The slow wheels of an academic investigation continue to grind toward firing Ward Churchill from the University of Colorado at Boulder. This afternoon, the university’s Standing Committee on Research Misconduct issued its report. The report agreed with a previous investigative committee’s report that Mr. Churchill, who gained infamy in 2005 for comparing some victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks to “little Eichmanns,” had committed serious research misconduct and should be disciplined (The Chronicle, May 17).

Like the investigative committee, the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct split on the question of punishing Mr. Churchill. Six members recommended that he be fired. Two said he should be suspended without pay for five years, and one recommended a two-year suspension without pay.

The Standing Committee also suggested policy changes, including a request for more consistency in the hiring and promotion of faculty members. Mr. Churchill was hired directly into a tenured associate professorship without a long history as an academic at another institution.

The Standing Committee’s recommendations now go to Susan Avery, the campus’s interim provost, and Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. They will then make a recommendation to the chancellor, Philip P. DiStefano, who will make a final decision on whether Mr. Churchill remains at Boulder. The university said no timeline had been set for making that decision.

Mr. Churchill released a written statement blasting the university and the latest report. “The fact that CU has spent over a year and a great deal of money conducting a sham investigation of ‘research misconduct’ does not convert an otherwise illegal action into a legitimate one,” he said. “This process has not demonstrated that I engaged in any serious research misconduct but that, after more than a year of painstaking review, those charged with firing me could find nothing more than a few footnotes and questions of attribution to quibble over.”