It seems there's still intelligent life at the University of Colorado. Big Chief Whitebread (aka Ward Churchill) has been terminated. He wasn't fired for calling the 9/11 dead "Little Eichmanns", he was fired for plagiarism and for lying. He lied about his credentials, he has lied in his research papers, and he lied about his ethnicity. (Which shouldn't have mattered, since it shouldn't have even come up, but it does in this day and age.)

Churchill is the one responsible for the "Known Fact" that the US Army deliberately gave blankets infected with smallpox to a group of Indians in order to kill them off. It turns out that there is no evidence whatever that such a thing happened, but you'll be hearing people (of a particular political persuasion) talking about that atrocity for the next 30 years.

Churchill says he's going to sue. I hope so; let him bankrupt himself in court. Whatever else the University of Colorado may have, it's certain they have more money for lawyers than he does, and he has no case.

This was well deserved -- and much too long delayed. The wheels of academic justice grind very slowly; these accusations (of fabrication of evidence, of lying about his credentials, about plagiarism) came out years ago.

UPDATE: I never learn, I guess. Care to read a comment trainwreck on the subject? (It isn't as bad as many on Metafilter, I must say.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in People at 08:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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