A Canadian anthropological approach to the study of empire and the human condition
Wednesday, 01 April, 2009, was Day 18 in Ward Churchill’s wrongful termination lawsuit against the University of Colorado, featuring the presentation of closing arguments by both David Lane (Ward Churchill’s attorney) and Patrick O’Rourke (the defense attorney for CU). The case then immediately proceeded to the jury, which deliberated for about four hours before breaking […]
Read More…Ward Churchill at Concordia I am very happy to announce that Ward Churchill will be speaking at Concordia University, on Wednesday, 15 April 15, at 7:00pm, at the Sir George Williams campus in downtown Montreal, in the Hall Building, room H-110. The admission cost is a voluntary donation. For more information, contact: scott.montreal@sympactico.ca or the […]
Read More……will consist of, first, the closing arguments for both sides of Ward Churchill’s wrongful termination suit, and second, the jury’s verdict. The trial was supposed to have ended yesterday (Friday, 27 March, 2009), on the 15th day of hearings. However, given bad weather, and some overtime, closing arguments are not likely to be heard until […]
Read More…“I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed . . . without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 1967, Riverside, California. While I am not prepared to predict the outcome of […]
Read More…Ward Churchill’s legal team rested its case on Day 13 (Wednesday, 25 March, 2009) in the wrongful termination suit against the University of Colorado. The trial is expected to come to a close this Friday, on Day 15, as scheduled. Day 12 (Tuesday, 24 March, 2009) saw the second day of testimony by Ward Churchill […]
Read More…Unfortunately, given limitations of time, I cannot produce a digest of the various reports, and I am worried about leaving out seemingly small but potentially very significant details in condensing other reports. Day 11 (Monday, 23 March, 2009) saw Ward Churchill take the stand in his own defense, preceded by at least three other witnesses. […]
Read More…Day 9 (Thursday, 19 March, 2009) and Day 10 (Friday, 20 March, 2009) produced what seemed to be a vast amount of testimony concerning the details of Churchill’s scholarship. If there is anything of value in witnessing such a debate, is that there is a debate, a very serious one that demonstrates that there is […]
Read More…Day 7 (17 March 2009) and Day 8 (18 March 2009) featured a lot of heated exchanges and sometimes complex testimony on fairly small, densely clustered issues pertaining to rules of scholarship and — this will be of particular interest to anthropologists — what is considered valid knowledge, indigenous oral traditions, secrecy, and from the […]
Read More…Bias, rules, meaninglessness, and footnotes. Monday, 16 March, 2009, was Day 6 of Ward Churchill’s court case against the University of Colorado in defense of academic freedom, and it was an excellent day for Churchill’s team to again call some of his more notorious pursuers to account, leaving them to destroy their own reputations and […]
Read More…Day 5 (Friday, 13 March, 2009) in Ward Churchill’s case against the University of Colorado featured several key exchanges and testimonies that appeared to be critical to the trial, with two more weeks left to the trial. For those unfamiliar with the story, Ward Churchill, a prominent American Indian activist and author, is a formerly […]
Read More…Yesterday, 12 March 2009, was the fourth day in Ward Churchill’s trial of the University of Colorado, and it some very striking statements were made in court by Churchill’s opponents, to the extent that one has to ask if some of them, especially former Governor Bill Owens, are not perjuring themselves, while others, such as […]
Read More…Yesterday, Wednesday 11 March 2009, was day three in the lawsuit brought by Ward Churchill against the University of Colorado, over his firing from a tenured position, allegedly on the grounds of shoddy scholarship, but immediately following mass mediated controversy over his 9/11 essay. Here is part of what happened on Day Three, which featured […]
Read More…News for March 10, 2009 This week saw the start of the trial of the University of Colorado over its dismissal of Ward Churchill on the grounds that his firing was punishment for Churchill’s constitutionally protected free speech. At least four blogs are now covering the daily proceedings, which began on March 9 and are […]
Read More…In connection with my post for yesterday, “Misunderstanding and Misrepresenting the Charges Against Ward Churchill,” I was delighted to get extra ammunition and free advertising from what appears to be a smear blog whose primary obsession is Ward Churchill, and whose intended aim seems to be the ceaseless production of libel and slander while sleeplessly […]
Read More…The main point of this post, following from the debate in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and following from the previous one for today, is very simple and straightforward, so much so that critics of Churchill either miss this point accidentally or intentionally in developing their critiques of Churchill (either possibility, the accidental or the […]
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