Question Everything

CU-Boulder's show investigation into Ward Churchill has finished, coming up with the expected verdict: accusing Churchill of academic fraud & so on. The whole thing is illegitimate because it's really motivated by Churchill's politics, not any "academic fraud." These allegations were all made years ago, yet there was no investigation of them until the flair up over his political writings about 9-11. Had there not been the furor over his politics, there would be no investigation of these allegations of "academic fraud." The investigation is, in essence, punishment for holding the wrong political views. All this talk about “academic fraud” and Churchill’s ethnicity is a red herring. They can’t fire him for his political beliefs but, theoretically, they could fire him for academic fraud or for lying about his ethnicity. However, the real reason for the drive to fire Churchill is his political beliefs; these are just excuses conjured up to justify firing him and are therefore illegitimate. The report's defense is:

"The Committee notes that this investigation was only commenced after, and perhaps in response to, the public attack on Professor Churchill for his controversial publications. Some of the allegations sent to the Committee related to events that apparently had been well known by scholars in the field, although perhaps not by responsible University personnel, for years before the University took any action whatsoever concerning them, and it did so only after the controversy over Professor Churchill’s essays became national news. For example, Professor John LaVelle had first published the claims that form the basis for Allegation A discussed below in a book review in 1996; he further elaborated on them in a larger article published in 1999. That allegation, therefore, dates back almost a decade before these charges were initiated. At least one other claim was brought to the attention of responsible University officials a decade ago, but the University, after preliminary investigation, decided to take no further action. Thus, the Committee is troubled by the origins of, and skeptical concerning the motives for, the current investigation. The Committee’s disquiet regarding the timing of these allegations is exacerbated by the fact that the formal complainant in the charges before us is the Interim Chancellor of the University, despite the express provision in the Laws of the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado that faculty members’ “efforts should not be subjected to direct or indirect pressures or interference from within the university, and the university will resist to the utmost such pressures or interference when exerted from without.”

Nevertheless, serious claims of academic misconduct have been lodged and they require full investigation and responsible and fair treatment. The Committee has attempted to provide that investigation, keeping the background and origins of this particular dispute out of our consideration of the particular allegations. To use an analogy, a motorist who is stopped and ticketed for speeding because the police officer was offended by the contents of her bumper sticker, and who otherwise would have been sent away with a warning, is still guilty of speeding, even if the officer’s motive for punishing the speeder was the offense taken to the speeder’s exercise of her right to free speech. No court would consider the improper motive of the police officer to constitute a defense to speeding, however protected by legal free speech guarantees the contents of the bumper sticker might be."

The flaw in their claim is that it amounts to a defacto suppression of free speech. It doesn't really matter how the courts rule, the fact is it punishes individuals for holding views the state does not approve of. When the state punishes people for holding views it doesn't like that's a violation of free speech. The fact that the state is using allegations of misconduct as a front to suppress free speech doesn't change that fact. Most modern violations of free speech, even by outright dictatorships, is not done by explicitly suppressing free speech rights but by inventing some pretext to punish dissidents. Officially, they're not punishing dissidents for holding the wrong views, they're punishing dissidents for terrorism, or fraud, or being a spy or a communist or a fascist or some other trumped up charge. If the charge happens to be true, that's much better because it'll stick better - but even in those cases the actual motivation is their dissident views, not the alleged wrongdoing. Even Stalin had his show trials - the fact that he invented pretexts to whack his enemies doesn't change the fact that they're really about suppressing opposition, not the phony allegations he & his henchmen cooked up.