Tag Archives: Boulder Daily Camera

Ward Churchill prevails over Western Civ

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Professor Ward Churchill stands before Denver court house
DENVER- The jury ruled for Ward Churchill today, that he was wrongfully terminated, on the basis of his 9/11 essay, and that CU had no other justification to fire him. It remains for the judge to order the university to reinstate the professor, with back pay, and pay Attorney David Lane’s legal fees. In other words, the accusations made against Churchill have been repudiated, and the regents showed themselves to be perjurers. It was my impression the ex-Rocky Mountain News columnists left the courtroom with their tongues between their wobbly knees.

Churchill v University of Colorado

Churchill v University of ColoradoThis is court room 6, where the trial stretched for three and a half weeks. We’re looking over the plaintiff’s desk, to the right is the podium. That’s Ward Churchill’s coat draped on his chair.

I would expect that Churchill is owed an apology from the several publications which perpetuated the untruths about his scholarship. Beside the RMN, there’s Westword, the Denver Post, the Boulder Daily Camera, etc, etc, basically everyone who’s peddled the plagiarism falsehoods, thinking them substantiated by the CU committee. Now the falsehoods are disproved are adjudicated. Now it will be libel, to repeat those untruths about Churchill.

Churchill v University of Colorado

Churchill v University of Colorado

Churchill v University of Colorado

Churchill v University of Colorado

Press conference after verdict

Lynne Stewart visits Churchill Trial

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Human rights activist Lynn Steward marches with husband Ralph PointerDENVER- For local media wonks who may have lost sight of the national significance of the Churchill v CU trial, the Denver courtroom was visited last week by radical luminary Lynne Stewart, who traveled from New York in a show of solidarity with Churchill’s fight against a systemic quashing of dissent now reaching into US academia.

Lynne and her husband Ralph Poynter scheduled their Denver visit to coincide with Professor Churchill’s testimony and the anticipated end of the 3-week trial. But arriving Wednesday and leaving Friday, they missed both. We met the couple on Thursday, the day’s session which was cut short by the closings due to severe weather.

As the lawyer to accused terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, Stewart was convicted in 2005 of conspiracy and giving material aid to a terrorist. She was sentenced to 28 months in prison, but is free on bail while awaiting the outcome of an appeal.

Denver reporters missed Stewart’s visit in their seemingly predisposition to ignore the trial’s greater ramifications, except for the lip service they pay to the Right Winged media’s national obsession with Ward Churchill and their idea of blasphemy.

No matter how inflammatory Professor Churchill’s essay, the actions taken by CU to appease Colorado politicians, represent nothing less than the gagging of dissent. And in a university, where you’d hope all the voices would be dissenting. What good are fascist professors outside of PE and Machine shop? Is school any place for a humanities faculty member who is bigoted or conservative?

Personally, I resent idiocy over the airwaves, but in the schools it is just unforgivable.

The case has generated headlines across the country and spurred fiery debates about academic freedom versus academic integrity.

This is how the Boulder Daily Camera summarizes the Churchill case. While they admit to the trial’s notoriety, they frame the argument just as Churchill’s censors would approve. A false choice between freedom and integrity.

It’s not freedom versus integrity. It’s freedom and integrity versus the subjugation of both. While Professor Churchill and allies stand for freedom of speech, and integrity of character, the college is being shown, in league with the media, to represent neither.

Media coverage of Denver Churchill Trial

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Media gather around video feed from Churchill vs CU trial
DENVER- NMT to the rescue. So far we’ve noticed a strange media dyslexia about the Churchill vs CU trial. When we’ve attended, the proceedings look like a rout for truth and the historical record. When we haven’t made it to Denver and are left to rely on the news coverage, by all accounts Churchill is in trouble. Are the reporters freakin’ blind?

While I’ve been content to revel in the excitement of clackering laptop keyboards all about me in the courtroom, I hadn’t snooped over anyone’s shoulder, until this week. On Monday, the Boulder Daily Camera front row regular, after he’d posted his story before the first morning break, busied himself with emails, then watched a video with the Denver Post correspondent perched over his shoulder. Later another media log lump monopolized the last power outlet to play solitaire.

I’m guessing the DU law student project Race to the Bottom blogger is taking the most notes, competing with a would-be law student, not just for proficiency, but also in who takes the most drearily technical view of the proceedings.

I’ve yet been able to assess the coverage by the weekly visitor from the Silver and Gold Record, CU’s faculty publication. Check out the Wednesday account, and three previous: March 16, 14, 12.

Ward Churchill is expected to take the stand today, so I’ve come up to lend insight to the academic goings on. I’m somewhat alarmed at the angle the media is taking. Ward Churchill is not only the leading authority on Native American history, he’s among only a few outspoken academic voices. More spirited than Zinn, or Chomsky, and as result, perhaps more controversial. But I challenge anyone to name many contemporaries who match more luminary.

Next I will provide color commentary for the lesser luminaries who are dogging Churchill and his desecration of idealized Americana.

Boulder Daily Camera editorial and CU campus Colorado Daily are unanimous

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Bill Ayers and Ward Churchill
BOULDER- All the Denver TV news vans were standing by as Ward Churchill retook the CU campus podium. Local coverage of the Glenn Miller Ballroom event was front page and immediate, in both the students’ Colorado Daily and the Boulder Daily Camera. The surprise wasn’t just that the articles were unflattering, but that they were the exact same.

I’m sure it’s not news to the CU students that their free campus paper is none other than the reformatted local daily. You might wonder which is the more student-inclined. The news section of the student paper is titled CU AND THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC, as if to differentiate the student body from their “Leftist” township. The same article in the local daily Bill Ayers backs Ward Churchill, was retitled NOTORIOUS DISSENTER BACKS UP EMBATTLED PROF for the kids.

Keep in mind, this is not the work of the students.

While it might look perfectly transparent to publish a student-focused edition, full of campus-life related ads, what would be the purpose of two distinct internet facades for the same content? If not to reinforce the notion that the editorial content was distinct.

Maybe the TWIN DAILIES reporters had time enough only to write their articles before hearing the speeches, because their stories reflected none of the convivial humanism presented by all the guests. The other article published the next morning was: Crowd faces tight security for Ayers, Churchill talk at CU. A follow-up article the next day was more in depth, but not about the subject of Thursday’s event, neo-McCarthyism. The Saturday article redraws the battle lines of the Churchill-CU dispute. If you’d like to judge for yourself, both do have a video of the Thursday Forbidden Education rally.

Pretense of separate publications is dropped when you click Full local coverage of Ward Churchill and his trial against CU, where you get all the accruing coverage courtesy of the BOULDER DAILY CAMERA.

The only real alternative news in Boulder comes through the Boulder Weekly. But neither is it student run.

By its actions against Ward Churchill, and certainly by its grip on student communication, the CU administration appears bent on rotting Boulder’s promise of higher education from its academic core.