Ward Churchill coming to Hawai'i

Apparently Ward Churchill is coming to the University of Hawai'i at Manoa next Tuesday to give a talk on"Speaking Truth to Power: Academic Freedom in the Age of Terror." This in spite of (or perhaps because of) his call to support Native Hawaiian rights by discouraging tourism. There is even a rumor that the event might be simulcast to other UH campuses, so those of us on the"neighbor islands" will be able to join the fun (ain't technology grand?). I could not find a list of sponsoring organizations on the web, yet, but the article cited above lists the UH American Studies department as one of them, and regular HNN commenter Grant Jones reports that the Political Science department is another. I'll update this as appropriate.

With regard to the ongoing"review" of Churchill's work at CU and elsewhere, Harvey Silverglate points out that evidence of substantial error and fraud will be necessary to overcome the valid and strong presumption that actions taken against him are retaliation for his exercise of free speech rights.

UPDATE 2/20: The list of sponsors of Churchill's talk includes the UH-Manoa departments of American Studies, Hawaiian Studies, History, Political Science, Sociology, and Women's Studies, as well as several other University-related programs (but funds are being raised from faculty, not, apparently, from University accounts) and an interesting collection of community social justice organizations. Apparently Churchill was here a decade ago, too.

Update 2/21: Charles Mutschler kindly sent along a link to a thorough discussion of Native groups rejection of Ward Churchill's ancestry claims which I shared with my faculty colleagues. Discussion has been, so far, respectful but intense, particularly on the issue of whether native ancestry (proven or otherwise) is important in evaluating the quality or importance of Churchill's work. As an outsider scholar in my own field, I'm not going to argue that membership is necessary to be a scholar or even an advocate of a culture. But there are both legal and ethical issues involved in Churchill's claims. Even if, as the article claims, he's wrong about having Native ancestry, it would be heartening to hear a plausible explanation from him of why he thinks he does; that would significantly mitigate the fraud charges, leaving only the procedural issues which CU is more liable for than Churchill.

In other news, state legislators have threatened UH with loss of funds for bringing Churchill [via poinography].