I stumbled upon this in a different forum and found it interesting. I have searched around a bit and have not found an explanation as to why the judge vacated the jury's verdict. From what i have read they did not ignore the law so that does not seem to be the case. I thought our legal system was based on the idea of a jury of ones peers. If the Regents have judicial immunity it seems they can do as they wish, legal or not, with out fear of repercussion.
Blog on the case
From what I have read on the blog and else where the jury thought something was hinky with how the university conducted this affair and judged the case accordingly. Then the judge vacates their ruling and says that the people being sued can't be sued? This does not make much sense.
I never cared for the SOB but from what I have read so far, I hope he wins his appeal.
Interestingly enough the Denver Post announced this very day the Colorado Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal.
The court will consider three issues:
• Whether a university's investigation into a professor's writings, which results in termination, is a violation of the First Amendment.
• Whether university regents can make judgments that are comparable to those of judges, who receive immunity from lawsuits.
• Whether Churchill can win his job back even if the regents are given immunity.
The underlying issues are Academic Freedom and the First Amendment as well. Based upon what I've dug up some of this stuff is pretty arcane and I think as a result it may end up before the SCOTUS. Now let's take it out of the legal realm and into the land of common sense. What does that tell us.
- By any standard, Ward Churchill was at best outspoken in his views.
- His spoke out early and often with views clearly out of the mainstream if not on the lunatic fringe.
- As a result he drew negative attention to his institution. Put another way he was bad for business.
- If employed by a Corporation, the company's Code of Conduct would have cost him his job years ago.
- University Professors by virtue of their unique position in society enjoy a great deal of freedom in terms of speech, actions and teachings
- Controversial speech is the most vulnerable speech and must be zealously protected.
- Tenure is designed to protect Professors from the political leanings of the day and it usually works very well in that regard.
Anyone who's worked for any length of time can smell a witch hunt wafting up from the keyboard. This guy, genius or fanatic had generated enough negative attention that in the eyes of those who run the University that Mr Churchill had to go and most anyplace would do. The problem presented was his tenure, academic freedom and first amendment freedoms and yes even academic traditions.
Now most of us work for a living and I don't care if you're belong to 14 unions, married to the bosses daughter, are the top sales person or whatever, if the guys/gals at the top want you out, guess what?
YOU'RE DONE! It might take 5 years and a lawsuit or two but you are toast.
I will wager a significant sum that in something less than ten minutes after Churchill's widespread circulation of a 2001 essay, "On the Justice of Roosting Chickens". In the essay, he claimed that the September 11, 2001 attacks were a natural and unavoidable consequence of what he views as unlawful US policy, and he referred to the "technocratic corps" working in the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns". his days as a professor were numbered. So it took the Board of Regents 5 years to find a smoking gun and they punted him high and deep. Now he's fighting back and it looks like the University did a pretty good job of dotting their "I's" and crossing their "T's". Even if he prevails in his latest appeal and the CO Supreme court remands to a lower court for retrial and he prevails there and in any final appeal and is awarded damages and he is reinstated with in the next three years, Ward Churchill will be 67 and an academic has been.
The University of Colorado at Boulder really did a number on the guy. did he deserve it? Don't know, but a guy who can write an essay like the one that landed him in trouble has got to be one pain in the ass to work with.
