Ward Churchill, a professor within the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a widely recognized activist within the American Indian community, has been the center of controversy over an article he wrote and published shortly after 9/11 entitled, “’Some People Push Back’ On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.’”

As a result, Churchill has appeared in national news headlines, his teaching position in Boulder has gone under review by the UC Board of Regents, his Native identity has been called into question, the Governor of Colorado has repeatedly attacked his views, and on Jan. 31, Ward Churchill resigned as chairman of the University of Colorado's Department of Ethnic Studies.

The academic world is left wondering both inside and outside the classroom about the issue of academic freedom raised by this controversy.

In an article that appeared in The Spectator, a newspaper of Hamilton College, writer Ian Mandel highlighted excerpts of Churchill’s essay. From there, controversy began swirling and his speaking engagement scheduled for Feb. 3 was cancelled on the New York campus due to security issues. Churchill was one of three University professors scheduled to speak on a panel entitled “Limits of Dissent” which would have addressed the citizen’s right and responsibility to challenge government actions and policies.

The Controversial “Roosting Chickens”

In “Some People Push Back” Churchill stated: “When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X famously – and quite charitably, all things considered – replied that it was merely a case of ‘chickens coming home to roost.’”

In a March 2 interview with the IAIA Chronicle, Churchill explained his idea of what happened on 9/11 when, as he stated in his essay, “a few more chickens came home to roost in a very big way” at the World Trade Center:

“I think this has something to do with a half million dead Iraqi children that died needlessly from U.S. sanctions imposed between 1991 and1996 [which] Madeleine Albright confirmed on 60 Minutes in 1996. Half a million children in a population of 20 million—now you’re getting into genocidal proportions. You’re eradicating a whole generation.

“For every child that dies, you’ve got others that are physically debilitated and malformed as a result of nutritional deficiency and denial of medical attention, so even the ones who survive are not going to be healthy. You’re committing genocide in order to impress upon, really the whole world, but particularly the Iraqi regime, that they have to do what they’re told. I thought somebody might be upset about that.

“I thought also they might be upset about the situation in Palestine with an entire population disposed and placed in refugee camps and driven into diaspora over the last 50 years and kids getting shot in the head for throwing rocks against the occupying forces. Knowing that every bullet that hits them, every helicopter that flies, every missile that is fired, is provided by U.S. taxpayers, I thought somebody might be upset about that, too.

“Then I realized this whole strain that runs right back through Indo-China, Second World War, and what they did with the fire bombings in Japan and the nuclear bombing in Japan and back to the Philippines with what they called an ‘Indian war’ there, killing 600,000 to a million and a half people to liberate them from Spain so they could colonize it for themselves.

“In Wounded Knee, at the Marias River, in the Washita, in Sand Creek… All the way back to playing kickball with the heads of the Wappingers in what they called New Amsterdam at the time. I mean that’s a whole history!

“You can’t continue to do this with impunity, you’ve entitled yourself to be able to slaughter people as a way of life, in order to appropriate what’s theirs for your own benefit, and moreover, you say you get to do that without anybody striking back the way you do it, to apply your own rules to you. If you put this stuff out long enough, eventually it’s going to splatter back on you, and that’s what I thought happened that day.”

A significant amount of what Churchill called “grossly inaccurate media coverage” of his analysis of 9/11 was centered on an analogy he made about the Nazi, Adolph Eichmann, and the workers of the World Trade Center. Churchill characterized the technical workers in the twin towers and the Pentagon as the “Little Eichmanns” who “formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire.”

According to Churchill, most of the outrage came from both media and private citizens outraged over the description they believed he used to describe janitors, food service workers, tourists, random passers by, fireman and children.

“Is there some definition you can give me of a guy who pushes a broom for a living, as being a technocrat, a technician at the heart of empire? That his is a technical skill? A food service worker? An 18-month-old baby girl? No. There was no way I was calling any of [those] people by that name,” Churchill said.

The Epitome of Evil

Churchill’s main argument concerning the Eichmann comment is based on Jewish scholar Hannah Arendt’s thesis examining the epitome of evil and the horror of Eichmann being absolutely common.

According to Churchill, Eichmann epitomizes those who worked in the collateral functions of technical skill, such as those who made the gas with which the Jews were gassed or who repaired the railroads leading into Auschwitz-Birkenau.

“They didn’t kill anybody, but they knew what the track was being used for, and they made every effort to make sure that it continued to exist so that the trains could run, And the engineers on the trains and the switchmen, and the brakemen, they didn’t kill anybody either, but they knew what they were hauling and they knew what the outcome was going to be. They were performing their little technical functions,” he said.

Though extermination was not what Eichmann had in mind, he became instrumental in making the policy function, even though he disagreed with it. “No one, including the Israelis, ever accused him of killing anyone, Jew or otherwise,” Churchill said.

“He arranged the train schedules; he arranged the shipment of materials, the gas, other things that were necessary to make the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex, the Sobibor, Chelmno, the other camps function. He made sure the material arrived on time. He was a logistician, that is to say a technician, but he was in charge of a bureau that did those things, he was a bureaucrat. He was very proficient at his job. He wanted to be a good German, he wanted his family taken care of. He was a good family man, his children loved him. He was a good German, he was a patriotic German. He was also a civic-minded individual; he performed civic services to those he valued on a regular basis. Is any of this beginning to sound familiar?”

Churchill draws parallels between those technicians in Germany and those technicians in New York. He pointed out that they perform the technical functions with great proficiency to maximize profit at the expense of mass evisceration and ultimately mass death of millions of people.

“The point is if you are on the receiving end of that, and you try to talk about it and no one listens and your children are dying, you’re going to respond kind of like the Americans responded to Germany with the Air Force bombing the city flat, making it so they couldn’t do what they were doing anymore.

“That’s the impulse, that’s what I tried to put my finger on. And people need to look at themselves for what it is they do, and if they don’t like what they see, then they’re going to have to change it. But the point was to make it comprehensible how people here who do those things are not only perceived by most of the rest of the world, but how they have to be perceived by the people whose children are dying, and that includes a fair number of American Indians.”

University and Colorado Governor Discuss Churchill’s Views

On Jan. 27, Phil DiStefano, University of Colorado Interim Chancellor, made it clear that Churchill’s views are his own and that he personally finds his views offensive. DiStefano also stated his support for Churchill’s right to express his views according to the First Amendment of the Constitution. Shortly thereafter, DiStefano announced on Feb. 3 that he, along with two university deans, would thoroughly investigate Churchill’s work, both written and spoken. This panel is the means for due process in making a decision on firing Churchill.

In a letter dated Feb. 1, Colorado Governor Bill Owens shared his opinion with College Republicans at the University of Colorado. Churchill's comments and writings are “indecent, insensitive and inappropriate," Owens said.

"No one wants to infringe on Mr. Churchill’s right to express himself. But we are not compelled to accept his pro-terrorist views at state taxpayer subsidy nor under the banner of the University of Colorado." The governor expressed hope that Churchill will resign his position on the university faculty.

http://www.colorado.gov/governor/press/february05/churchill.html

ACLU Supports Churchill’s Free Speech Rights

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado issued a statement on Feb. 7 in support of Churchill, citing First Amendment protection for Churchill's right to speak or write his opinions and the rights of his detractors to say they do not like what he wrote or said.

ACLU’s Colorado Executive Director, Cathryn Hazouri called for the university regents, legislators and the governor “to stop threatening Mr. Churchill's job because of the content of his opinions,” stating such governmental interference “tramples on fundamental American values.”

Hazouri said that any action to fire Churchill would be scrutinized to make sure it wasn’t because of the content of his writing.

“Death threats, canceling speaking engagements and threats of losing his job are not appropriate responses to Ward Churchill's opinions, even if you believe they are outrageous," Hazouri said in the statement

Academic Freedom

According to the American Association of University Professors, academic freedom is the right of faculty members to express their views without fear of retaliation or retribution, even if what they say or write is offensive; faculty should be free to criticize accepted theories or widely held beliefs, however unpopular their criticism.

The AAUA goes on to emphasize that academic freedom is not a license for unbridled speech, but that a judgment about whether a tenured faculty member, because of his speech or writings, is unfit to continue must be made by members of the academic profession on the basis of the standards of the profession.

Churchill has been placed in a position that may set precedence on the freedom of any university faculty to challenge issues relevant to our society and its citizens.

“I never really chose this position to be in,” Churchill said. “I want to talk about what it is that I talk about, rather than talk about whether I get to talk about it. I’m kind of ground zero on academic freedom right now. If they pull this one off, then it’s open season.

“This issue in a certain sense is about me, and is about what I said. But it also represents the overall agenda of what they’re targeting: Ethnic Studies in general, Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies. Their idea of the proper function of academy is to manufacture data and studies that reinforce their positions and serve as a cheering section for their version of red, white and blue.

“You’re not supposed to have any divergent opinion, you’re not supposed to have any sort of critical analysis, you’re not supposed to challenge prevailing assumptions.”

The Identity Issue

Churchill has been affiliated with the Keetoowah band of Cherokee. He was given honorary membership by Chief George G. Wicklife in 1993. However, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee recently disclaimed any association with Churchill. He claims less than one-quarter Cherokee, which is the requirement for full membership in the tribe.

Commenting on the recent attacks to his Indian heritage, Churchill said, “On the one hand, you’ve got that just absolutely virulent anti-Indian racism drooling off the pages. On the other hand, when they’re not attacking me by vilifying Indians, they keep insisting that I’m not an Indian. It strikes me as weird that the worst thing a bunch of white guys could think to call me would be a white man.”

Where the Issue Stands Today

As of now, the issue remains unresolved and the UC Board of Regents has yet to make their decision. If the outcome of this review should lead to his termination, Churchill said he has the support of The Association of American University Professors, The Society of American Law Teachers and the American Civil Liberties Union.

This issue remains unresolved in the minds of the general public. While both Native and non-Native people have taken stands for and against Churchill’s position, what lies at the heart of this controversy is Constitutional rights of American people.

Copyright © IAIA CHRONICLE 2005