In Defense of Academic Freedom:

In Defense of Academic Freedom:
Uncovering the Fascist Uprising Against Ward Churchill



University of Colorado American Indian studies professor Ward Churchill has been at the top of the National News for over one week – long enough to raise grave concerns about the agenda behind the Fox News led media campaign to silence Churchill, weaken academic freedom, and divert the U.S. public from the real issues that Churchill has raised over his years of scholarly research.

While Churchill is no Marxist, his saga brings to mind the perpetual right-wing whining about “tenured Marxists” in U.S. universities, which they have been complaining about for years. The reactionary right-wing power structure of the U.S. never recovered from the defeat they suffered when the battles to add ethnic studies departments to U.S. universities was won during the early 1970s.

The battle to silence, neutralize and/or co-opt ethnic studies departments in U.S. universities is the context in which the campaign against Ward Churchill should be considered. Ward Churchill has been an outspoken advocate for those who are oppressed, wounded, and murdered by the imperial/colonial policies of the United States government and it is this fearless outspokenness that has landed him in the precarious position of possibly being fired from his tenured position at the University of Colorado for comments he made in an essay entitled “Some People Push Back” (1) and the follow up book “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” (2)concerning the events of 9-11.

As someone who had read these works long before the ensuing media lynch campaign against Churchill, I can tell you that the Fox News headed media frenzy, which continually featured partial quotes of one or two of the most inflammatory lines from these works, was a deliberate attempt to draw attention away from the thesis of these works, which was that the United States is, and always has been, engaged in a globally reaching imperial project – and most importantly that the United States has never shied away from using extreme levels of violence to achieve its goals of global hegemony. (3) The events of 9-11, in Churchill’s reasoned opinion, were nothing other than an example of what goes around coming around.

Fox News, followed by other corporate media outlets, constructed and repeated a generic story about the exposure of the “9-11 professor,” set to speak at Hamilton College in New York, who likened those who died in the 9-11 attacks to nazis. The story went as follows: a Hamilton College professor by the name of Theodore Eismeier was “casually” researching Churchill on the internet to get a preview of his positions before Churchill was to speak at the college and he discovered Churchill’s essay “Some People Push Back.” Eismeier then informed a few media outlets of Churchill’s positions concerning 9-11, and from there the media frenzy ensued. It sounds innocent enough, however, a little research reveals more to the story…

The “event” that Churchill was scheduled to speak at was a panel discussion organized to investigate questions concerning academic freedom and the limits of dissent under the Patriot Act, as well as to discuss the U.S. public’s responsibility to resist the United States government’s many violations of international law since 9-11. Professor Theodore Eismeier of Hamilton College was actively campaigning against the conference days before the media story about Churchill broke, and was criticized by members of the faculty for his wish to silence the issues that were to be discussed at the panel. A little background on Eismeier is also relevant here to paint a more realistic picture of the neo-conservative politics behind this whole shenanigan. Eismeier is a Yale-educated professor of Government who has publicly espoused neo-conservative economic positions in his various writings. (4) This was a man who had a pre-meditated attack ready, and though I have not yet found any direct connections, I would venture to assert the possibility that this whole circus was a pre-meditated attack orchestrated by various interconnecting advocates of the neo-conservative “New American Century.” (5)

It is true that Ward Churchill has given the fascist elements of U.S. society and government ample “ammunition” to be used against him, and that his choice to use 9-11 as a context to view U.S. imperialism and war crimes was most definitely geared to raise controversy and discussion. However, the discussion of Ward Churchill’s views has been non-existent in the corporate press of the U.S. over the past week and this is no coincidence. What has been extremely present is a clearly fascist, anti-free speech element that has risen to destroy Churchill, ruin his credibility, and see that he is fired from his job – no doubt to serve as an example to any other professors who dare to generate such extreme and well-researched forms of oppositional anti-imperialist scholarship. The Governor of Colorado, Bill Owens, has publicly called for Churchill’s firing despite the fact that such an action would contradict the basic principals of academic freedom that the University System was formed under. Bowing to the pressure of the Governor and other fascist elements, the regents of the University of Colorado have initiated a 30 day review of Churchill’s works to determine if they can fire him for “overstepping the boundaries of academic freedom.” Never mind that fact that the very definition of academic freedom implies the negation of their being any boundaries to it.

To add clarity to the double-speaking fascism that Churchill – and all of us – are up against, the good Governor of Colorado has just recently made another public statement in which he chastised student supporters of Churchill at the University of Colorado for their defense of Churchill’s right to academic freedom. When two supporters of Churchill were arrested for disrupting the Board of Regents meeting, the Governor stated that it was a perfect example of the “culture of violence” that Churchill’s scholarship has engendered within his students. Thus implying that we should bow down and passively allow the rising tide of U.S. fascism to steamroll us all over. And of course, we should never mind the obvious fact that the United States government, not Ward Churchill, is now the leading purveyor of violence in the world.

Ward Churchill’s academic freedom must be protected, and as students and faculty members we must understand that the results of this struggle may have catastrophic consequences if we allow Ward Churchill to be devoured by this fascist uprising and fired from his University position. If they are successful in removing Churchill from the University, rest assured that many others will be next.


Jeff Hendricks



1) This essay along with an archive of other relevant media documents concerning the media lynching of Ward Churchill can be found on line at: http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/S11/churchill.html
2) Churchill, Ward. On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the consequences of U.S. imperial arrogance and criminality. Oakland: A.K. Press, 2003.
3) The majority of Churchill’s book (cited above) is comprised of a detailed account of every U.S military intervention since 1945 and a vast chronology of U.S violations of international and domestic law.
4) For an example of Theodore Eismeier’s written work see: The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, vol. 9. 1990, pp.577-581.
5) Throughout this essay I refer to a fascist movement or element within the dominant society. Supporting evidence for the existence of such a fascist movement herein the U.S. is best documented by a report written by The Project for the New American Century entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century” published in the September of 2000. The authors of this document include Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams. This document can be accessed on line at: http://www.newamericancentruy.org.