Couldn't agree more, Tim. A guy like him, in his position deserves to be exposed.

Dude, money is not the issue. Free speech is. The beauty of this country is that we don't have to listen if we don't want to. Prof.Churchill does not deserve to be fired. We can listen to his informed opinions and do what we like with them. Information is all we have to gain... if we shut him up we deny a choice. OUR choice. He is not brainwashing his students, we are brainwashing ourselves.

Ward Churchill is worse than an ass. To call the men on the planes on 9-11 combat troops, and to call our fighting men and women cowards, as well as promoting violence and the overthrow of the government places him in more than a ass category. It is sedition. He is an ambarrassment to all of us in Colorado. Free speech does not include the requirement that we pay him to spout trash. As for being a Native American, the best he can claim is a STEPMOTHER removed by 5 generations!

Florence, we have the right to call it trash, we have the right to call him an "ass", we do not have the right to shut him up. His income and cultural background should not be factors in this discussion. We are speaking to civil liberties... it is a curious discussion, and a good thing.

And yes Mr.Miller he does, as you say, deserve to be exposed.

Dude, money is not the issue. Free speech is the issue.

Speak for yourself. Ward Churchill can say whatever he wants, but a lot of people don't feel the need to pay him with their own money to say it. You appear to be wholly unable to differentiate between the concepts of "free speech" and "government subsidy", which suggests you understand neither.

I also don't understand why you seem so upset about people disapproving of his words and calling for his resignation. Isn't that also a form of the "free speech" you claim to cherish? Or is this just a one way street? (At least they're doing it on their own dime.)

We can listen to his informed opinions and do what we like with them.

His "informed" opinions? What about him impresses you enough to imply he is especially "informed"?

A man who spreads lies (such as claiming to be a firsthand expert on Indian views and affairs when he is actually a European leftist) is instead mis-informing people, thus decreasing the sum total of information in the universe rather than increasing it. Such a man is not sharing facts, only anti-facts.

And if his major selling points were lies, why do you feel compelled to imply he is an expert in other areas? He wasn't even competent in his self-chosen area of specialty! What makes you think he'd be competant in areas completely outside that?

Information is all we have to gain... if we shut him up we deny a choice. OUR choice.

Calling someone a Nazi is hardly "information" -- that's something called an "opinion" or an "insult". When it's unjustified by evidence and personally damaging, there's another word which applies: "slander". When intended to provoke a response, it is "fighting words". The last two, which arguably fit what Ward said, are not protected by the first amendment.

Would you call it "information" and argue I was giving people a beneficial "choice" if I told people you often physically abused your own mother and suggested to your employer that you had a serious weekend drug habit and had been stealing? I suspect your hypocrisy would be exposed rather quickly.

And it is not at all "OUR choice", as you insist, if we are forced to pay such a man to say such things, as taxpayers are. They are also forced to fund the position which gives his words a false authority and a megaphone through which to speak. That is the exact opposite of a choice; that is "mandatory".

And, as the people footing the bill, the taxpayers should be just as entitled to call him "idiot" as he is to call dead janitors and waitresses Nazis.

Does it escape you that we pay a teacher for competence, and that not all opinions equally imply competance? If your child's high school teacher taught that slavery was justified because blacks were inherantly inferior and inhuman would you take the same stance? That protesting such a situation would be "brainwashing ourselves"? Or would you instead be a hypocrite, or at least admit you're wrong, by going back on such a foolish assertion?

Now, as part of YOUR "CHOICE", I demand you donate $100 to me so that I can have some "free speech", since I clearly won't have that right unless you pay me to exercise it. A failure to pay me is censorship, is it not?

I also believe that many people confuse the liberal "Anti-War" campaign with the terrorist "Anti-America" campaign.

I think their point of view is understandable.

Imagine we are in a fort which under attack from the outside. Some on the walls have guns and are fighting back. Then, inside the fort, there are a group of people running around pouring water on the gunpower, trying to damage guns so they can't be used, hiding the ammo, and yelling, to the attackers outside: "We're morally wrong in here! Our behavior deserves your attacks!"

Is it completely incomprehensible to you that people observing this situation might conclude the "protestors" are, in fact, aiding the attackers outside?

Of course, you might not agree we're under attack. Or you might disagree that protesting and attacking the defenders encourages the attackers. People believe all sorts of odd things.

But, given that other people generally acknowledge that situation, it would do you well to attempt to at least understand their point of view.

If you don't agree, then you'll have to explain how Western civilization is not under attack, or explain how people are wrong for thinking many on the left effectively aid the efforts of such attackers.

His income and cultural background should not be factors in this discussion.

Why on earth not? What possible justification could you provide for such an odd view?

His cultural background is relevant to his position as head of a department of "Ethnic Studies", being both a beneficiary and advocate of a racist system which promotes people based on their ethnic background.

Given that, it's also relevant to the level of experience he purported to attain such a position. If you worked as a surgeon, should we not discuss your experience in the world of medicine?

His income is relevant to the fact that the people of the great state of Colorado, not to mention the parents of CU students, have contracted his purported "expertise" at a certain price. You apparently want to preclude any mention of cost from a discussion about the value of this man continuing to hold his position.

His pay is also releveant to his frequent complaints about how immoral other people are for being too "comfortable" to really try to change things: It is yet further evidence of hypocrisy.

We are speaking to civil liberties...

Keeping your job, even when you say something stupid which embarasses your employer, is not a "civil liberty." You can't lose your job because of your religion or race. But there's no guarantee that you need to stay employed when you say something stupid.

Some people do want to define "continual employment" as a civil right. But that's dangerous, because such people end up losing their focus on our real, existing civil rights. You can't protect or cherish something if you can't even identify it.

Look at campuses: Now left-leaning professors argue "not having one's feeling hurt" is a right. Yet, in the name of protecting that right, they deny frequently silence unpopular speech. The fictional "right" drives out and removes the real one.

I do believe opinions are information...

In the technical (computer) sense you're right: EVERYTHING is "information" of some kind. But in the sense most people mean it, where information is knowledge or facts, an opinion, without explanation or supporting data, is not "information". For example, mere opinion is not usually allowed in court as evidence of something.

But my core complaint wasn't that you called it "information". It was that you seemed to think all such "information" is beneficial and thus should be funded and sponsored by the state.

No, information is not always helpful. Lies, for example, are not helpful -- whether you call them "information" or not. Likewise, in a court, not all "information" is considered to beneficial to the juror's decision to convict or acquit.

Thus I reject the view that taxpayers should be obligated to pay for all kinds of "information" -- some is better than others, more grounded in reality. Since we pay for education, we should have some say in the quality of that information, and the wisdom of those dispensing it.

And I apologize if I came across a bit strong. I'm not used to critics who are actually willing to consider opposite opinions and even modify their views!

You are to be commended for that ability.

Thank the lord there are some professors willing to speak the truth.

Manufacturing a weak integrity argument to justify free speech violations...

It started in a federal Court in Pittsburgh and has moved quickly to Colorado Universtity and Iraq. It's a stretch, but political hacks have besieged first amendment free speech protections.

They attempt to combine a provacative essay comparing victims of 911 with Nazi criminals and an emotionally charged General's comments on war, questioning whether such is permissible when the comments may cause damaged to an institution's integrity.

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.

Why did O'Reilly target Ward Churchill?

Because in a Pittsburgh federal court a well connected corporate crony has suggested the novice argument, and the legal question is waddling without any legal precedent in need of an activist court.

Thus the current unexplained campaign against “free speech” appears to be little more than a Madison Avenue scheme to control any discussion of the President’s desire to privatize higher education.

That is, a number of for-profit colleges have faced inquiries, lawsuits and other actions calling into question the way they inflate enrollment to mislead/increase the value of their parent company’s stock.

In the last year, 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.

But in a Pittsburgh federal court there is a bigger can of worms.

Kaplan, Inc., is wholly own by the Washington Post Company. For-profit postsecondary education has turned the company around and individuals far more powerful than Martha Steward have made millions. However, there is a nominal “Watergate” styled federal court proceeding (scandal) involving campus “free speech,” that could expose the administration’s violation of public trust

In short, I provided the S.E.C., Department of Education, and federal courts information that appears to prove Kaplan inflated the Concord School of Law enrollment, telling investors that the “flagship” of its higher education division has as many as 600 to 1000 or more students.

I also provided evidence to prove apparent violations of sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder.

However, in an attempt to protect important icons of the Washington and New York financial/political circle, hacks have been hired to stir a free speech controversy.

But even Stan Chess (En Passant http://lawtv.typepad.com/en_passant/2004/a_question_of_l.html) innocently questioned the obvious - a clear violation of the federal securities laws.

“Kaplan’s Concord School of Law says it’s one of the largest law schools in the country, yet for each administration only about 25 of its graduates sit for the bar exam. What happens to the hundreds of other students in each class?”

What are you willing to do?