[IPSM] The Treatment of Prof. Ward Churchill

[lcarle at po-box.mcgill.ca]

To:  The Board of Regents of the University of Colorado at Boulder

Dear Regents,

I am not a University of Colorado Student, nor have I ever been to Colorado.  I
am a United States citizen living in Montréal, Québec, in Canada (where I am
also a proud citizen), and studying music at McGill University.  However, I feel
compelled to speak out on the issue of the controversy surrounding Dr. Ward
Churchill, a deservedly tenured professor in your employ.

Ward Churchill's writings have changed my life.  Since reading his 1995
collection of essays entitled "Since Predator Came," my thoughts have clarified
that I cannot take my privileged place in North American society for granted.
I am the horrified beneficiary of centuries of ongoing genocide and ecological
destruction.  Moreover, this history, including the causes of the 9/11 attacks
so astutely outlined by Prof. Churchill, as well as the maelstrom at hand, give
me enormous shame as an American citizen.  I can no longer justify either
silence and inaction on one hand, nor having concern for the so-called "Third
World" while ignoring the plight of my Indigenous neighbours here at home on
the other.  However, I am given hope in that at last the veil of silence and
lies surrounding our atrocious actions in the world is being torn.

None of us should be proud of what our government claims to
do on our behalf.  As Churchill pointed out,  Why do "they" hate us?
Because we so overwhelmingly and blindly support the atrocities commited by our
own military, and the policies, economic practices, overconsumptive habits, and
outright bigotry, both religious and racial, which purport to justify them.
This is not a football game or a TV drama for the diversion of the American
masses.  It is life and death.

It is YOUR patriotic, moral, academic, and legal duty to stand with Prof.
Churchill.  More importanly, it is your human duty to take a stand with him in
ending the very real implication that we as a society bear in the suffering of
truly innocent people around the world, including the 9/11 victims.  It's a
matter of human decency.  Churchill has put his whole person, not just his
livelihood and work, on the line where it belongs.  I beg you to do the same
and stand up to the nonsensical schoolyard bullying that is coming from such
willfully ignorant people as Governor Bill Owens and Bill O'Reilly.  If anyone
is hypocritical in this situation it is them:  they feel threatened by
Churchill's views and outspokenness, as well they might--they embody precisely
the problems to which Churchill points.  Not only that, it has been more than
THREE YEARS since Prof. Churchill first published his analysis.  People like
Owens and O'Reilly are clearly in the wrong, and fishing for falsely
scandalizing, not to mention seriously racist ways of undermining Churchill's
right to tell the truth as he and a rising tide of others see it.  People like
Owens and O'Reilly stand to make a pile of money out of all this.  Meanwhile,
again as Churchill himself has pointed out, the enrollment levels in his
classes clearly benefit the bottom line of the financial balances of your
University, which receives next to no public financial support (making you
extremely unlikely allies for Governor Bill Owens), not that that should be in
any way a consideration in defending Churchill's academic, constitutional, and
human rights and freedoms.

We must change our ways in the world before it's too late and it blows back in
our faces again, and again.  It starts with me and you, and here I am,
attempting to do my part.

Please take the time to examine carefully Prof. Churchill's statements and
anaylses.  They are readily available both on the internet and, I'm sure, in
your own libraries.  They may change your life as they have mine.

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html
http://www.c-span.org/ (type Churchill into the video search for his Feb. 2
speech)


Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
Loren Robert Carle
1404 St-Mathieu #3
Montréal, QC, H3H 2H9
CANADA
(514) 939 4072


some of the hype:
http://www.colorado.gov/governor/press/february05/churchill.pdf
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/18/157211