RogerRabbit
Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 05 Sep 2004
Posts: 748
Location: Oregon
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 Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 1:55 pm Post subject: New Churchill claim revealed |
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http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,,36~53~2829970,00.html
| Quote: | Staffer alleged intimidation in 1993
By Arthur Kane
Denver Post Staff Writer
A previously unreported allegation of intimidation by University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill surfaced during a committee's initial review of his work, but, like other threat complaints, it was not addressed by administrators.
The complaint was included in more than 150 pages of documents released Thursday that stemmed from the preliminary investigation into whether Churchill should be disciplined.
The three-person committee began reviewing Churchill after his controversial writings - including a comparison of some World Trade Center victims to a top Nazi - received publicity and questions arose about the quality of his work.
Last month, the committee referred allegations of plagiarism and other questions to the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct.
Notably absent in that report was any reference to at least five people who have said Churchill threatened them, including an Indian activist who says he spit on her and a former journalism professor who says he threatened her over a dispute about what to name a dorm.
Boulder Faculty Assembly chairwoman Barbara Bintliff questioned why the committee did not address the alleged threats.
"I am a little puzzled that it wasn't mentioned at all," she said.
The newest complaint to surface involves former staff member Mary Curran, who wrote a note to Regent Tom Lucero detailing her 1993 experience. She said that she asked Churchill to shut his office door while smoking and that she shut the door when Churchill wouldn't. She wrote that Churchill "proceeded to chase me all the way up to the second floor screaming obscenities at me."
Both she and Churchill talked to police - with Churchill alleging Curran nearly broke his door - but police said there was no criminal conduct.
Churchill dismissed the e-mailed allegation, saying all allegations of intimidation were made up.
"Anyone who said anything negative received ample play in the press," he said.
Curran declined to comment.
CU's Boulder campus spokeswoman, Pauline Hale, said the complaint was considered as part of the initial review. But, she said, "In the context of recent concerns raised about professor Churchill, the review committee focused primarily on whether he may have overstepped his bounds as a faculty member."
Dan Caplis, a KHOW 630 AM radio talk show host who has called for Churchill to be fired, said university officials took the easy way out.
"It was done out of weakness," he said. "The chancellor was only going to pursue those offenses he could kick to the research misconduct committee."
The documents released Thursday also show Bintliff suggested Churchill be placed on leave during the investigation and objected to any settlement that would pay Churchill to leave.
"There is coalescing faculty sentiment against a settlement for Ward Churchill," Bintliff wrote March 14.
Bintliff said that while faculty did support Churchill's free- speech rights, some faculty members were disturbed by allegations that Churchill threatened people.
There was also an e-mail from Faculty Council chairman Rod Muth, who recommended that social-criticism scholars review Churchill's work. |
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