarism and uncited sources in some of Churchill's earlier work. The debate is essentially on whether academics should support Churchill under the aegis of defending academic freedom or shun him as a violator of academic principles and therefore someone we should wash our hands of.
That should be enough context to follow the post below. Just one more thing: I make reference to a previous post mentioning that the committee at UC used an analogy of a police officer stopping a car for speeding because it had a bumper sticker he/she found offensive. The analogy is meant to explain the committee's view that even though Churchill's case has received attention primarily because of right wing talking heads who dislike his politics, this has no bearing on the fact that his academic misconduct, while unrelated, is real.
I’m basically agnostic on the Ward Churchill issue (or, if you prefer, wishy-washy). I don’t know his scholarship first hand, nor have I read the Colorado committee’s report on him in anything other than tiny excerpted chunks. I have a decidedly negative gut-level reaction to both Churchill (whose “little Eichmans” comment was insipid and cruel and who is charged with academic violations that, if true, are reprehensible) and many of his detractors, such as David Horowitz (who evidently doesn’t bother to write much of the contents of the books he slaps his name on, and who strikes me as the embodiment of the sort of anti-intellectualism that does a disservice to all of higher education).
However, I think the issue (as well as the discussion here) raises some interesting communication-related issues.
Specifically, to what extent does context matter in evaluating a rhetorical act (in this case, the “speech act” of dismissing Mr. Churchill from his academic post)?
Mr. Bytwerk cites the analogy given by the Colorado committee of the police officer who pulls over a motorist for speeding because he/she is offended by a bumper sticker on the car. As Mr. Bytwerk notes himself, this is not a great analogy, but it suggests a parallel analogy that gets at my point.
Imagine a racist Anglo police officer sees a car with an African American driver and pulls the car over simply to intimidate and harass the driver. In doing so, the officer discovers some violation (expired license, open container, or whatever). Is it legal and/or ethical to prosecute the driver on a violation discovered through an unlawful search?
The truth is that this happens all the time, but the Constitution provides protection (at least in theory) to citizens from being targeted by authorities for reasons unconnected to a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
The analogy is, as Mr. Bytwerk notes of the original version crafted by the Colorado committee, not great. For one, it’s using law enforcement as an analogy for academic “policing.” But the racist cop analogy is better than the original in at least one respect. My understanding (and I certainly admit I could be mistaken) is that Mr. Churchill’s scholarship has been taken to task as the result of his controversial (and, in my opinion, idiotic) political comments. Only after becoming a lightning rod did people start going through his scholarship from the past to find cases of academic/intellectual misconduct. In the speeding motorist/bumper sticker example, the violation and the political speech are perceived at the same time. In the racist police officer example, the violation is only discovered as a result of politically motivated search based on preexisting antipathy toward the target. The latter example seems closer to the situation with Mr. Churchill.
In fact, the essay which drew so much attention to Mr. Churchill was published in September of 2001, and little if anything was said until a college newspaper turned up the essay in 2005, after which it became a national issue largely due to Bill O’Reilly and Colorado governor Bill Owens.
Had it not been for the political enmity toward Mr. Churchill’s views, his scholarship would not have gotten the fine-tooth-comb treatment it did. (If his intellectual sins had been so glaring, why hadn’t they come up before?)
As I say, I’m not certain I think it’s out of the question to hold Mr. Churchill accountable for academic dishonesty, even if it was only discovered via political outrage at comments he was certainly legally and academically entitled to make. On the other hand, I have some sympathy for someone whose academic integrity is questioned as means of giving an air of legitimacy to an essentially political animosity.
Why? Well, I have the dubious distinction of having been targeted by a national political commentator as being, along with Ward Churchill, an example of a “failure in higher education.”
Ex-vice president and editorial voice for Sinclair Broadcasting, Mark Hyman, delivered a commentary aired on dozens of its local news affiliates across the country in which he attacked several academics, including Churchill and me, for having radical views. According to him, folks like Churchill and I are "unemployable individuals [who] are paid to proselytize intellectually bankrupt viewpoints."
What was my “intellectually bankrupt viewpoint?" According to Hyman, I thought that plagiarism was fine and dandy (something that probably shocked the numerous students I’ve flunked for committing even a single instance of plagiarism in my classes).
Hyman used a quotation from an online syllabus for a correspondence course I was teaching at the time to make his claim. To do it, he had to twist and creatively edit the course statement on plagiarism. More importantly, he attributed this statement to me despite the fact that the syllabus clearly stated that I was the instructor of the class, but not the author of the course materials (our department chair had done most of the writing).
Why was Hyman grubbing around online to find something he could use to charge me with academic malpractice? Because I had committed the sin of creating a blog that did a daily critique of his rhetoric. Getting interviewed by Air America radio about Sinclair, media consolidation, and my blog was apparently the final straw, since it was only days later that he included me in his attack on Churchill and other academics.
After I informed the legal counsel of Sinclair of Hyman’s factual errors (and hinted that a retraction would be in their financial best interest), Hyman retracted his comments (although he never fessed up to his true motivations in going after me).
[If you’re interested, Media Matters for America covered both the initial attack and Hyman’s retraction in stories found at the following websites:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200502180002
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503080003 ]
My situation differs from Mr. Churchill’s in that the charges laid at my feet were demonstrably untrue. While I don’t know the specifics of Mr. Churchill’s case, my suspicion is that there’s at least some legitimacy to the charges (although, as one previous post noted, the claim that because “a committee” said so, it must be true is dubious at best).
Having said that, I can imagine someone arguing that even if the charges are all true, and even if these charges are serious enough to warrant Mr. Churchill’s dismissal, and even if Mr. Churchill deserves to be dismissed, the fact that the issue has been, from the beginning, enmeshed in partisan politics makes the decision qualitatively different than it would be if O’Reilly, Horowitz, et. al. had never uttered the name “Ward Churchill.”
I can imagine an argument that states, contra Mr. Bytwerk, that at this point, one cannot hermetically seal off the issue from the political atmosphere around it and make it purely an exercise in academic self-discipline. Such an argument might suggest that once conservative talking heads made this a personal crusade due to Mr. Churchill’s political statements, any decision to fire him would necessarily have a chilling effect on academic freedom and free speech in general. Better to let ten sloppy and reckless academics keep their jobs than have one academic cowed into silence for fear that, if he/she makes controversial statements that offend enough people, he/she will be targeted for dismissal.
I say again: I’m not making this argument. I don’t know that I buy it. It *does* seem, however, to be a reasonable argument that deserves consideration.
I haven’t signed the petition supporting Mr. Churchill. The little I know of his scholarship, almost solely through second-hand sources and fragments, suggests to me that in and of itself, his dismissal wouldn’t be a huge loss to the intellectual community.
But what prevents me from agreeing wholeheartedly with those who say, “He’s committed academic sins, so he should get the axe,” is the sense that, as a rhetorical act, his dismissal has a different meaning because of the context in which it’s made. As much as we might like to pretend that we can judge the matter solely in academic terms, I think that such a stance ignores the complex communicative context and the role it plays in giving meaning to the speech act of dismissing Mr. Churchill.
At the very least, I can understand why some who might A) find Mr. Churchill’s politics repugnant, and B) find his academic sins unforgivable, could still balk at the idea of firing him given the highly politicized movement to oust him. This is particularly true when many of the voices most loudly calling for his dismissal are also voices that regularly traffic in the anti-intellectualism that pops up at various points along the political spectrum, mocking the foundational values of the life of the mind to an even greater extent than the sins of any particular academic could ever do.
That should be enough context to follow the post below. Just one more thing: I make reference to a previous post mentioning that the committee at UC used an analogy of a police officer stopping a car for speeding because it had a bumper sticker he/she found offensive. The analogy is meant to explain the committee's view that even though Churchill's case has received attention primarily because of right wing talking heads who dislike his politics, this has no bearing on the fact that his academic misconduct, while unrelated, is real.
I’m basically agnostic on the Ward Churchill issue (or, if you prefer, wishy-washy). I don’t know his scholarship first hand, nor have I read the Colorado committee’s report on him in anything other than tiny excerpted chunks. I have a decidedly negative gut-level reaction to both Churchill (whose “little Eichmans” comment was insipid and cruel and who is charged with academic violations that, if true, are reprehensible) and many of his detractors, such as David Horowitz (who evidently doesn’t bother to write much of the contents of the books he slaps his name on, and who strikes me as the embodiment of the sort of anti-intellectualism that does a disservice to all of higher education).
However, I think the issue (as well as the discussion here) raises some interesting communication-related issues.
Specifically, to what extent does context matter in evaluating a rhetorical act (in this case, the “speech act” of dismissing Mr. Churchill from his academic post)?
Mr. Bytwerk cites the analogy given by the Colorado committee of the police officer who pulls over a motorist for speeding because he/she is offended by a bumper sticker on the car. As Mr. Bytwerk notes himself, this is not a great analogy, but it suggests a parallel analogy that gets at my point.
Imagine a racist Anglo police officer sees a car with an African American driver and pulls the car over simply to intimidate and harass the driver. In doing so, the officer discovers some violation (expired license, open container, or whatever). Is it legal and/or ethical to prosecute the driver on a violation discovered through an unlawful search?
The truth is that this happens all the time, but the Constitution provides protection (at least in theory) to citizens from being targeted by authorities for reasons unconnected to a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
The analogy is, as Mr. Bytwerk notes of the original version crafted by the Colorado committee, not great. For one, it’s using law enforcement as an analogy for academic “policing.” But the racist cop analogy is better than the original in at least one respect. My understanding (and I certainly admit I could be mistaken) is that Mr. Churchill’s scholarship has been taken to task as the result of his controversial (and, in my opinion, idiotic) political comments. Only after becoming a lightning rod did people start going through his scholarship from the past to find cases of academic/intellectual misconduct. In the speeding motorist/bumper sticker example, the violation and the political speech are perceived at the same time. In the racist police officer example, the violation is only discovered as a result of politically motivated search based on preexisting antipathy toward the target. The latter example seems closer to the situation with Mr. Churchill.
In fact, the essay which drew so much attention to Mr. Churchill was published in September of 2001, and little if anything was said until a college newspaper turned up the essay in 2005, after which it became a national issue largely due to Bill O’Reilly and Colorado governor Bill Owens.
Had it not been for the political enmity toward Mr. Churchill’s views, his scholarship would not have gotten the fine-tooth-comb treatment it did. (If his intellectual sins had been so glaring, why hadn’t they come up before?)
As I say, I’m not certain I think it’s out of the question to hold Mr. Churchill accountable for academic dishonesty, even if it was only discovered via political outrage at comments he was certainly legally and academically entitled to make. On the other hand, I have some sympathy for someone whose academic integrity is questioned as means of giving an air of legitimacy to an essentially political animosity.
Why? Well, I have the dubious distinction of having been targeted by a national political commentator as being, along with Ward Churchill, an example of a “failure in higher education.”
Ex-vice president and editorial voice for Sinclair Broadcasting, Mark Hyman, delivered a commentary aired on dozens of its local news affiliates across the country in which he attacked several academics, including Churchill and me, for having radical views. According to him, folks like Churchill and I are "unemployable individuals [who] are paid to proselytize intellectually bankrupt viewpoints."
What was my “intellectually bankrupt viewpoint?" According to Hyman, I thought that plagiarism was fine and dandy (something that probably shocked the numerous students I’ve flunked for committing even a single instance of plagiarism in my classes).
Hyman used a quotation from an online syllabus for a correspondence course I was teaching at the time to make his claim. To do it, he had to twist and creatively edit the course statement on plagiarism. More importantly, he attributed this statement to me despite the fact that the syllabus clearly stated that I was the instructor of the class, but not the author of the course materials (our department chair had done most of the writing).
Why was Hyman grubbing around online to find something he could use to charge me with academic malpractice? Because I had committed the sin of creating a blog that did a daily critique of his rhetoric. Getting interviewed by Air America radio about Sinclair, media consolidation, and my blog was apparently the final straw, since it was only days later that he included me in his attack on Churchill and other academics.
After I informed the legal counsel of Sinclair of Hyman’s factual errors (and hinted that a retraction would be in their financial best interest), Hyman retracted his comments (although he never fessed up to his true motivations in going after me).
[If you’re interested, Media Matters for America covered both the initial attack and Hyman’s retraction in stories found at the following websites:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200502180002
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503080003 ]
My situation differs from Mr. Churchill’s in that the charges laid at my feet were demonstrably untrue. While I don’t know the specifics of Mr. Churchill’s case, my suspicion is that there’s at least some legitimacy to the charges (although, as one previous post noted, the claim that because “a committee” said so, it must be true is dubious at best).
Having said that, I can imagine someone arguing that even if the charges are all true, and even if these charges are serious enough to warrant Mr. Churchill’s dismissal, and even if Mr. Churchill deserves to be dismissed, the fact that the issue has been, from the beginning, enmeshed in partisan politics makes the decision qualitatively different than it would be if O’Reilly, Horowitz, et. al. had never uttered the name “Ward Churchill.”
I can imagine an argument that states, contra Mr. Bytwerk, that at this point, one cannot hermetically seal off the issue from the political atmosphere around it and make it purely an exercise in academic self-discipline. Such an argument might suggest that once conservative talking heads made this a personal crusade due to Mr. Churchill’s political statements, any decision to fire him would necessarily have a chilling effect on academic freedom and free speech in general. Better to let ten sloppy and reckless academics keep their jobs than have one academic cowed into silence for fear that, if he/she makes controversial statements that offend enough people, he/she will be targeted for dismissal.
I say again: I’m not making this argument. I don’t know that I buy it. It *does* seem, however, to be a reasonable argument that deserves consideration.
I haven’t signed the petition supporting Mr. Churchill. The little I know of his scholarship, almost solely through second-hand sources and fragments, suggests to me that in and of itself, his dismissal wouldn’t be a huge loss to the intellectual community.
But what prevents me from agreeing wholeheartedly with those who say, “He’s committed academic sins, so he should get the axe,” is the sense that, as a rhetorical act, his dismissal has a different meaning because of the context in which it’s made. As much as we might like to pretend that we can judge the matter solely in academic terms, I think that such a stance ignores the complex communicative context and the role it plays in giving meaning to the speech act of dismissing Mr. Churchill.
At the very least, I can understand why some who might A) find Mr. Churchill’s politics repugnant, and B) find his academic sins unforgivable, could still balk at the idea of firing him given the highly politicized movement to oust him. This is particularly true when many of the voices most loudly calling for his dismissal are also voices that regularly traffic in the anti-intellectualism that pops up at various points along the political spectrum, mocking the foundational values of the life of the mind to an even greater extent than the sins of any particular academic could ever do.
22 comments:
Churchill has not been brought down by a right wing conspiracy. He has been brought down by his peers in academia. First up were the professors who pointed out his habit of research misconduct. Second were the three faculty committees at CU. The Horowitzes and O'Reillys get the most attention, but really they are kibbitzers at best in this little drama.
Yes, all the focus on Churchill's "little Eichmanns" comment simply distracts from the question addressed by the three CU committees: whether Churchill committed serious research misconduct through plagiarism, fabrications, and falsifications.
Those committees were aware that CU already had found Churchill's "little Eichmanns" statement protected by the 1st Amendment. Unlike the leftists Churchill has successfully conned into doing otherwise, the CU committees properly kept their focus on the research misconduct charges. As a result, they found him clearly guilty as charged. The only remaining question is the ultimate punishment, a question that the Board of Regents will determine.
While I'm in favor of universities getting rid of any professor found guilty of academic dishonesty, this situation does raise a troubling question about academic publishing: If Churchill's work was plagiarized and fabricated, why wasn't it challenged BEFORE he became a target of David Horowitz and FOX News? His work was peer reviewed, his books were being published by reputable presses. If we conclude that Churchill was a talentless, disingenuous fraud, then it seems to me that this conclusion also indicts the process of peer review, the entire field of Native American studies and, by extension, all of academia.
First, Churchill's work _was_ exposed before his 9/11 comments, by other scholars publishing in relevant albeit obscure journals. However, none of them ever bothered to file a formal complaint, and thus CU did not have the information needed to prosecute. Once the CO media threw it in CU's face, they pretty much had to go forward with an investigation.
Second, Churchill's work was mostly _not_ published in reputable presses or journals. The only people who read him seriously were other Ethnic Studies professors, very few of whom are serious scholars. It was professors outside of ES who exposed the problems in Churchill's publications.
Third, I agree that Churchill's success does expose serious problems in academia.
Finally, Ted's original post fails to address the central flaw in his argument: That if outrageous political speech can inoculate one from misconduct investigations, then we are essentially abandoning the concept of misconduct altogether, for every corrupt scholar will take care to also be outrageous.
Anonymous--
I'm not an ethnic studies professor, so I don't read the field's obscure journals-- can you tell me where I can find these scholars who tried to expose Horowitz before he became a celebrity? So far, I've found one academic blogger who wrote about Churchill's poor scholarship while the controversy was still going on, but this guy seemed to be complaining about academic publishing standards; his claim was not, as yours seems to be, that Churchill wasn't publishing appropriately.
Which brings me to my second point... Yes, I agree that books published by an anarchist bookstore/ small press do not typically meet academic standards. However, my understanding is that Churchill didn't put the "Justice of Roosting Chickens" essay (and subsequent book) on his CV; did he try to claim that his other non-scholarly writing was, in fact, scholarship? I can't find a copy of his CV online, and I read the CU report months ago and can't remember that coming up.
To be clear, though-- while Churchill did publish in alternative presses, he also published material that was peer-reviewed, and often taught in other Ethnic Studies classes. So to say that his colleagues lowered their standards for him would be misleading, I think. Although I haven't seen a list of his publications that details whether or not the work was refereed, so I could very well be wrong on this.
As far as Ethnic Studies scholars not being "serious scholars"... I'm afraid I have to agree. I suspect we've had different experiences with ethnic studies professors, but the ones I've known have gone through the peer-review process and have published their scholarship through reputable academic publishers.
And it stands to reason that Ethnic Studies journals are mostly read by Ethnic Studies professors, doesn't it? I mean, I can't imagine that a journal like EIGHTEENTH CENTURY STUDIES appeal to too many people who don't teach the 18th century.
Finally, I don't think you can claim that Churchill created his work in a vacuum, without insight or feedback from his colleagues (in an effort to discredit his publications), and then come back and claim that his work exposes "serious problems in academia." If the guy was an academic nobody and CU gave him the position anyway, then-- at most-- his sucess exposes seriously problems in Colorado.
Whoops. In my haste to get my comments typed and posted, I made a serious typo. In the third paragraph, where I said "I have to agree," I obviously meant "I have to DISAGREE." Ethnic studies professors are, in fact, "serious scholars."
I also called Churchill "Horowitz" in my first paragraph-- a mistake which I'm sure would deeply insult both men.
Early warnings of Churchill's bogus scholarship were sounded by John LaVelle in Wicaso Za Review back in the mid-90s. And also by Gunther Lewy a year or two before the scandal broke.
Churchill most certainly did put all of his publications on his CV and/or annual Faculty Progress Report, including at least one essay that he plagiarized and published under a pseudonym.
Churchill was hired with tenure at CU largely because he is an Indian impostor and they were looking for "diversity."
For the record, a brief search only turned up that LaVelle had speculated that Churchill actuall wrote works under the names of other people (sort of reverse plagiarism, I guess). I got nothing on Lewy and Churchill.
I'd be interested in seeing anything that actually accuses Churchill of plagiarism--if you could provide actual citations, I'd appreciate it.
tjr
The Lewy piece is at:
http://hnn.us/articles/7302.html
The LaVelle is at:
http://lawschool.unm.edu/faculty/lavelle/allotment-act.pdf
See p. 285, where LaVelle exposes Churchill's plagiarism of Fay Cohen's essay. Churchill published this plagiary under an assumed name, but still claimed credit for writing it on his annual faculty report for that year.
Search PirateBallerina for "plagiarism"; there are plenty of links to various articles and statements related to that.
Incidentally, you might want to acquaint yourself with the particulars of a subject before you issue your opinions on same. Just a tip.
Thanks for the tip JWPaine. To return the favor, I'd simply suggest reading and understanding a post before commenting on it.
As my post states, I'm better acquainted with the results of the combining of political agendas and academia than most. As my post also states, I'm willing to grant that A) Ward Churchill did everything he's accused of, and B) that he, on strictly academic grounds, should be fired. My points are independent of that.
The only aspect of my post I can assume you're referencing is the point about the attacks on Churchill's scholarship happening after his comments became a cause celebre for certain conservative figures in the media. On that point, I granted that I might be mistaken. On the other hand, the fact remains that he was seen fit to not only teach but serve as department chair despite whatever charges had been made beforehand.
Once again, I'm truly agnostic on Churchill as an individual case. I simply posed the question that it might be the case that, as deserved as it might be, his dismissal would have a meaning beyond its immediate intent, one that would cause anyone in academia, whatever their political stripe, to think twice before speaking out either as a scholar or as a citizen on a controversial issue, lest they find themselves targeted for dismissal by committees that feel impelled to look for any discrepency in their c.v. as an excuse to get rid of a faculty member who has become troublesome.
Perhaps that's a price we should be willing to pay. I'm not taking a position on it. I'm simply saying it's a valid question, and to pretend that this is all just a matter of academic practice is either an act of unfathomable ignorance or (much more likely) an active decision to table an essential aspect of the situation for rhetorical and political purposes.
I don't believe for a minute that Horowitz or many of the other voices calling most loudly for Churchill's dismissal are doing so out of a strictly intellectual passion for academic integrity any more than Mark Hyman went after me because he gives a rip about first-year composition students plagiarizing essays.
That doesn't mean such folks are wrong (although Hyman was, as he was forced to admit), but it *does* mean that any conversation about the issue is being fundamentally dishonest if it elides the issue of the politics inherent in it.
But again, thanks for the tip.
tjr
My objection to your comment is that CU _did not know_ about Churchill's habit of misconduct prior to the media firestorm. They should have known, and it is their shame that they did not know.
Still, it would be exceedingly improper for CU to permit Churchill to remain in his job once they had the information at hand.
The fact that CU got the info from the media firestorm is an embarassment to CU and the academy as a whole. But that unfortunate circumstance should not inoculate Churchill from sanctions that are long overdue.
To permit Churchill to remain just because he is politically unpopular is illogical in the extreme, for it gives an easy out to all future academic frauds. Say something outrageous and get a free pass.
So, my understanding is that we are in agreement that, although some had made charges about Churchill, Colorado didn't know about them, yes? The disagreement you have with me is not that I suggested CU didn't know, but that I suggested that there might be things to consider beyond simply "did he or didn't he?" Is that correct?
If so, I understand your point. Indeed, I sympathize with it to larger extent than you'd likely believe. As I took some pains to make clear in my post, I'm not saying Churchill shouldn't be fired. If the kinds of things he's been charged with are things that are A) true and B) of a severity that professors at CU and/or at public universitites in general are usually punished with termination for them, then I'm in agreement that he probably should be fired.
I merely suggested that such a decision will, as a side effect, carry the perhaps unintended message that saying things in public that people find offensive may, in extreme circumstances, lead to having everything you've ever published (or claimed to publish) scrutinized.
In cases where such scrutiny turns up rank fraud, I think one can make a convincing case that the faculty member should be terminated, despite the fact that such frauds were either unknown or ignored in previous hiring decisions about the faculty member.
On the other hand, if such scrutiny turns up inconsistencies that, while still serious, don't rise to the level that usually gets someone summarily fired (as opposed to some other disciplinary action), then I think reasonable people would have to agree that using marginal evidence of shoddy scholarship shouldn't be used as an excuse to punish a faculty member for the unrelated crime of having offended people.
As to which category Churchill falls into, I've said that I don't know enough about the specifics to make a judgment. That's one of the reasons I *made* no judgment on the issue. I've heard sincere and knowledgeable people claim Churchill's sins are well established and are well beyond the limit of what is considered a termination-worthy offense. I've heard sincere and knowledgeable people say that his sins, at least to the extent that they are alleged, have not been proven and/or are not of the level usually required to terminate a faculty member.
I remain agnostic, but simply point out that the issue is more subtle in its consequences than zealots on either side tend to admit.
I realize that suggesting that there are gray areas and complications is something that perturbs those whose minds are made up, but I won't allow myself to be tarred with a broad brush simply to allay the unpleasant sensations of cognitive dissonance my comments might engender in the true believers on either side.
You don't have to agree with me, but please don't tell me what I think.
tjr
Always happy to oblige.
Unless I'm mistaken, you're speaking of (and mostly concerned with) a "chilling effect" on academia. Rather than bloviate on the subject, I'll just quote one of the commenters at PB, John Martin:
"For the thousandth time, Churchill is not an isolated example of bad scholarship, but representative of (if louder than) ethnic studies folks in general. A “chilling effect” on their ideological ranting masked as scholarship is way overdue."
To cast the argument in therapeutic terms, instilling in liars a fear of reprisal often increases their inhibition to lie to near-normal levels.
So it is your position that Ethnic Studies scholars are, by nature, dishonest and less concerned with intellectual rigor?
First, Ted, you are claiming ignorance of the details of the Churchill in order to evade responsibility for your published opinions herein. If you knew more about the case, then perhaps the thing would come into focus for you. You are claiming a superior sensibility by virtue of being able to perceive a gray area, but it looks more like ignorance of the facts to me.
It would be rather simple to educate yourself on the facts of the matter. You need only to read the CU report. It's not perfect, but it tells you everything you need to know. If you want more, then read LaVelle's article, and the article at plagiary.com
Second, I would disagree that Churchill's firing creates a chilling effect for any serious scholar. Hardly anyone has such a collection of skeletons as Churchill. Hardly anyone would ever be so uncouth as to blame and insult the victims of terrorism the day after their death.
Reread Churchill's essay. He is inviting negative reactions with his deliberately inflammatory language. Indeed, Churchill even challenged anyone to find fault with his scholarship back in January 2005 at the start of the scandal. The media took him up on his challenge. His behavior was exceedingly self-destructive by any measure.
I'm sayng, Bradley, that serious scholarship does not exist in Ethnic Studies. It is (and always has been) a refuge for substandard ideologues who--thanks to much mau-mauing of college administrations 30 years ago--have a taxpayer-provided sinecure from which to inflict their malignant ignorance on unsuspecting generations of students.
Okay. So, when you issue such broad proclamations about Ethnic Studies, are you talking strictly about schools-- like CU-- that have actual, official Ethnic Studies departments, or would you expand that denunciation to schools that offer interdisciplinary Ethnic Studies programs that utilize faculty from a variety of departments?
And do you feel the same way about Women's and Gender Studies programs?
I'm not JP, but I would argue that any field that does not have its own methodology, theory, and substantive topics of research, is more often than not going to attract sub-standard scholars. I would include ethnic studies and women's studies.
Why? Because the most talented scholars are not going to want to be ghettoized, and will find work in mainstream settings. Meanwhile the more polemic pseudo-scholars will enter the departments that exist mainly due to academic politics.
Certainly there are talented scholars doing ethnic studies and women's studies, but more often than not they do not work in departments whose name ends with "Studies."
JP's unqualified generalizations speak for themselves. I've had my own reservations about certain specific examples of "identity studies," but to write off entire fields of intellectual endeavor is just plain dopey.
As for anon's post, my read the comment that the "chilling" effect being a good thing is that it's simply an invitation to keep the discussion going. I have a hard time imagining anyone actually admitting that they believe targeting a scholar for dismissal because they disagree with what he says, believe his area of study is subpar, or think he's a jerk.
Why? Two reasons. First, why is there any reason to suspect that this chilling effect would only apply to that scholar or others in his field? I'd suggest there isn't.
Second, that's not the way intellectual debate is carried out (at least ideally). Scaring people into not opening their mouths simply isn't cricket when it comes to intellectual give and take. The way it works is that bad ideas are criticized, responded to, and demolished in the marketplace of ideas. Lies are answered with the truth. If that's all that was going on in the Churchill case, I'd be all for it. But, as the "chilling is good" comment admits, it's possible that something beyond that is going on.
I guess the question is, why should we give up the standard tools of intellectual debate in favor of the idea that scaring people into shutting up is a good thing?
On the second anon post, I don't know quite how to respond, since the premise behind it is that I believe something which, in fact, I don't believe. Unless one is willing to grant that the person talking is, at least potentially, saying what they actually think, then communication becomes difficult, if not impossible.
Moreover, the suggestion that my opinions on the matter (however they are mischaracterized) spring from ignorance is to ignore precisely what I said. I am willing to grant for the sake of argument that Churchill did everything he's accused of and more. I've simply said (again and again and again) that a decision to fire Churchill, even if nominally based on purely academic considertations, will have a ripple effect by nature of the way his case has been politicized by those with agendas far beyond his specific case.
I didn't say that meant he shouldn't be fired. I just said anyone talking honestly about the issue will have to grant this fact.
And the suggestion that, "Well, no one else would be as much of a jerk as Churchill and/or have skeletons in their closet, so there won't be any chilling effect" seems to grant the fact that Churchill *is* being targeted because of his distasteful public comments.
And "uncouthness" is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, most people would agree that his particular comment about little Eichmans was repulsive, but what about the Michigan State faculty member who sent an email to a Muslim student group on campus telling them that they should go back to their "ancestral homelands," warning them that many people at the campus are offended by the culture of "you aggressive, brutal, uncivilized, slave-trading Moslems [sic]"?
By the way, this email was sent last year, not immediately after 9/11.
Or, for that matter, what about the Northwestern professor who's a Holocaust denier and Nazi sympathizer?
Certainly most people would find these comments "uncouth." Would it be proper for such folks to have their cv's pored over because people were calling for their heads because of their comments?
I don't know. As I said way back when in my original post, I don't that if the offenses are grave enough, that the motive behind their revelation should necessarily matter.
But such actions *will* have the effect of making academics feel that if they hold views that are deemed "uncouth" by enough people, they might suddenly find their entire academic history coming under scrutiny.
The idea that no one has to worry if they don't have as many skeletons as are alleged to be in Churchill's closet seems a bit naive. Is there a clear line drawn as to what is an offense that is cause for dismissal? Won't it be likely that faculty members will have to make guesses as to what errors will be considered reason for being fired?
To put it in a legal sense, all citizens have a vested interest in maintaining the protection against illegal search and seizure. Just because they don't think they have anything that would incriminate them doesn't mean that they shouldn't care about the Fourth Amendment or should feel fine and dandy if it's violated in the case of someone who *does* happen to be a criminal. I'd suggest that the sudden revocation of the Fourth Amendment would and should make a lot of people nervous--would have a "chilling effect"--even among those who abide by the leter of the law.
To put a personal spin on it, my wife was literally in tears one day because she thought my silly little blog about Mark Hyman and Sinclair Broadcasting could get me fired. And I considered stopping, not because what I was doing was wrong or had anything to do with my job, but because of the concern that, having inspired the on-air ire of Hyman himself, the university might look for a reason to jettison a faculty member who had gotten negative public attention.
In the end, my wife and I came to our collective senses (such as they are). The situations aren't exactly parallel, but the point is simply that there's a far lower threshold of "chilling" than you seem to imagine.
And, before you jump to the conclusion that I'm arguing for Churchill's retention, I'll remind you one more time that I'm not saying that. Whatever chilling effect might occur might be a price that's reasonable for getting rid of a shoddy professor. I'm simply saying that to pretend that the decision won't have ramifications beyond Churchill's specific case is to be willfully naive.
Gosh, that's a lot, especially givent that I'm not convinced most folks commenting are even willing to grant that I'm being honest!
tjr
Anonymous--
Well, I think we'll have to agree to respectfully disagree-- in fact, I think that ethnic and gender studies do have their own theories and substantive topics of research, and if there are problems with methodology (and I'm not certain there are, but I'm willing to acknowledge the possibility), these are problems inherent in interdisciplinary research which will be resolved in time. These fields are still relatively new as compared to English, History, and the Physical Sciences, after all.
As I've said before, I think that demonstrable cases of plagiarism should result in termination. And, while I don't think Churchill should be punished for the asinine things he said about 9/11, I do think that he's obligated to accept the notoriety and scrutiny that accompany making such outrageous proclamations.
Going along with that, though, I think we should probably keep in mind that faculty misconduct is not just a problem with leftwing activists in the academy. In fact, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION has often reported on incidents of faculty and administrative plagiarism in a variety of fields including the hard sciences, history, political science, and geography. And there's probably no reason to mention the cases of people like John Lott or Kevin B. MacDonald.
I guess, in the end, I'd like to see consistent standards applied across the board for all faculty members found guilty of academic transgressions. As a faculty member who is never going to be found guilty of academic dishonesty, I think termination is entirely appropriate. But again-- this punishment can't just be for people like Ward Churchill; it needs to be applied evenly, across the board, to all transgressors, regardless of political ideology.
Which brings us back to Ted's initial point regarding politics and the Churchill decision-- what role does politics play in this scenario? The answer is... some. Probably not as large a role as Churchill's supporters would have us believe, but probably a much larger role than his detractors claim. The blog that jwpaine linked to was started in January 2005-- around the time the "Chickens Coming Home to Roost" essay (or whatever the hell it was called) was just getting national attention-- long before academic dishonesty became the reason du jour to call for Churchill's termination. Obviously, this investigation was motivated by political outrage. And obviously, these same people who now claim to be guardians of academic integrity are not similarly outraged by the evidence collected against, say George O. Carney, Donald Cuccioletta, the aforementioned John Lott and others.
I don't want anyone to take what I've said as an indication that cheating among faculty and administrators is an epidemic. It's not. It's aberrant-- that's why it's so noteworthy when it happens. But we need to take steps to minimize its occurrence, and provide consistent and appropriate repercussions when it does, regardless of who it is who's cheating and what his or her politics are.
And, to be clear, any academic dishonesty on Ward Churchill’s part does not reflect poorly on the field of Ethnic Studies. At least, no more than MacDonald’s shoddy research to support his own anti-semitism implicates the entire field of psychology or Cuccioletta’s theft makes history a “refuge for substandard ideologues.” These things happen; they need to be stamped out. But we don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water, to employ a cliché I can’t stand.
I agree that the close look at Churchill's misconduct by the media was politically motivated, but so what? How in the world can you possibly prevent that phenomenon? That is the nature of media.
Anyone who attempts to attract attention to themselves will also attract critics. Crying about a "chilling effect" is pointless. Instead, you'd better get your ducks in a row before you go looking for critical attention.
The only possible way to avoid a chilling effect in such situations is to immunize outrageous professors from investigation. And that would be an absurd policy.
As to ethnic studies having its own theories and topics, what are they? I see nothing being done in ES that cannot also be found in mainstream disciplines. Except perhaps for some fraction of the polemic grievance-mongering stuff, and who needs more of that in the academy? We've got too much of it already.
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