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Jul 25, 2007 7:44 pm US/Mountain
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Churchill Files Lawsuit Against CU
By Dan Elliott, Associated Press Writer
by Rick Sallinger
BOULDER, Colo. (AP) ―
The professor fired for research misconduct after likening some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi launched a counterattack Wednesday with a lawsuit.
The University of Colorado Regents on Tuesday ousted Ward Churchill over allegations of plagiarism, fabrication and other infractions. He had ignited a firestorm with an essay comparing some World Trade Center victims to Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann, but the Regents said his dismissal was based on other writings.
Churchill denies the allegations and said his firing was retribution for expressing politically unpopular views.
His attorney, David Lane, filed legal action in Denver District Court. Lane said earlier the lawsuit would seek an unspecified amount of money.
"If we win, one of the remedies would be reinstatement, so that's definitely on the table," he said.
He said the lawsuit would be a revised version of a suit Churchill filed earlier over compensation.
The Regents voted 8-1 to fire Churchill on the recommendation of university President Hank Brown. Brown's recommendation came after three faculty committees said Churchill had committed plagiarism and other violations.
Regent Cindy Carlisle cast the sole vote against termination. She did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages Wednesday. Regents Chairwoman Pat Hayes said Carlisle disagreed with the punishment, not the finding of research misconduct.
Lane and Churchill were both harshly critical of the dismissal process. Lane called it a "kangaroo court" and Churchill called it "a farce" and "a fraud."
Brown said the Regents had little choice but to fire Churchill after the faculty committee investigations and Churchill's refusal to apologize and to change his practices.
"This case is a very clear example of an effort to falsify history, to fabricate history," Brown said immediately after the Regents vote.
Churchill was accused of, among other things, misrepresenting the effects of federal laws on American Indians, fabricating evidence that the Army deliberately spread smallpox to Mandan Indians in 1837, and claiming the work of a Canadian environmental group as his own.
The essay that thrust Churchill into the national spotlight, titled "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," was not part of the investigation.
That essay and a follow-up book argued that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were a response to a long history of U.S. abuses. Churchill said those killed in the World Trade Center collapse were "a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire" and called them "little Eichmanns."
In the uproar that followed, the Regents apologized to "all Americans" for the essay and the Colorado Legislature labeled Churchill's remarks "evil and inflammatory."
School officials concluded Churchill could not be fired because he was exercising his First Amendment rights. But they launched the investigation into his research in other work.
(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)