At Least He’s Not Your Professor

(oh – wait, he is…)

There’s a nice Friday Afternoon Read in the Weekly Standard concerning CU Professor Ward Churchill (will this guy never go away?!?).

Churchill was the most exciting thing to come out of Colorado since Columbine, or maybe even JonBenet Ramsey. (Churchill himself says his favorite show is The Ward Churchill Factor, since Bill O'Reilly has done no less than 31 segments on him.)

Predictably, the political right--everyone from Colorado Governor Bill Owens to Rudy Giuliani--called for Churchill's head to be stuck on a pike. Even more predictably, the left did what the left does best: sign support petitions and compare the right to Joe McCarthy.

And to what end?

Churchill's popularity is soaring. Already required reading at over 100 universities, Churchill is a prolific, if not downright logorrheic, author. He's written or edited over 20 books… (his) number of (speaking) invitations has tripled, and his fee, when he's not doing pro-bono work, is at five grand plus expenses.

Call me harebrained: but I’m thinking somehow, somewhere along the line – we might have actually done this guy a favor.

The best thing about this article is – as usual – the closing: a local AIM activist explains how Bay Area Indians have their own little name for our Local Hero…

We just call him Walking Eagle… a Walking Eagle is so full of s--that it can no longer fly.

Comments

[lumberjack]

"...the most exciting thing to come out of Colorado since Columbine, or maybe even JonBenet Ramsey"

Exciting. Columbine. Jon Benet Ramsey.

Words fail me.

[Strider]

"Call me harebrained: but I’m thinking somehow, somewhere along the line – we might have actually done this guy a favor."

Poetic justice on the Right really. When the Right uses Churchill as their poster boy for it's attack on Free Speech and the University system.

I disagree with what he said, but I defend his right to say it. Free Speech is there to protect UNPOPULAR views, not for Lexus to advertise their newest vehicle.

The Right is using CU (and the EXTREME example of Ward Churchill) to paint with a broad brush ALL liberal profs and universities.

This whole issue is NOT about ol Ward. It is about the control of higher education. By a group of men who want a rubber stamp judiciary, unlimited corporate power, and none of those pesky professors who actually disagree.

[sparky]

Actually the First Amendment does protect the latest Lexus advertisement. Unless they say a naughty word.

[Roger D]

Interesting story out of Pueblo. A political science prof at CSU-Pueblo, assigned a pair of students to the State Republican Party as part of a grade-earning, class-sanctioned internship. Part of their internship was to help raise money for the Repbulican party.

So, I suppose this is further evidence of the suppression of Republican students; the extreme liberal/democrat tilt of the state college/university political science departments in Colorado; and the need to establish political thought-police enforced quotas.

[Strider]

Roger,

Can you provide a link to this story?

[cc tiger]

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/legislature/article/0,1299,DRMN_37_3720026,00.html

I'm not sure what the problem is. I received school credit for work I did as a PAID EMPLOYEE of state party. Colorado College has a specific independent stufy elective for campaign work.

Now that's a privat school, but it still implies that this isn't exactly "man bited dog" here.

[peterco]

They are turning Ward Churchill into a lefty-version of Ann Coulter, which is a horrible thing to see more of.

There isn't a problem with the internship - it is to show that the idea that colleges have some leftist agenda is just an attack PR campaign. Shouldn't that professor have failed that student, or threatened him in some way? That would be a better fit to the attack stories the College Republicans like to play. I mean, to inflitrate classes to try to provoke conflict is a bit excessive, but they have done it.

In every demonstration that they have on CU's campus, they always act like victims of the big bad Democrats, who inevitably come out to protest.

[Alfalfa]

Leave it to the Weekly Standard to find Columbine "exciting."

What a bunch of dopes. Making comments like that completely discedits their arguments. In fact, it kind of makes the Weekly Standard come across like Ward Churchill making outlandish and offensive comments in a vain attempt to get noticed.

[panasianbiz]

I stumbled across your blog while I was in the process of doing some online research. What is most disturbing to me is that Churchill is required reading at over 100 universities. Is this giving students a fair perspective?