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Uncovering
the uprising against Ward Churchill
University
of Colorado American Indian studies professor
Ward Churchill has been at the top of the
National News for over two weeks now —
long enough to raise grave concerns about
the agenda behind the Bill O'Reilly/Fox
News-led media campaign to silence Churchill,
weaken academic freedom and divert the United
States public from the real issues that
Churchill has raised over his years of scholarly
research.
While
Churchill is no Marxist, his saga brings
to mind the perpetual right-wing whining
about "tenured Marxists" in U.S.
universities, which they have been complaining
about for years.
The
reactionary right-wing power structure of
the United States never recovered from the
defeat it suffered when the battle to add
ethnic studies departments to U.S. universities
was won in the 1970s.
The
battle to silence, neutralize and/or co-opt
ethnic studies departments in United States
universities is the context in which the
campaign against Churchill should be considered.
Churchill
has been an outspoken advocate for those
who are oppressed, wounded and murdered
by the imperial/colonial policies of the
United States government. It is this fearless
outspokenness that has landed him in the
precarious position of possibly being fired
from his tenured position at the University
of Colorado for comments he made in an essay
titled "Some People Push Back"
and the follow up book "On the Justice
of Roosting Chickens."
As
someone who read these works long before
the ensuing media slander campaign, I can
tell you that the Fox News-headed media
frenzy continually featured partial quotes
of one or two of the most inflammatory lines
from these works. This was a deliberate
attempt to draw attention away from the
thesis of these works, which was that the
United States is, and always has been, engaged
in a globally reaching imperial project.
Most importantly, it states that the United
States has never shied away from using extreme
levels of violence to achieve its goals
of global hegemony. The events of 9/11,
in Churchill's reasoned opinion, were nothing
other than an example of what goes around
coming around.
Fox
News, followed by other corporate media
outlets, continues to construct delusion
when it comes to Churchill. Angered that
he may withstand this neo-fascist attack
due to constitutional and academic protections,
Bill O'Reilly is now serving as publicist
for a national campaign to discredit the
factual basis of Churchill's work in the
hopes that he can be fired for "academic
fraud."
Though
the historical ignorance of these witch
hunters is obvious, it will serve as no
protection for Churchill or any other radical
professor in this nation.
These
neo-fascists hold power in this country
that reaches straight into the White House.
This attack against academic freedom should
not be discounted or marginalized as something
that will soon pass from the public eye
and never be realized.
Churchill's
academic freedom must be protected. As students
and faculty members, we must understand
that the results of this struggle may have
catastrophic consequences if we allow Churchill
to be devoured by this uprising and fired
from his university position. If they are
successful in removing Churchill from the
university, rest assured that many others
will be next.
Support
Professor Ward Churchill by sending a letter
or e-mail of your support to the Chancellor
of the University of Colorado by contacting
Interim Chancellor DiStefano. E-mail chancellor@spot.colorado.edu,
call 303-492-8908, or send mail to 17 UCB,
Regent 301, Boulder, CO, 80309. You can
also visit http://www.colorado.edu/chancellor.
Jeff
Hendricks is a graduate student of history
at CSULB.
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