The University of Colorado report on Ward Churchill’s research misconduct is out. The investigating committee unanimously found that Churchill committed deliberate falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism in his published work.

A three member majority of the five member panel thought Churchill’s conduct egregious enough to warrant revocation of tenure, and dismissal; of them, two recommended a five year suspension without pay. The other two members recommended Churchill be suspended from CU for two years without pay.

Sadly, those two members apparently justify their stance in part “because they are troubled by the circumstances under which these allegations have been made, and because they believe that his dismissal would have an adverse effect on the ability of other scholars to conduct their research with due freedom.”

Yes, if by “freedom” they mean “freedom to misrepresent and lie.” Other than that, what responsible academic is affected? Churchill chose to be a “public intellectual” (the report’s words) subject to criticism from non-academics; he also chose to fake his research. One or both of those was not a good choice.

Some of the meat of the report (albeit weakened by committee-speak):

… a number of distinct but related patterns of misconduct … deserve mention. One is an indifference to the proper attribution of scholarly work to its genuine author. This indifference has taken the form of misappropriation of the work of another, the attachment of the names of others to Professor Churchill’s own work, and the use of uninformative titles such as “Institute of Natural Progress” to muddy the assignment of credit and responsibility for work. The conventions of scholarly attribution are not empty forms of etiquette; they are central to the progress of scholarship and the accountability of the scholar. … We have also observed several instances in Professor Churchill’s work of a willingness to make claims about legislation or historical events not supported by the evidence he cites or by any other evidence the Committee could locate. A related pattern is the employment of vague or obfuscating citation and reference practices. More serious still is the pattern of citing one’s own work, disguised by its attribution to another living scholar in the same field, as authority for assertions and claims that lack independent support. (p 95)

If there is one crucial pattern that most affects our assessment, however, it is a pattern of failure to understand the difference between scholarship and polemic, or at least of behaving as though that difference does not matter. … the Committee has found repeated instances of his practice of fabricating details or ostensible written evidence to buttress his broader ideological arguments. While his general claims may be correct, it is unacceptable scholarship to create fictitious support for them.

…When criticism of his work has been printed in appropriate scholarly venues, he has not published substantive responses to such critiques. Instead his tendency is to attack the person offering that criticism. … his habit of responding to an accusation by disparaging the accuser rather than addressing the question serves as a way to evade genuine confrontation with the charges.

They also note that Colorado was something of an enabler:

We believe that the University of Colorado may have made the extraordinary decision to hire Professor Churchill, a charismatic public intellectual with no doctorate and no history of regular faculty membership at a university, to a tenured position without any probationary period in part because at that moment in the institution’s history, it desired the favorable attention his notoriety and following were expected to bring. This notoriety was achieved to some extent by the publication of some of the very essays that have now come under scrutiny because of their scholarly shortcomings.

So now Colorado has a problem. The committee failed to unanimously recommend dismissal, so they either keep a plagiarist and liar on the faculty (without pay) or face a battle to get rid of him.
Pirate Ballerina, the go-to blog for all things Ward Churchill, has excerpts from Churchill’s initial response, posted in its entirety at Counterpunch. Churchill considers the investigation a “travesty” and says “the entire procedure appears to be little more than a carefully-orchestrated effort to cast an aura of legitimacy over an entirely illegitimate set of predetermined outcomes.” That shouldn’t surprise the investigating committee, who wrote:

… Professor Churchill has, on more than one occasion, claimed that certain acts that appear to have been his were instead the responsibility of some other actor: his editor or publisher, his assistant, or his former wife and collaborator. … we have come to see these claims as emblems of a recurrent refusal to take responsibility for errors (whether or not abetted by some other person’s act or omission), and a willingness to blame others for his troubles.

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In Churchill’s response to the report, posted on Pirate Ballerina, he says “The upshot is that the committee’s report is often self-contradictory.” Isn’t “self-contradictory” an oxymoron?

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Insider was working on this story as well and would like to h/t Moonage Political Webdream for alerting him to today’s news.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 16th, 2006 at 7:37 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Nemesises ... Nemesi?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.