Panel: Churchill Should Be Fired

This is not a surprise. There were serious questions about Churchill's conduct, including plagarism and other misconduct. The panel voted 6-3 to recommend firing Churchill from the University of Colorado for the misconduct.

A University of Colorado committee says the professor who called some of the World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns" should be fired for repeated and deliberate infractions of scholarship rules.

The school's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct made the recommendation on a 6 to 3 vote in its final report, which now goes to university officials for a final decision.

Churchill is a tenured professor of ethnic studies who has said he would sue if officials tried to fire him. The committee's report asks school officials to reassure other faculty members that CU still values academic freedom.

Churchill has repeatedly denied misconduct. He says the report is "baloney." Churchill says the call for his termination is based on an illegitimate investigation.

The school's investigation focused on allegations that Churchill committed research misconduct and plagiarism. It didn't address his comments about the terrorism victims. School officials in the past have said those comments were protected under the First Amendment.

Truth is an absolute defense, and I'm looking forward to any kind of lawsuit filed here - because it will show Churchill to be an academic fraud who also happened to make a bunch of truly outrageous statements, including the one about how the 9/11 victims at the WTC were nothing but a bunch of "little Eichmanns."

UPDATE:
The Denver Post notes the panel did not address the "little Eichmann's' comment and instead focused completely on the academic misconduct. That's as it should be. Churchill is free to speak freely and make a complete and utter ass of himself. However, he doesn't have the right to plagarize, and commit other acts of academic misconduct. Those are fireable offenses - and the panel properly concluded as such.

Of course Churchill and his supporters will try and claim that this is crimping his free speech rights, but that's nothing but empty rhetoric.

QandO hopes that the panel looks at the academic misconduct and not the comments. I concur.

Others blogging: LGF, Blue Crab Boulevard, Coalition of the Swilling, Hot Air, Dangerous Professors, and Sweetness and Light.