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Churchill invitation
is embarrassment
for university

THE ISSUE Controversial Colorado professor Ward Churchill is scheduled to speak tonight at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.

MOST Americans share a great appreciation of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The concept came from England, where protection continues for speakers ranging from intellectuals articulating from the halls of Oxford to soapbox crazies bellowing from a corner of London's Hyde Park. From this night forward, the University of Hawaii's Manoa campus deserves dubious recognition as America's Hyde Park Corner.

Tonight's freak show at the UH Art Auditorium features Ward Churchill, a University of Colorado ethnic studies professor. He is under fire for having branded the 9/11 victims at the World Trade Center "little Eichmanns," a reference to Holocaust architect Adolph Eichmann, in an essay and book written soon after the attack.

Upholding free speech, UH President David McClain rightly refused to deny permission for Churchill's speech, although finding his remarks "personally offensive, wildly inaccurate and remarkably hurtful to those who lost loved ones there on that day." Little if any public money reportedly will be spent for the carnival. That says nothing about the terrible judgment of the Manoa faculty members who extended the invitation to Churchill.

Churchill's unsavory words about the terrorist attack went unnoticed until last month, when his scheduled speech at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. drew opposition. Hamilton canceled the speech for security reasons. Churchill's appearances at Wheaton College, the University of Oregon and Eastern Washington University similarly were canceled. Churchill still is booked to talk next week at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

The speech at Manoa was arranged after the furor erupted over Churchill's Eichmann statement and after questions arose about how a wacko could attain such rank and tenure at the respected Boulder, Colo., institution. Diversity policies appear to have played a role; Churchill claims Cherokee heritage, although the Cherokee Nation's principle chief says there is no evidence to support such a claim.

Churchill attained tenure in 1991 in Colorado's communications department, although lacking the doctoral degree normally required. His master's degree is in communications, and the ethnic studies department where he would teach could not grant tenure.

The university also skipped the typical step that the tenure candidate's published works be evaluated by scholars from other campuses. He rose to chairmanship of ethnic studies before stepping down because of the controversy.

An academic committee at CU is examining whether Churchill's "conduct, including his speech, provide any grounds for dismissal for cause." The panel should focus on allegations that Churchill has lied about his ethnicity, plagiarized other authors and fabricated events in his writings about American Indian history.

Other academics have raised serious questions about his scholarly integrity, which appears to be of no consequence to his Manoa hosts.