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Fifth Column
CU weighs buyout for asshat firebrand prof
2005-02-27
Via Drudge
University of Colorado officials are considering offering Big Chief Spouting Bull Ward Churchill an early retirement package that could end an increasingly uncomfortable standoff with the controversial professor.
Suck it! Suck it hard, Trebek!
Two people familiar with internal CU discussions said the still-undetermined offer is in the idea stage. The discussions come just a week before a three-person panel is scheduled to deliver a report on Churchill's fitness for tenure.
University tenure is subject to review to see if professors meet even minimal standards? Who thought that one up?
David Lane, Churchill's attorney, said he has not been contacted about a buyout offer.
We'll give you the good news with a Monday 6:00 AM wakeup call.
But, he said, while his primary focus is on protecting Churchill's constitutional right to speak out, he would be willing to listen to a university proposal. "If they offer $10 million, I would think about it. If they offer him $10, I wouldn't," Lane said.
"We've already determined you're a whore, Mr. Churchill; we're merely haggling over the price!"
Attorneys for CU were not available for comment Friday afternoon.
"We can say no more!"
Since it was first reported that Churchill, a charlatan huckster confidence man CU ethnic studies professor, had demonized some of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the university has faced relentless scrutiny of its hiring practices and faculty qualifications. Churchill has undergone an extensive virtual anal probe media review of his alleged scholarship, artwork and genealogy, while everyone from radio talk-show hosts to syndicated newspaper columnists have questioned his integrity, his ancestry and his military career.
Military career? Oh, right, just the 'digital brownshirts' piling on another baseless charge...
CU regents have said they are bound by due process and authorized a review of Churchill's writings and speech by a panel comprising the interim Boulder chancellor, the arts and sciences dean, and the law school dean.
I suspect a slowdown / crimping CU donations by alumni's already taking effect, don't really think they'd give a damn otherwise.
Depending on the panel's findings, due the week of March 7, CU president Betsy Hoffman could inform Churchill of the university's desire to terminate his employment. Churchill would then have the right to appeal through a faculty committee.
And turn it into a circus worthy of the Michael Jackson trial.
Typically such dismissals - even if done by the book - result in years of expensive lawsuits that Hoffman told legislators last week the university would like to avoid.
"Hello, Ramsey Clark - what are you doing for the next couple of years? Oh, defending Saddam, you say? Well, what about Lynne Stewart? Oh, she's busy too? Well, what about..."
Sources involved in the talks said if an arrangement could be made, it could get everyone off the hook, including Churchill, the subject of daily press revelations.
"Off the hook" - like that cheesy right hook you tried to give to that reporter the other day? Swing - and a miss, wuss!
The latest controversy is whether an artwork by Churchill titled "Winter Attack" was copied from a 1972 piece by Thomas Mails, "The Mystic Warriors of the Plains." Churchill told KCNC-Channel 4 last week that he had permission to use Mails' work in his art. However, Mails has died, and copyright experts say an agreement could be as informal as a telephone conversation. It is clear that Churchill's work is a ripoff extremely similar to Mails', said Denver attorney James Hubbell, who handles intellectual property cases. "Is Churchill's work different enough to constitute a different work? The answer to that is, 'No, it doesn't,"' Hubbell said. "It's awfully similar, and probably too similar."
The same, yet different?
An Aurora art gallery removed the Churchill print from an Internet auction site after its attorney advised the gallery that it might violate copyright laws by selling it. "It's just too much of a headache for a few hundred dollars' sale," said Darren Zueger, general manager of American Design Ltd.
Ripping off artwork & doing it for such a princely sum? Churchill practically writes his own jokes, doesn't he?
Another copy of "Winter Attack" remains for sale on the Internet by someone other than American Design. American Design is selling several other Churchill pieces, which were written off the books and buried in a time capsule placed in storage, since the controversy brought the CU professor's name to a nationwide public.
"Get those cameras outta my face!!"At At least two other Churchill works are painted from historic photos of Native Americans, but Zueger said it is common for artists to use photos in their work. Duke Prentup, who bought a copy of "Winter Attack" for $100 in the mid-1980s from Churchill, said he feels taken advantage of because he thought it was an original work.
"I feel so used..."
"I was a little shocked, a little disappointed," he said. Prentup was reviewing his Indian library last month when a book by Mails broke apart at the binding and opened to the page with Mails' "Mystic Warriors of the Plains" drawing. "I've seen this before," Prentup said to himself. "It's on my wall."
Next to the Velvet Elvis?
Questions also remain about Churchill's résumé. In a version provided to American Design by either Churchill or one of his publishers, he says he served with the 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam War. Military records, however, show he worked as a light-truck driver in South Vietnam.
Sounds like they're looking for something here. 101st had truck drivers. Still does, in fact. So both statements could very well be true.
Regents, who may one day be called upon to vote on Churchill's job, are upset about the daily publicity over the controversial professor, saying it could cause long-term damage to CU's reputation. "The possible damage to the university this controversy has created will take years to recover from," said Regent Peter Steinhauer.
"Holmes, how do you do it?"
Posted by:Raj

#6  eh, he'll just end up at Evergreen or Columbia or some other lame-ass "school".
Posted by: BH   2005-02-27 11:03:30 PM  

#5  It's not easy to revoke tenure unless you actually commit a crime or violate a hard-line university rule. For example, I know of a certain ex-faculty person at my institution who was canned -- in about an hour's time, tenure or not -- when an employee presented evidence, including (apparently) videotape, of said faculty person's inability to keep his hands to himself. But short of that sort of violation or breaking a law, tenure is difficult to break. It's supposed to be difficult, that's the whole idea.

The real problem for the University of Colorado is, how in hell did they give this guy tenure? Or, even better, how did he get a faculty appointment in the first place? It's clear from the news that Mr. Churchill was not vetted properly either at the time of his original appointment to the faculty (he was hired after working as a temp for some sort of remedial education program) or when he was tenured. Apparently the tenure committee didn't read his work as they were supposed to do, or the dean overruled the committee. Either way, they screwed up.

If I were a Colorado taxpayer (hi Old Spook!) I'd be angry at Churchill, but I'd be thoroughly pissed at the University for screwing this up. I think Churchill's lies should cost him his job.

But more importantly, the dean and the provost that let this happen need to lose their jobs.
Posted by: Steve White   2005-02-27 6:08:33 PM  

#4  This is bullshit. I think he should be 1) fired, and 2) serve five to ten for outright fraud.

And those idiots who hired him should be fired for gross stupidity.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2005-02-27 5:49:01 PM  

#3  Let's be friends, here's a gift to my RantBurg colleagues.
crow farm
Posted by: Ward   2005-02-27 4:47:43 PM  

#2  I think the taxpayers will be outraged at a buyout. They are already outraged that Churchill was hired and promoted.

If we were into getting people fired why not fired the people who hired and promoted Churchill?
Posted by: mhw   2005-02-27 3:04:22 PM  

#1  LOL. Fred, you're gonna get sued by the Kickapoos for associating their tribe with Churchhill. Too bad Al Capp is not still around to weigh in on the 'Big Chief Spouting Bull' matter.
Posted by: GK   2005-02-27 2:49:11 PM  

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