Ward Churchill

Fights back! Good for him!

There have been other victims of right-wing zeal. My Greek and Roman History Professor from undergraduate days, Richard Berthold of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, made insensitive remarks on Sept. 11th: “anyone who can bomb the Pentagon has my vote,” and was slow to apologize. Berthold subsequently was pilloried on local and national talk radio, faced a thug in his carport, and after a year was ultimately forced to resign. He was the canary in the coal mine. He was first, but many will follow.

Professors are not, and never have been, employees of any university - they are scholars, and they are given tenure by the university in anticipation that they can espouse political and social views, if they so wish, generally as they relate to the subject material of the class. I've taken classes from leftos and reactionaries both, and gotten useful ideas from them all, but the hallmark of the best is a fiery, fearless independence.

The ancient Greeks had an interesting custom: "ostrakos", or ostracism, whereby the community would exile an offensive person for a full year. But the person was free to rejoin the community after a year. The American Right recognizes no such civilized limitation on their power - they destroy the career, exile the teacher, and smash the school, with no limit on their arrogance.

Time to fight back. The Right won't stop until their own losses become unacceptable. Time to target right-wing professors making crude, insensitive comments, or flacking for big business (but nevertheless respecting those who hold unpopular opinions). Plenty of them out there! Fight fire with fire!

And speaking about protest, here is a local example, from Land Park, that is already having nationwide impact (via Drudge).