"Make no mistake (as Ward Churchill often does), the case against the University of Colorado professor is not about freedom of speech or political correctness or the reprehensible things he said in a 2001 essay about Sept. 11 victims. It's about academic misconduct.

Members of two panels have pored over his writings and research and found "serious, repeated and deliberate misconduct," including plagiarism and outright fabrications.

Most of them think he should be fired.

Churchill can avoid that fate, and should, by resigning his tenured position at CU and leaving academia.

A majority of CU's research misconduct committee this week called for Churchill to be fired, agreeing with a group of academic investigators who concluded that the ethnic studies professor intentionally falsified research, plagiarized and ghost-wrote articles that he used as references to prop up his own shoddy research.

The review panels have managed to separate unpopular speech (which is protected) from academic malfeasance (which isn't).

Churchill is in denial, trivializing his offenses and disparaging his critics."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Churchill should step down (The Denver Post 6/15)

Final Report:
Report and Recommendations of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct Concerning Allegations of Research Misconduct by Professor Ward Churchill (June 13, 2006)

CU Investigation:
Report of the Investigative Committee of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct at the University of Colorado at Boulder concerning Allegations of Academic Misconduct against Professor Ward Churchill (May 2006)

Newspaper Investigation:
Shadows of doubt (The Denver Rocky Mountain News June 2005)

Churchill's 9/11 Essay:
"Some People Push Back" On the Justice of Roosting Chickens (Pockets of Resistance September 2001)

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