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February 03, 2005

Grounds for Dismissal

The Indian Country Today article noted below casts severe doubt on Ward Churchill's Indian ancestry. Further reason for doubt comes from the Denver Post ("CU prof affirms Indian heritage; Tribe says he's not full member"). In today's Rocky, Stuart Steers raises some more questions ("http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3519179,00.html"), and hints and something much, much darker - deliberate grade retribution against a student:

In his books and articles, Churchill has described himself as a member of the Keetoowah Cherokee tribe in Oklahoma. In past interviews, he's claimed to be one-sixteenth Cherokee.

But the Keetoowah say that's not true.

Attempts to contact Churchill for comment Wednesday on his background were unsuccessful. But Churchill's claim to American Indian roots has been challenged repeatedly by people in that community.

One Montana woman has an especially personal tale of confronting Churchill on his claim to American Indian heritage. She was taking one of Churchill's classes at CU in 1994 when she wrote an article for the Colorado Daily newspaper, saying there was no evidence he had any American Indian background.

"For so long it was whispered on campus that he really isn't an Indian," said Jodi Rave, who studied journalism at CU. "Here you had the director of the Indian studies program and he's not an Indian."

Rave is a Mandan-Hidatsa Indian originally from North Dakota. Today, she is a reporter and columnist with the Missoulian newspaper in Missoula, Mont. She was recently a fellow in the prestigious Nieman program for journalists at Harvard University.

In one of her journalism classes at CU, Rave was assigned to write a profile, and she decided to profile Churchill.

"To have somebody of that stature masquerading as an Indian was intriguing to me," Rave said. "On two separate days I asked him questions. I was up-front in asking him questions (about his background)."

Rave says she discovered that Churchill had enrolled in the Keetoowah tribe under a program initiated by a former tribal chairman that let almost anyone sign up. She says the Keetoowah later discontinued that program and disenrolled the people who had joined under it.

When her article came out, Rave says Churchill was furious and insisted that he did have American Indian lineage.

"He called me and said, 'Jodi Rave, this is your professor and I need to talk to you right away.' He was surprised I had a story published that called into question his identity."

He also defended his American Indian background and said her story was unfair.

Rave said she was enrolled in one of Churchill's classes when the article came out, and her grade went from an A to a C-minus.

If true, this behavior is one of the grossest abuses of power short of criminal behavior that a professor can exercise. I don't believe that there's a member of the "appalled" faculty who wouldn't recognize it as a severe violation of the academy's rules - the same rules that Churchill is hiding behind to save himself.

If this is true, if Churchill is fraudulently posing as an Indian to boost his academic credibility, which "scholarship" in any case seems to be an adjunct to his political activity, and is then using his position as professor to bully students who question it, the question is no longer whether CU can fire him. It's how they can avoid firing him.

Posted by joshuasharf at February 3, 2005 12:06 PM | TrackBack
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