Louis Proyect said something morally interesting in a comment on the Inside Higher Ed article Alan linked to:
But before I go into this, I want to turn my attention first to an article by Thomas Brown, a Lamar University sociology professor, whose debunking of Churchill on the Mandan epidemic has been circulated widely on the Internet by individuals who want to see him fired. . . . [I]t is unfortunate that Thomas Brown [. . .] has seen fit to publish his findings during such a hysterical atmosphere[. . .].
Before Brown made his article public, the Churchill affair had something of the character of a witch hunt: Professor says something reprehensible, a hue-and-cry is raised on its exposure to the public, and various writers rush to his defence under the principle that even jerks have a right to free speech and academic freedom. The battle lines are drawn predictably, and it's pretty obvious that Churchill will retain his academic position, even if he's not invited to many dinner parties anymore.
Enter Thomas Brown, who had apparently already done a great deal of research showing that Churchill was guilty of academic fraud. Brown publishes his analysis early, and it shifts the debate from Churchill's vile-but-unpunishable statements to real problems in his work that obviously deserve serious consequences.
Proyect's position seems to be that Brown shouldn't have published his findings in the midst of the free speech/academic freedom controversy, because it gave ammunition to those who would have seen Churchill punished for his political opinions. Opinions?
Posted by Ben Brumfield at February 11, 2005 01:14 PMOpinions?
Only - to quote Steven Pinker - that history tells us that how much we want to believe a proposition etc. etc. It would be morally simpler if Ward Churchill had practiced impeccable scholarship, just as it would be simpler if all the convicted McCarthyite defendents had been innocent of the charges laid against them.
I hope that in Churchill's case the two allegations - one spurious no matter what, the other (if true) serious and deservedly punishable - can be kept distinct; in other words, people who criticize him for bad academic practice should abstain from dragging in the 9/11 comments, and people who defend his free speech rights should avoid the temptation to disregard the other complaints as conspiratorial.
They probably won't, however.
Posted by: Alan Allport at February 11, 2005 02:04 PMIsn't Brown's decision to go public early precisely a failure to separate one debate from the other?
I must admit that I'd have done the same thing in his case, though. Although I can't quite see it in thise case, there's an element of danger in allowing academic fraud to stand unchallenged. Bad history makes bad policy. Bellesiles's conclusions managed to make their way into a Ninth Circuit decision, and I gather that John Lott's work was a factor in a few states' CCW legislation. It makes sense for debunking to be done as quickly as possible, and perhaps as publicly as possible.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at February 11, 2005 02:32 PMAs a supplement, please note the following.
Introduction: In a Pittsburgh federal court a well connected corporate crony has suggested a novice "free speech" argument and the legal question is waddling without any legal precedent in need of an activist court.
Creating the free speech crisis is a "red herring" to draw attention away from the plain and clear evidence of the Pittsburgh Federal Court proceeding (best example of the corruption).
Ward Churchill was a relatively unknown professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, until Bill O'Reilly reported a piece about him and requested his audience to make a fuss. His provacative essay was written more than three years ago.
The connection:
Ms. ElizaBETH Hoffman is the President of Colorado University. Go to http://www.hss.caltech.edu/Photos/Alumni/HoffmanElizabeth.jpg and/or http://www.colorado.edu/Carillon/volume47/images/1.jpg to view her picture.
Ms. BETH (Rue) Kotcella Buchanan is the U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania. Go to http://www.pittsburghlive.com/photos/2002-02-26/PH_2002-02-26_iattorney-b.jpg to view her picture.
Background: I attended undergraduate school with Ms. Buchanan. At the Pennsylvania University I succesfully re-established (and served as president) the pre-law society and graduated in 1983. Here Ms. Buchanan would become interested in the law. She graduated after me in 1984.
In addition, I was listed in Who's Who Among American Colleges and Universities, and given the 1983 Progressive Leadership Award, and 1983 Distinguished Honor Award.
Before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office in 1988 Ms. Buchanan secured a clerkship with U.S. District Judge Maurice B. Cohill, Jr.
Judge Cohill is the Western District Judge responsible for enforcing a consent decree governing United States of America v. Port Authority of Allegheny County, Docket No. 91-CV-1694. However, he turned a blind eye to my case Docket No. 95-CV-00339. I had organized (secure a union) a political sub-division.
During that same year members of the state judiciary were charged and convicted for violating my civil rights (fixing cases against me in retaliation of Docket No. 95-CV-00339).
In a case related to Docket No. 95-CV-00339, an alleged EEOC investigative file was prematurely purged and the U.S. Department of Labor refused delivery of its copy despite a subpoena, FOIA Request and Motion to Compel. See Docket No. 98-CV-230. That is, the Department of Labor closed its investigation based on the alleged EEOC decision. But, I had proffered to the court EEOC writings that demonstrated no investigation was conducted.
Discussion: At issue is the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The Bush administration is attempting to change the 50 percent rule. That is, financial aid is available for postsecondary education provided at a college or university that has at least 50 percent of its students campus-based.
Corporations have paid Senators and Congress men and women well, attempting to change the 50 percent rule. The rule is necessary to prevent fraud (absentee students and/or diploma mills).
It appears at least three corporations have abused the administration's Distance Education Demonstration that wavied the 50 percent rule.
The Career Education Corporation of Hoffman Estates, Ill., has faced lawsuits, from shareholders and students, contending that, among other things, its colleges have inflated enrollment numbers. In addition, F.B.I. agents raided 10 campuses run by ITT Educational Services of Carmel, Ind., looking for similar problems.
Nonetheless, the S.E.C. and FBI investigation is just spin to make it appear the administration is doing its job.
The Pittsburgh case involves Kaplan, Inc., which is wholly own by the Washington Post Company. For-profit postsecondary education has turned the company around. Individuals far more powerful than Martha Steward have made millions.
Thus the current unexplained campaign against free speech appears to be little more than another Madison Avenue scheme to control any discussion.
Posted by: kstreetfriend at February 12, 2005 01:51 PMWas that English?
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at February 12, 2005 02:07 PMI think that person is ill.
Following the thread of responses and counter-responses from that article, I came across several claiming that the comment about Eichmann that got the ball rolling was a "veiled" reference to Hannah Arendt.
http://debfrisch.com/archives/000093.html
Posted by: Alan Hogue at February 12, 2005 06:16 PMI'm again going to duck the job of studying the kerfuffle du jour enough to form my own nuanced opinion. So I'm again going to link to Orcinus instead. NB I don't know if I agree with Orcinus either, but it seems like he's presenting a corner of the debate that isn't otherwise represented here.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at February 13, 2005 01:10 PMI don't know if I agree with Orcinus either, but it seems like he's presenting a corner of the debate that isn't otherwise represented here.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'here', but so far as I can tell everyone who's mentioned Churchill on Horizon has defended his free speech rights, implicitly or otherwise, without qualification. I don't really see the lack of representation.
Posted by: Alan Allport at February 13, 2005 01:20 PMYep. Churchill's right to be a jerk and not suffer legally for it is uncontroversial.
I did like the technocrat quote, though.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at February 14, 2005 06:20 AMOrcinus
Good link, thanks. Particularly interesting was the review of far right academics. I was really having a good time reading it until the author says:
Now, most of these so-called conservatives who are attacking Ward Churchill -- who is indeed Native American -- are quick to deny that there is any racist component to their attacks on him (even though one could use the popular right-wing logic labeling as "racist" Democrats who questioned Alberto Gonzalez and Condoleezza Rice to suggest otherwise).
Sigh. Yes, and by the same logic Churchill is probably anti-semitic. Yawn.
It does occur to me that I, at least, am rather lucky, having managed to avoid exposure to this story until the later information about Churchill came out. Otherwise I imagine I may have been caught feeling a bit like Proyect apparently does, and find myself making hair-splitting moral arguments.
Everyone else here, on the other hand, is probably dead tired of it, keeping up as you probably do on current events more than I have lately.
There must be a French word for this...you know, where everything bores you? Horizon is suffering from that lately.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at February 14, 2005 08:27 AMYou're right, we've hit a doldrum. Sorry, I can't think of something infectiously funny right now but I can see the need for it.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at February 14, 2005 10:06 AMYou're right, we've hit a doldrum.
What's this 'we', kemo sabe? I feel fine ...
Posted by: Alan Allport at February 14, 2005 10:34 AMAfter Alan Hogue's comment, I went back and read the Orcinus post more closely, as well as a sampling of the comments to it. In addition to playing the race card, the poster seems to be betting that his readers are entirely ignorant of the posting histories of bloggers critical of Churchill. This allows him to paint Churchill critics as hypocrites, after all, why didn't they speak out against right-wing extremists?
The problem is that anyone who's followed the Churchill controversy from sources other than Orcinus (or apparently the sources his commenters read) is aware that many of the critics of Churchill have record of criticising neo-secessionists, Holocaust deniers, and right-wing academics whose research smells.
Orcinus's readers apparently buy it, though, as the strawman rises to great heights in the comments section. A few posters even claim not hearing anything from the right when Robertson and Falwell made their vile post-9/11 comments. That's not even true for the odious Little Green Footballs.
This is a shame, because it allows them to feel smug about the hypocricy of Churchill critics, rather than actually thinking about evil and extremism or engaging with the national moral center. It also allows their side to be tarred with the whole Ward Churchill brush by their opponents, which is tactically unwise.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at February 14, 2005 01:02 PMThis allows him to paint Churchill critics as hypocrites, after all, why didn't they speak out against right-wing extremists?
Well, of course a fair number of them are. Likewise quite a few of Churchill's defenders are people who think that all Americans are "little Eichmanns", and won't bat an eye casting those who criticize a native american academic as racist.
AND on each side there are a certain number of clever ones who point at the fringes of the other side and use that against all the others who are trying to be reasonable.
All perfectly ordinary behavior.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at February 14, 2005 02:03 PM