Has Churchill Been Singled Out?
The first thing I noted is the use of Wikipedia in the committee's report. Footnote 17 cites Wikipedia as a source for understanding the divisions within the American Indian Movement. If this elite committee on scholary misconduct is allowed to use Wikipedia as a source, why shouldn't students be allowed to use it?
The second point needs a little background.
Our assignment in my first-year methods class was to take a scholarly article, or chapter from a book, locate the sources, and check them against their use in the article or chapter.
We were all surprised at the level of fabrication, plagiarism and misrepresentation we found. The article I selected was published in a respected, peer-reviewed journal, associated with Harvard. The historian whose work I followed up on is a tenured professor in the SUNY system. In this one article I located examples of fabrication of evidence, profound mischaracterization of evidence, and, while not word for word plagiarism, passages that were essentially plagiarized with only the most cosmetic of changes. These are the same charges being leveled against Professor Churchill.
While this sort of behavior is obviously indefensible I wonder how many other historians are guilty of the same shoddy work, but who don't get the same level of attention because their political views are more mainstream.
(Here is some more material about the Churchill case at the UC Boulder website).