BERKELEY — Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado professor in trouble for likening Sept. 11 victims to an infamous Nazi, shot back Monday at his critics, saying he’s become a scapegoat for conservatives out to “sterilize” universities of ethnic, gay and women’s studies they find distasteful.
“I’m the first in a national campaign to convert the academy into advanced ‘Voc-Tech,'” or vocational education, said Churchill, the guest of honor at a University of California, Berk-eley, panel discussion on academic freedom and free speech.
The tall, casually dressed Churchill, who wears his long, dark hair pushed behind his ears, returned to some common themes in his address before a sympathetic crowd in the Pauley Ballroom. The ethnic studies professor has long been outspoken in the Boulder, Colo., area where he lives and teaches, but Churchill was vaulted into the national spotlight earlier this year when his essay was widely publicized before he was to speak in New York.
The essay, called “Some Push Back” and written shortly after the terrorist attacks, said some who died in the World Trade Center weren’t wholly innocent victims. He said they participated in an unfair American economic system that provoked the attacks and called them “little Eichmanns,” after Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who helped carry out the Holocaust.
Once circulated, the essay sparked outrage, including a condemnation by conservative talk show hosts. Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and other members of the state Legislature called for Churchill to be fired. Last week, the university said Churchill couldn’t be fired for his essay, which is protected under the First Amendment.
But officials have launched an internal investigation into other charges against Churchill, including allegations of plagiarism and that he misrepresented himself as American Indian to lend credence to his work.
Churchill, though, scoffed at the investigation on Monday, saying it’s an attempt to silence a voice that has been critical of American politics. Churchill said the essay — later expanded into a book called “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” — wasn’t seeking to justify the 9/11 attacks, but rather provide context for reasons why U.S. policies could have led to it.
The Eichmann reference, Churchill explained, was meant to draw a parallel between the “banal” Nazi bureaucrat who carried out his horrific tasks without conscience and “nameless bureaucratic functionaries” in the World Trade Center who participated in jobs that contributed to “carnage” in other parts of the world. Churchill defended his work as one of the chief responsibilities of an academic — to explore issues and provide informed opinions.
“The object for the reader is to arrive at equal clarity” of events, Churchill said, “although that clarity may be different from my own.”
Churchill was joined on the panel by his wife, Georgia State University law professor Natsu Saito, UC Berkeley Dean of Arts and Humanities Ralph Hexter and retired UC Berkeley Chicano and ethnic studies professor Carlos Munoz.
Panelists said Churchill’s plight raises larger concerns with stifling academic freedom, as well as dissenting voices throughout the nation.
And while most of the audience seemed supportive of Churchill, one student rose during a question and answer period to challenge him.
“I think there comes a point where if a professor or scholar says something like (the Eichmann comment), it’s incompetence,” said Kerry Eskenas, 20, a political science major, who questioned how Churchill could say the hundreds of work-a-day New Yorkers who died in the attacks were Nazis.
Churchill responded by repeating his argument that anyone who participates in an unjust economic system is not wholly innocent.
Before Churchill spoke, two protesters gathered outside the venue, holding signs calling the professor a “liar” and an “academic fraud.”
Protester Zachary RunningWolf of Oakland, a member of the Blackfoot tribe, said Churchill’s comments are damaging to American Indians, especially as tribes are under fire for attempts to expand Indian gaming casinos.
“He’s not helping out our community,” RunningWolf said.
