Ward Churchill: Academic Freedom Denied | Black Agenda Report

Ward Churchill: Academic Freedom Denied

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor

15 Jul 2009

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Click the flash player below to listen to or the mic to download an mp3 copy of this BA Radio commentary.

An anti-imperialist ethics professor has no rights that his university is bound to respect. That's the lesson from a Denver District Court that refused to reinstate Ward Churchill, despite a jury's finding that he was fired from the University of Colorado because of his political statements. “There is no such thing as academic and political freedom if you can be fired for exercising it.”

Ward Churchill: Academic Freedom Denied

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“His real crime was in declaring that U.S. society, as well as the U.S. government, was no innocent victim.”

Academic freedom has long been more of a myth than a reality in the United States. Like so many “freedoms” Americans celebrate, it tends to fail the test when confronted with the larger public’s freedom to exact vengeance against those it hates, and the freedom of large institutions to exclude those who question the role of those institutions, from within.

The political activist and ethics professor Ward Churchill’s freedoms were negated earlier this year by a Denver District Court that ruled he was not entitled to get his job back at the University of Colorado, even though a jury had earlier decided Churchill had been fired for his political views. There is no such thing as academic and political freedom if you can be fired for exercising it.

Churchill’s crime was in writing an essay the day after September 11^th, that tried to put the attacks in the context of U.S. foreign policy’s effects on other peoples in the world. He used the term “little Eichmanns” to describe some of the people who died in the World Trade Center – not a very politic thing to do, but certainly not as harmful as what George Bush unleashed on the world in the aftermath, or the wave of racist, fascist-like assaults on anybody vaguely Middle Eastern-looking that continue to this day.

Ward Churchill was made to pay for his impolitic political statements, despite his disavowal of organized terror and his admission that families of 9/11 victims might have been hurt. His real crime was in declaring that U.S. society, as well as the U.S. government, was no innocent victim – that imperialism is a system based on crimes and terror and sometimes the superpower criminal gets terrorized back. In much, if not most, of the world such opinions are thought to be self-evident. In the United States, they are broadly considered a kind of treason, beyond the pale and beyond the protection of the Constitution.

“Ward Churchill was made to pay for his impolitic political statements.”

Certainly, the Denver District Court mangled the Constitution in finding that Churchill did not deserve reinstatement or compensation for his lost professorship. To justify their decision, the court ruled that the university’s board of regents had acted as judges in dismissing Churchill, and therefore, their decision was beyond challenge. If that were true, the regents constituted a very strange court, indeed, since they had collectively denounced Churchill before even formally examining his case.

The District Court also dismissed the fact that a real, legally constituted jury had agreed with Churchill, that he had been fired for political reasons. But, since the jurors only awarded him $1 in damages, the court believed it could get away with giving Churchill nothing.

The law can’t get any flimsier than that. Which shows that academic freedom isn’t just a fragile thing, in America – it’s broken.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio August 28, 2026
28 Aug 2026
In this week’s segment, we hear about the crisis in northwest Indiana, including the city of Gary, where some residents have gone more than two weeks without power after a storm. As in the rest of…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Journalist Sam Husseini Runs for Congress as a Green Party Candidate
28 Aug 2026
Our guest is Sam Husseini. He’s a veteran independent journalist and senior analyst at the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is now running for Congress in Maryland’s 4th district as a Green Party…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Gary, Indiana Struggles for Two Weeks Without Electricity
28 Aug 2026
Akili Shakur is a revolutionary activist and the wife of political prisoner Shaka Shakur. She joins us from Gary, Indiana, where some residents have been without power for more than two weeks after…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , Dhoruba bin-Wahad , Kelonji Changa
The Guardian Open Letter Exposed: Margaret Kimberley & Dhoruba Bin Wahad Speak Out
26 Aug 2026
In this special broadcast, BAR Senior Columnist and Executive Editor Margaret Kimberley and Black Panther Veteran Dhoruba Bin Wahad offer an uncompromising, sharp critique of the anti-Iranian open…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner Meeting Reveals Ugly Truths About U.S. Politics
26 Aug 2026
If the Democratic Party prevails in the midterm elections, Hakeem Jeffries will become the Speaker of the House of Representatives. But his decision to meet with Jared Kushner was a textbook case of…