next »

[Forums Moderator]

Last year, conservative legislators in Colorado strongly criticized the tenure system at the University of Colorado for protecting the job of Ward Churchill, a faculty member there, after he made incendiary comments linking the victims of the September 11 terrorists attacks to Nazis. Now the university has hired a consulting company, at a cost of $330,000, and brought in a retired U.S. Air Force general to review those tenure policies. Is such an outside review appropriate? Should public universities be answerable to state legislators on such matters?
Read more...

[%sig%]

[Federal Dog]

"Is such an outside review appropriate? Should public universities be answerable to state legislators on such matters?"



Yes to both questions. There is nothing whatsoever irregular or controversial about being professionally accountable to society and to taxpayers who fund state universities. Churchill is a flaming scandal on so many levels, beyond his idiotic public proclamations (e.g., no doctorate, chronic plagiarism, fraudulent assertion of Native American status to get hired and tenured, etc.): Obviously something has gone very, very wrong with the schools today that such a person would not only get hired, but would be tenured a year later without any of the normal checks and processes that go into a tenure decision.  WTF??


"The inmates are running the aslyum" is quite right: If people in the schools cannot or will not control themselves, there is no choice but to turn the problem over to outside actors who can and will.

[John]

Of course the tenure policies of a state university should be open to review and regulation by a state legislature, but only if the public university wants to continue to receive public funding.  

Now, if the university wants to continue to hire and retain with tenure faculty members who are morons, plagiarists, and liars, then they should be free to move thier university off public land and go it alone.

After all, it's a free country--isn't it?

[%sig%]

[Elizabeth]

It is unfortunate that all CU professors are being unfairly tarred with the "moron, plagarist, and liar" brush, just because of the actions of one professor. Obviously, the hiring of unqualified Churchill was exceptional and says more about the tenuring process years ago, not now. Churchill's hiring does reflect badly on affirmative action based decisions. I think that the real question is: How many more unqualified academics have obtained positions based on non-existent Indian identity? Certainly, universities need to start requiring proof of federal tribal enrollment to ensure that they are hiring actual minorities, not imaginary Indians who boost their faculty diversity numbers. If anyone can claim any racial identity they want, then the idea that affirmative action will level the playing field is pointless. Every unemployed white Ph.D. is going to claim that he or she is 1/128 Cherokee princess.

[TBD]

The Chirchill case is mythical, but atypical.

The popular chimera around tenure is that an administrator (maybe John Silver or Ronald Reagan [as governor]) will swoop down and deny someone tenure for ideological reasons-- that's the reason we give for defending it so.  After tenure, at least, one is protected from such incursions.

The irony of tenure is that the protection of the tenured is often mirroed by the infantilization of the untenured.

Ninety percent of the tenure problems cases in state colleges I've seen have been *manovers by departmental colleagues* to get rid of someone who irritated them-- not necessarily someone who was bad at teaching, research, or service.  

Frequently, old boys [or girls] in local departments persuade a higher level personnel committee, the dean, or the provost to do the deed, since they want to keep the peace in the department as best they can, especially if there are factions.

Often the issues concerning why one is not tenured have more to do with deference or demeanor than anything else.  Oh, to be sure, reasons given usually concern themselves with teaching, research, or service, but it's usually easy to find others with comparable records who were tenured-- if not in that very department, then in others nearby.

So the tenure process often operates in profound bad faith.  Higher level reviews are frequently shams, especially when the decision is supposed to go against the candidate.  Informal processes are commonly used to circumvent the formal review.

Refuse to be exploited by a senior faculty, and you could find your one poor teaching evaluation held against you as a reason for exclusion.  Actually happened to someone I know.

So we often-- at least at state colleges-- find department faculty able to use large amounts of the taxpayers' money (in terms of new searches and potential legal fees) to indulge what are often no more than their personal whims-- not a good situation.

In at least two instances, I saw more intellectual faculty disposed of by faculty who were not as talented.   Makes you wonder what college is about.

I taught at a college where administration had been successfully sued over and over on tenure cases.  The president begged the assembled faculty to stop "playing gotcha."

"Every time you do," he said, "I have to pay someone another $100,000."

Because of this I'd like to see tenure placed on a more objective basis in public universities and colleges.  Maybe it could actually be contractual and quantifiable.  So many good evaluations.  So many publications.  So much service.

Just a thought.

[Federal Dog]

"It is unfortunate that all CU professors are being unfairly tarred with the "moron, plagarist, and liar" brush, just because of the actions of one professor."


Is this true? I haven't seen everyone at the school called these things. May I ask where this is happening?


"Obviously, the hiring of unqualified Churchill was exceptional and says more about the tenuring process years ago, not now."



Again, is this true? How do we know that the hiring was "exceptional" and that the tenure process has changed? If it has changed, and thus put an end to the problem, why the current external review of tenure policies?
 




"Certainly, universities need to start requiring proof of federal tribal enrollment to ensure that they are hiring actual minorities, not imaginary Indians who boost their faculty diversity numbers. If anyone can claim any racial identity they want, then the idea that affirmative action will level the playing field is pointless."


 
Self-identification as a favored ethnic minority is very much the practice at many schools, including those at which I have taught.  I agree with you here: I have already seen six people that I know of fraudulently self-identify as Native Americans to gain admission to graduate school and/or the professioriate. I would have thought that Affirmative Action proponents would be howling at the obvious abuse here (which, of course, directly damages intended beneficiaries of AA). Yet, no outrage at the fraud has been voiced by these proponents: What does this silence say about the true goals of AA?

[A.D.]

This reminds me of the Letterman joke that goes something like "darn -- it only takes one anthrax attack to make al-Quida look bad."

Obviously, Mr. Ward Leroy Churchill played the system to the hilt -- played the race card to adjunct, then to quickly-approved tenure. The question now is, "how many more are there like him?"

At bottom: you take public dollars, expect public review. If you don't like public review -- don't take public dollars.  If you can't stand the heat -- get out of the kitchen.

Academic freedom covers education in one's subject domain -- it is NOT an ultimate shield from criticism about one's unrelated pontificating about other matters. You can't use academic freedom to evade responsibility and accountability for your words and actions.

[Ivor E. Tower]

Protection of academic dead wood is ccasionally one of the unfortunate consequences of tenure. Measures to ensure productivity and vitality at our universities are worth reviewing from time time, especially with public money at stake. However, universities normally put up with the down side to granting tenure precisely because of cases like the present one concerning Ward Churchill. Because he made remarks that offended a number of people, his job at CU is under threat. In making these remarks no law of the land was broken, nor any dereliction of professorial duties implied. Would there be any enquiry into Churchill's appointment credentials, academic practices, or conditions of tenure had he not made offensive remarks? Of course not.  This is essentially a question of academic freedom.  Civilized societies  made this choice centuries ago: to endure the occasional assault on our sensibilities to protect free exchange of (sometimes controversial or unpalatable) ideas. In hindsight, the wisdom of this choice must surely rank as one of the greatest successes of our society.
By instituting a review of tenure procedures, CU has enveloped the fundamental question of academic freedom in a smokescreen of side issues such as those being discussed here. As much as the university  may need to mollify those in control of its purse strings, it would be nice to see an academic institution standing up for its principles. If the academic community expects to reverse a trend of dwindling public respect, perhaps it should show respect for itself.

[%sig%]

[John]

Sorry, Ivor, it's not about academic freedom.  It's about fraud.

[%sig%]

[Black Ivy]

Absolutely!  Moreover, this could prove to be the first step for elected representatives to make faculty appointments as tenuous as their own positions, whereby faculty have to suck up to state-appointed trustees of the university who may decide to censure or terminate faculty because they disagree with the implications of a faculty member's research or teaching paradigm.  Thus, with every significant shift in the political affiliation of state-appointed trustees/visitors (3 to 7 years), we will have a new wave of ideologically-centric faculty.  Now, that's progress.

Poor Churchill -- if he would only have referred to Blacks or women in his presentation, his job would not be in jeopardy.

[Rod Carveth, Chair, Marywood U]

This is what happens when politics mixes with educational institutions.  What Ward Churchill said was highly offensive, but protected by his First Amendment rights.  His comments should not provoke an attack on the tenure process.

There's a science professor not too far away from high at Lehigh.  He is a supporter of intelligent design.  I find ID to be an affront to the study of science, but I support the man's right to have his own beliefs, and would not seek to take tenure from him, or require Lehigh to overhaul their tenure procedures because this man got tenure.

[Federal Dog]

"What Ward Churchill said was highly offensive, but protected by his First Amendment rights. His comments should not provoke an attack on the tenure process."


I agree with you on both scores. However, minimal accountability in no way constitutes "an attack on the tenure process." I mean, honestly! The guy has no Ph.D., is a proven serial plagiarist, and an equally proven fraud with respect to his self-identification as a Native American. It is of deep concern to me that any attempt to make people in the schools accountable is automatically tarred as an "attack."


Are we really saying that no ethical, intellectual, and professional standards exist anymore?  Doesn't this really prove beyond all reasonable doubt the need for external intervention to cure such disarray?

[Assistant Prof UBC]

I haven't read the particular paper which this debate refers to however....
what I find interesting about many of the above comments is that they accept the assertion that Mr. Churchill is somehow not a scholar and therefore does not deserve tenure. Do any of the above do work in the area? I do work in the field of indigenous studies and he is an extremely well known and cited scholar whose work I often refer to.   There is no question that he is 'radical' however if you know anything about the historical and contemporary treatment of Native Americans then this is surely justified.

[Citizen]

I'm willing to concede that what he said is protected by the 1st amendment.  (An interesting argument, however, is that seditious speech during wartime is not protected.  President Lincoln, for example, jailed reporters in the hulls of Union ships for printing anti-Union newspaper articles during the Civil War.)

There is no inherent right to be employed by the people of Colorado; no right to receive tenure by a public institution; no right to be paid by the people of a state.  The Academy answers to those who support it, not vice versa.  It exists for the People, not the People for it.

As for the poster who writes is praise of Churchill's scholarship:  caveat emptor. Ward is a prime  example of the problem of inaccurate scholarship creep.  The idea that US soldiers gave smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans is always mentioned in the context of typical "blame America first" articles.  It's a complete myth with no basis in fact, but it gets repeated as if it were true.

[A.D.]

" .. His comments should not provoke an attack on the tenure process .."

Ward Leroy Churchill is NOT being investigated for tenure issues.

He has been publicly accused by at least two academic peers for research fraud. That is not good.

What I find most amusing is how long it took WLC to blow himself up. Example: the columnist for the Boulder paper observed that 20 years ago, as a student journalist, WLC became visibly hostile and enraged at him, a state he has been accused of, on repeated occasions since.

If that is the image tenured academics want to defend -- hostile, unpleasant, petulant -- good luck. If Churchill tried his clown act anywhere else in the world, he'd be locked up -- or suddenly disappear.

[%sig%]