A few days ago I was talking with some acquaintances about Ward Churchill, the embattled, former professor at the University of Colorado. We all agreed: We hadn’t heard anything about Churchill for some time. The last time he made the news, he was heading to court to get his job back after a jury awarded him $1 in damages after announcing he was wrongfully fired from his teaching job. The most recent news reports during this holiday season show Churchill will not likely ever get his job back. He’s unwilling to give up and plans to make a plea to the Colorado Supreme Court. Read on:
Associated Press/San Francisco Examiner
Nov. 24, 2010
A former University of Colorado professor who compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi has lost his appeal to get his job back.
The Colorado Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a lower court decision against Ward Churchill.
The court said that the Denver District Court was right to was right to direct a verdict in favor of the university and to find that the university was entitled to “quasi-judicial immunity.”
Churchill attorney David Lane said he will try to persuade the Colorado Supreme Court to take up the case.
Churchill’s termination in 2007 came after an essay he wrote describing some victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi leader who helped orchestrate the Holocaust.
The university investigated whether his essay was protected under the First Amendment and found that it was.
But while the investigation was under way, academics came forward and accused Churchill of plagiarism and fraud in scholarly writings, which led to his termination. None of the allegations were about the Sept. 11 essay.
After his termination, Churchill sued the university, and a Denver jury ruled that that the school unlawfully fired Churchill but awarded him only $1 in damages.
But then-Denver District Judge Larry Naves decided not to give Churchill his job back and set aside the jury’s verdict.
Naves also ruled that university’s regents, who are elected, acted as a “quasi-judicial” panel that had immunity from the lawsuit.
Read more at the San Franciso Examiner.
