As I write this letter, the fate of Ward Churchill’s employment rests in your hands. Undoubtedly, as I am sure it has been noted by others, you are in an unenviable position. No matter how you decide (be it to terminate a tenured professor, suspend him, or allow him to resume his duties unfettered) your decision will be reveled by some and reviled by others.
That said, I am writing to implore you to do the right thing and allow Professor Churchill to remain in his position as a faculty member at the University of Colorado. Let’s face it: the only reason you are currently in the position of deciding Professor Churchill’s fate is due to the simple fact that he had the audacity to make an especially politically incorrect statement in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. What he said initially in an essay entitled, “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” can be summed up by an observation that many of us have heard since childhood: violence begets violence. That observation (“violence begets violence”) is more than a mere truism. As a social psychologist who specializes in the study of human aggression, my understanding of the experimental and field research on provocation and aggression makes it clear: conditions of provocation (from frustration to outright physical attacks) often result in efforts to retaliate. What Churchill merely contends is that it should come as no surprise that the organizational and structural violence perpetrated against the Third and Fourth Worlds by US and Europe economic and military policies would lead to retaliation (e.g., terrorist attacks, guerrilla insurgencies, sabotage).
Having taken some time out of my busy schedule to examine the various reports regarding allegations of academic dishonesty, I am inclined to view the charges to be little more than a tempest in a teapot and to question the scholarly integrity of the “Report of the Investigative Committee on Research Misconduct at CU-Boulder Concerning Allegations of Academic Misconduct against Professor Ward Churchill.” As a scholar whose works have appeared in a number of peer-review journals and who has also served as an ad-hoc reviewer for a number of manuscripts, I am keenly aware of issues surrounding plagiarism and fraudulent data. At this juncture, the case against Churchill strikes me as weak and the case to dismiss Churchill as politically motivated rather than motivated by any principle of academic integrity. In my own line of research, I have increasingly focused my attention to applying a social psychological theory of aggression to genocide (I am currently a member of the International Network of Genocide Scholars) and have found Churchill’s writings on the topic to be instrumental in the development of my own thoughts, and have cited his work on genocide in at least one published manuscript thus far. If I had any reason to consider his work suspect, I would not be making the previous statement nor writing today in his defense.
At a time when academic freedom is under attack (as the effort to fire Churchill, as well as the recent DePaul University decision to deny tenure to Norman Finkelstein exemplify), I urge the Regents of the University of Colorado to do the right thing and allow Professor Churchill to resume his rightful position as a faculty member. Keep in mind that contrary to what Churchill’s detractors may be hoping, if Churchill is dismissed there are plenty of other scholars (myself included) who will carry on in his place, speaking those unpopular and politically incorrect but ever so necessary truths to the public.