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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) ― Two professors, including one from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, have resigned from the panel investigating allegations of research misconduct against a University of Colorado professor who likened some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi.

Bruce Johansen, a communications professor who studies American Indians at UNO, resigned after questions were raised about whether he could be objective about University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill's work.

Late Friday, CU announced that Robert A. Williams, professor of law and American Indian studies at the University of Arizona, had resigned as well.

The University of Colorado said in a news release it regretted that Johansen and Williams resigned.

"We appreciate their initial agreement to serve on the committee reviewing this very difficult issue and we regret that they felt it necessary to resign," the university said.

The university committee that appointed this investigatory panel will decide whether to name any replacements, a spokeswoman said.

Johansen said Friday that he thought the criticism of him was overblown, but he didn't want to be a distraction.

"I was becoming the center of this thing, and that was not the issue here," he said.

Johansen was one of five scholars recently appointed to the Committee on Research Misconduct. They were to investigate allegations of plagiarism and fabrication against Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies. The panel had yet to begin its work.

Churchill, speaking at a bookstore Friday to promote a new book, called the controversy over Johansen's role on the panel ridiculous.

"I wouldn't know Johansen if I collided with him right now," he said, declining to comment further.

Churchill touched off a firestorm when he wrote an essay comparing some World Trade Center victims to Adolf Eichmann, one of the Nazis who orchestrated the Holocaust.

University of Colorado leaders said he couldn't be fired over the statements because of First Amendment protections, but in September a faculty committee recommended investigating seven allegations involving plagiarism, misuse of others' work and falsification and fabrication in his research work.

The investigation began after Churchill's essay about the terrorist attacks was widely publicized early this year.

Churchill has denied the allegations.

Colorado resident Jim Paine, who runs a Web site called www.PirateBallerina.com, criticized Johansen because Churchill wrote a blurb praising one of the Omaha professor's books and because Johansen has made some positive comments about Churchill's research methods and cited his work in the past.

"I was happy to see that professor Johansen chose to remove himself from the investigating committee," Paine said Friday. "It showed remarkable good sense."

Johansen said he has never met Churchill and didn't solicit the blurb for "Enduring Legacies," which was published in 2004. The book's publisher did that.

"It may not be easy to find a qualified person in native studies who hasn't said anything about Churchill," Johansen said.

The remaining members of the panel are University of Colorado professors Marianne Wesson, Marjorie McIntosh; the school's Sociology Department chairman, Michael Radelet.

Paine said he remains concerned about the impartiality of the panel. He said he was particularly concerned about Williams because the Arizona professor has also praised and cited Churchill's work.

"A casual reading of Williams coupled with his praise for Churchill leads me to believe that he would be predisposed to exonerating Churchill," Paine said before Williams' resignation was announced.

(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)