Talk:Ward Churchill/Archive 8

message: I forgot to give a citation for the CU Alumni Association refusing to hand over the teaching award.  I found it in a number of places, but probably the most neutral one is the Boulder Daily Camera.  The original article requires (free) registration: , but the Google cache is open access: 
I actually got some stuff in the CU Alumni magazine, The Coloradan, (I'm an alumnus) that mentioned it too; but I throw those out, so don't have citation details handy. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Teaching Award 

message: I recently changed the quote about Churchill's membership in the Keetoowah Band to say what the source URL actually says.  I had not looked through the edit history, but it turns out that the bogus quote was inserted by User:Keetoowah way back in July.  Several editors back then had put in the correct quote, but our vandal user managed to sneak in the misquote after a bunch of reversions.  I guess it shows vigilance is always necessary.  I just started working on this article, but it sure make me wince to think the fabrication was there that long.  Oh well, once it is unprotected, let's watch this to make sure the quote stays authentic. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Update: Actually, there is an earlier statement on the Keetoowah Band website, if you scroll down farther.  Nonetheless, the "updated and official" statement must take precedence in WP discussion over an earlier preliminary draft statement.  It's hardly any less dishonest to treat a superceded statement as if it was final than it is to use a wholly unavailable draft. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:19, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quoting United Keetoowah Band 

message: Lulu just contacted me regarding this article, and it seems like it was a good idea he did, this edit war seems to be fairly heated. Let's leave all the editing ideas on here for a bit while things cool down, i've protected the page so we can hopefully do that. If you'd like a third party to check the edit proposals, just ask, but otherwise i'll stay out of it. karmafist 03:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Protected

message: I've created a WP:RFC Request for Comment on this article at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ward Churchill. However, it's somewhat experimental and uses a similiar form to a user RFC rather than the traditional "this is just a notice that there's a problem" format for articles that happened before, so bear with me. karmafist 20:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: RFC

message: Ok, I've unprotected the article. From that RFC, it appears that Keetoowah is the problem more than anything, and last night I blocked him per 2 months as prescribed via the interpretation of the arbcom's ruling on him in October. karmafist 19:18, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Unprotected

message: I don't understand the below paragraph.  Unfortunately, at least for me, the Daily Camera links provided lead to blank pages (not entirely blank, but no articles); my guess is that's an issue with the Camera website, which may or may not be fixed.
:Three other authors have come forward to accuse Churchill of publishing their work without their permission. [40] Robert T. Coulter, a lawyer and member of the Potawatomi Nation, has accused Churchill of taking a class that Coulter taught on the status of American Indian nations and having those notes published without written permission in a book of essays that Churchill had published. In addition, Churchill allegedly added endnotes to the article that were not in the original article. Coulter has not only criticized Churchill's use of the article without permission, but also the addition of the endnotes. He said: "I would never have permitted that — especially Ward Churchill. He's not a lawyer. He doesn't have the skill or expertise to add [endnotes] to a paper on my own subject." [41]
Specifically, Coulter's comments here don't make sense as written.  Churchill is "accused of taking a class"? That's not an accusation as far as I can see though.  Then it says Churchill allegedly published notes w/o permission: what notes? Churchill's own notes taken in class? Notes handed out by the instructor? Then just after that it claims that Churchill used "the article" without permission.  Whose article, Coulter's? If so, how does the misused article relate to the "notes"?
Does anyone else have a clearer idea exactly what is alleged to have happened? It sounds like there is something here that should be in the article, but it's very muddy what is claimed. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:37, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notes? Course? 

message: I put the teaching award non-grant back to the New McCarthyism section.  It's much more interesting there.  The fact that Churchill is a good teacher who students would vote so is pretty trivial in itself.  There are apparently at least three of those awarded each year, to teachers of classes of varying sizes.  And Churchill has been teaching at CU for 15 years.  I'm sure it would be nice to receive, but if 45 awards have been given to various faculty since Churchill started at CU, getting one of them isn't all that unusual for faculty members.
The thing that makes the award notable, IMO, is the unprecedented refusal to award it per the alumni association's own rules.  That shows a real cave-in to political pressures.  There's really not any sliver of connection between the various charges themselves and the award: the award is for teaching quality, not for "least plagiarizing professor" or "most acceptable opinions in a professsor".  The contortions of the alumni association to find a connection shows somethign about the political atmosphere. 
Btw. Excellent edits recently Pokey. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Teaching award placement 

message: I'm curious, User:Pokey5945, where you found the vote tally for the teaching award.  The numbers don't sound particularly implausible (54 of 2085 votes for Churchill, in his class-size category).  It perhaps seems slightly to insinuate something negative about the award by pointing out that a pretty small minority of student voters picked Churchill. CU has something like 23k students, so only a tenth of them voted, and it probably has something like 800-1000 faculty, so that's a lot of directions to split the vote.  And presumably, only students who had taken Churchill's classes could in good faith vote for him (but those wouldn't necessarily, if they liked another prof better whom they also studied with).
Anyway, I don't care about that.  The award is really a completely trivial thing in itself, with no inherent notability.  Lots of academics with articles have won similar things, but nearly none of the articles bother mentioning this.  The striking thing is that the alumni association would bother withholding such a trivial honor for no reason even remotely connected to Churchill's teaching quality (what the award is for).  The cited article, however, does not give any info on the vote breakdown (though the general "more than 2000 students voted" is consistent).  Some of what it does have might be relevant to the section, though the main relevant thing is a quote from Churchill himself rather than a 3rd party, which might be less good:
:Churchill said the case is more like a professor withholding a grade "because a student has been accused of bouncing a check at Walgreen's."
:He said the group is penalizing his exercise of free speech and does not have the authority to withhold an award granted by students.
:"What (Zimmerman) is really saying — obviously — is that it would be really awkward for the institution to have to acknowledge the quality of my teaching in the midst of an effort to paint an exactly opposite portrait of me," he wrote in an e-mail Thursday.
:"The fact is that I've won the award, and Zimmerman is withholding it for reasons having nothing at all to do with the criteria of the award itself."
:More than 2,000 students voted for the 2005 Teaching Recognition Awards, granted annually in four class-size categories.
:Ray MacFee of business won for classes with more than 150 students, Brett King of psychology won for classes with between 76 to 150 students, and John Hansen of speech, language and hearing won for classes with fewer than 25 students.
:Students selected Churchill for the award for classes of 25 to 75. 
Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:56, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Teaching award 

message: I have no idea what Mr. Churchill's service dates actually are but to serve in Vietnam from 1966 to 1968 would require more than a twelve month tour which would be highly unlikely as the tours were all one year and while volunteering for additional tours was certainly common enough a draftee would not have time to do so. It would add to the credibility of the article if these dates were corrected or clarified. Danm50 16:31, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would welcome clarification of the actual dates, but I've seen these in news reports also.  But definitely never put meta-commentary on the article within the article itself (dunno if the anon was Danm50).  Perhaps Churchill assignment was extended involuntarily? Or perhaps he reenlisted? Or maybe this represents just a couple days of the start and end years, and the whole of 1967? I don't know what the fact is, these are just guesses.  Or maybe the reported years are wrong. 141.154.165.60 18:11, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vietnam Service Dates 

message: Ward Churchill appears to be the latest author attacked by a strikling super-conservative country. I have been reading a lot about American sociology lately, as it relates to the violent suppresion of the left.*  
I knew little about Churchill, and had a negative view of him because of his 9/11 article and infamous "little eichman" quote.  I then stumbled upon one of his articles:
, Which talks about the history of the suppresion of the Left, to its very origins, the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
It was absolutly incredible.  Ward Churchill is an incredible historian. What do these attacks on Ward Churchill do?  They cause Americans to shy away from reading Churchill's work, and they send a clear message to others who may want to attack American foreign policy: that you can lose your job if you criticize America, that you will be attacked viciously if you criticize America.  It is the latest form of American suppression of the Left.
I am just interested if there is a list of authors, or a book or article about those who have been "Swift Boated" like Churchill.  If so, I would like to add this to the article.  I think Americans need to know how America's sophisticated Propoganda system** operates. Travb 06:19, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The vicious attacks on Ward Churchill

message: * First paragraph 
Failing to mention Ward Churchill's disgrace, resignation from University office in the first paragraph is frightful propagandizing. It's the only reason most of us have heard of him. No respectable encyclopedia article would omit a prominent reference to his disgrace, the reasons for it, his response and so on. Yes it's to some extent covered in the article but a one line summary is needed in the first paragraph. It's absence is justification alone for the article to marked for a lack of neutrality and significant fact error. Fluterst 08:44, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe you'd like to think of yourself that way.  And indeed, your contributions to the article itself have been quite reasonable, in fact affirmatively helpful.  But no one reading the diatribes on this talk page would walk away with the impression you say you wish to give.  Rather, anyone ould assume that you are vehemently and ideologically anti-Churchill, and happy to shape selected evidence to try to support your preconception.  Just so you know. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:05, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Seriously... take a breath, and try reading what you've written on the talk page.  Even the comment immediately above.  Your presupposition is that the obligation of this article is to "condemn" Churchill, and according to this a priori a "failure to condemn" is a "constant attempt to excuse".  But this is an encyclopedia article, not an advocacy editorial.  The rule here is WP:NPOV. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: "Orchestrated" implies a conspiracy. This is unsubstantiated. "Right wing" is only partially accurate. Many on the left are also appalled by Churchill and have spoken out against him. "Smear campaign" assumes that Churchill is innocent of the charges against him.Pokey5945 19:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The charges change daily, but Churchill is most certainly innocent of the vast majority of "charges" against him.  It's conceivable that he trivially violated some copyright, at some point.  Most certainly this was orchestrated.  David Horowitz and Lynn Cheney were two of those actively "shopping around" a possible "villian" since about 2000.  Sami Al-Arian managed to fill the role for a while, but they really wanted someone more centrally in political theory to attack.  Also, Colorado has turned into something of a hotbed of this purification of academia effort.  Still, all that is a different article, not this one. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The allegation of plagiarism is of a paragraph from his ex-wife.  So yeah, trivial.  Or the silliness with possibly-not-fair-use on the derived drawing.  The so-called "fabricating genocide" is again trivial: it sounds like Churchill may be wrong (though I'm not sure exactly what he actually claimed, and where)... but for an historian to be wrong in an analysis is, well, utterly trivial.  I mean, it's important to academic repute in the sense of whom to cite and the like, but as some sort of ethical failing, it barely rises to absurd. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The article, as is, does a fairly good job at summing up the allegations of academic fraud by Churchill. The plagiarism is not "one paragraph from his ex-wife" but includes Cohen from Dalhousie University and Robbins. And, its not just that he was wrong on his analysis of the sources, it was that he deliberately misrepresented the material. TDC 22:00, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Lack of neutrality, factual errors