Juan Cole, Howard Zinn: Rally on behalf of Ward Churchill

Eleven scholars have published a full-page ad in The New York Review of Books to try to rally support for Ward Churchill, who is facing possible dismissal from his tenured job at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The text of the ad is available at a Web site called “Defend Critical Thinking,” and focuses on the way charges of misconduct were brought against Churchill, not the charges themselves. The ad warns scholars to “be wary of opportunistic attacks on scholarship that are disguised means of sanctioning critics and stifling the free expression of ideas,” adding: “It may be that aspects of Churchill’s large body of published writings were vulnerable to responsible academic criticism, but the proceedings against him were not undertaken because of efforts to uphold high scholarly standards, but to provide a more acceptable basis for giving in to the right-wing pressures resulting from his 9/11 remarks.” Among those signing: Derrick Bell of New York University, Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, and Howard Zinn of Boston University.