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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                 Matt Dulin                   Tony Hernandez      Jim Parsons
                Jason Poland             Dusti Rhodes           Blake Whitaker

Churchill is misguided, but free speech prevails

On Sept. 12, 2001, University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill wrote the now infamous essay, "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens." At the time it was read by perhaps a few thousand academics around the country and commented on by a few talking heads, after which it slowly descended into obscurity. 

The essay argued that the United States should not have been surprised by the 9/11 attacks and that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were military targets. In the WTC, what Churchill called "technocrats" toiled away to promote a system that contributed to an oppressive foreign policy, much like the Nazis supported the Holocaust.

Some media reports make it sound worse than it is, and Churchill has in recent interviews clarified that there were innocents lost that day; he simply claims that not all of them were innocent. 

He's making headlines now because a university in New York cancelled a speaking engagement featuring the firebrand professor, starting a controversy as to whether the professor should be reprimanded for his opinions on 9/11. The university is looking into whether it can terminate his tenure for his views. 

His criticism of U.S. foreign policy with regard to the Middle East, namely Iraq, could have done without the comparisons to Nazi Germany, and it's taking it a little far to implicate U.S. workers as somehow being willing contributors to some kind of scheme against the Middle East. It's hard to know why Churchill made this comparison, but it's clear he actually believes it; it's not some ploy to draw attention to a critique of U.S. policy.

Needless to say, very few people are congratulating Churchill for his analysis of 9/11, but plenty of people are saying that it would be wrong to fire him and would set a bad precedent for free speech and academics. 

The University of Colorado might be better off if Churchill resigned, but terminating his tenure is as bad an idea as Churchill's essay was.