Ward Churchill’s wife wept on the witness stand Wednesday as she recounted the University of Colorado’s claims against her husband’s academic work on American Indian history.
“He calls out the big lies in history, not these ridiculous picky things we’re arguing about here,” Natsu Taylor Saito said, the latter a reference to the accusation her husband disrespected victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which he thinks was behind his ouster in 2007.
“The most harmful thing to Ward, and to me, is that it was an attempt to silence that history.”
Saito said Churchill was no cheerleader for terrorists.
Her husband sought to point out the attacks were not senseless and yielded lessons, she said.
“If we want to stop violence from happening, we have to understand that it’s not OK for violence to be perpetrated by anyone, including our own government,” Saito said.
Churchill is suing the university to get his job back. His attorneys rested their case Wednesday after 11 days, and CU began its defense Wednesday.
Todd Gleeson, dean of CU’s College of Arts and Sciences, said the investigation examined whether Churchill’s Sept. 11 essay or other writings crossed over from free speech to hate speech.
Instead, the university found Churchill had plagiarized and falsified research in his work on American Indians.
Six of the nine members of the committee wanted Churchill fired instead of suspended.
CU professor Joe Rosse, who led CU’s Standing Committee on Research Misconduct, said Churchill’s lack of remorse over the findings that he plagiarized and falsified information was critical to some members.
“If you are not going to acknowledge error, why would you expect to change behavior in the future?” Rosse said.
The Daily Camera contributed to this report.
