It seems that Ward Churchill’s chickens have come home to roost.
The ethnic studies professor’s choice of Malcolm X’s famous quote in describing the 9/11 tragedy has turned out to be wickedly prescient. (In response to the assassination of JFK, Malcolm X said, “It’s a matter of the chickens coming home to roost.”)
Churchill’s heritage has been a longstanding controversy in Indian country. Over the years he has claimed a number of different tribal affiliations, including Cherokee, Metis and Creek. These tribes are distinctly diverse groups of people. These questionable claims, along with a bombastic, in-your-face personality, have made him some hard and fast enemies in Indian country.
His self-styled status as an American Indian spokesman has especially angered some well-known native people who have taken their concerns over his ethnicity to leaders at the University of Colorado, where Churchill teaches. This imbroglio has gone on for years but has seldom reached beyond native circles.
Now, with his infamous quote comparing the 9/11 victims to “little Eichmanns,” Churchill has garnered the national spotlight.
Most media coverage has focused on the “offensive” and “un-American” quality of this quote from his essay, ‘”Some People Push Back’: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” and includes calls for his dismissal as a professor.
Thankfully, the Colorado Senate’s no-binding resolution urging the Board of Regents to fire Churchill has not found support. But the regents are endorsing a 30-day review of his record to see what course to take.
Lost in all this controversy is Churchill’s central point: that we examine our culpability for the backlash resulting from U.S. policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. His claim contains an uncomfortable truth.
His style, however, is akin to using a garden hoe in an operation that called for a surgical scalpel. Implying that those at the World Trade Center deserved to be killed is outrageous. Not surprisingly, his essay has provoked only a knee-jerk reaction with none of the intended dialogue he had hoped to inspire.
As an American Indian, I must admit that I rankle a bit at defending Ward Churchill. The bottom line, however, is the issue of academic freedom. A state legislature should not have the power to fire an academic because he or she promotes unpopular ideas.
I recall my alma mater’s memorial tablet from the class of 1910 that states, “The great State University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”
Surely those early scholars intended that we sift and winnow all ideas, including those that are unpopular. This is our duty as educated, informed citizens.

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