[IPSM] Petition to defend Ward Churchill

[Dan ngh!]

http://www.petitiononline.com/churchil/petition.html

To:  CU Board of Regents

To the Regents of the University of Colorado, Governor Bill Owens and the 
House of Representatives and the Senate of the State of Colorado:

We, the undersigned, vigorously oppose the efforts to fire, or otherwise 
remove, Professor Ward Churchill from the faculty of the University of 
Colorado.

The campaign to remove Churchill is an open call to persecute anyone who 
makes statements that some might consider anti-American, or who think 
thoughts deemed anti-American.

The media-driven frenzy to purge Churchill possesses all the hallmarks of a 
new McCarthyism, and represents a dangerous trend of intellectual 
intolerance across the nation and in the academy.

The moment is a reminder that many of our natural rights as enshrined in the 
Constitution of the United States are today in jeopardy under such onerous 
laws as the USA PATRIOT Act.

Now, the effort on the part of the CU Regents and the State of Colorado to 
remove Professor Churchill threatens to create the atmosphere for a new 
academic “blacklist,” which we find to be a chilling and wholly undemocratic 
development.

While the incidents of 9/11/01 are grave and to be taken seriously by all, 
the nation is by no means united as to their meaning. According to the 
Washington Post, a Zogby poll released late last summer said that “49 
percent of New York City residents believed that national leaders "knew in 
advance that attacks were planned . . . and that they consciously failed to 
act." An even larger proportion of people of color in New York take this 
view.

We, the undersigned, say that neither New Yorkers nor Prof. Churchill should 
be labeled, harassed, or persecuted as traitors. The state and its 
representatives have no business purging academics for their beliefs and for 
the exercise of free speech.

Indeed, many of us concur with Professor Churchill’s views of the unjust 
occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan; others believe in freedom of speech, 
especially in the academy; others of us understand that the persecution, 
even the murder, of Native Americans and their most vocal defenders is a 
norm in American history, and feel grave concern for Professor Churchill’s 
physical well being; others of us oppose the persecution of those whose 
“blood quantum” doesn’t meet the standards of modern day eugenicists.

And, yes, some of us agree, even strongly agree, with Professor Churchill’s 
analysis of US government acts of genocide against the children of Iraq, and 
with his assessments of technocrats in much of the U.S. corporate world.

Regardless of our motivations, all of the undersigned are united with a 
single voice in demanding an end to the persecution of Professor Ward 
Churchill. We insist that all efforts to remove him from the faculty of the 
University of Colorado cease immediately.


Sincerely,

The Undersigned

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