Contrasting Hamilton and Colorado
Churchill, of course, resigned as chairman of Colorado's Ethnic Studies Department, though not without charging,"The gross distortions of what I actually said can only be viewed as an attempt to distract the public from the real issues at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic debate in this country." His comments, eerily reminiscent of Joseph Massad's on-line screed against his critics, doesn't mention any specific publications that distorted his views. Indeed, Churchill's comments are nothing if not clear. (I know that my colleague Jon Dresner disagrees with me on this, and has a more generous interpretation of the Churchill thesis.)
The"resignation" from an administrative position would seem appropriate: Churchill remains on the faculty, as he should, but his views certainly are relevant as to whether he should hold a position that helps set university policy.
Had the matter ended there, this would have seemed to me a positive outcome. Alas, that is not the case. Outrageously, Colorado’s Republican governor (and a possible GOP presidential candidate) Bill Owens has called for Churchill’s dismissal; and the state legislature unanimously passed a resolution condemning his remarks. To say that such conduct threatens academic freedom would be an understatement.
Nonetheless, to borrow one of Professor Churchill’s phrases, this is in some ways a case of the chickens coming home to roost. It’s clear that large segments of the political class in Colorado lost confidence some time back with the ability of the Colorado administration to handle educational matters—on issues ranging from the football recruiting scandal to what seemed to be a willful blindness to a lack of intellectual diversity on campus. An administration that had performed more competently in the past might have been given greater leeway to handle this matter quietly.
For a perfectly calibrated response, Colorado figures need look no further than Hamilton president Joan Hinde Stewart, who took exactly the right tone. Stewart publicly rebuked Churchill's remarks but initially declined to rescind his invite, saying that doing so under these circumstances would be a denial of academic freedom. She retreated only because of security threats.
She took two additional, and highly positive, steps. First, she required the Kirkland Project, the entity that extended the invitation, to present Churchill as part of a balanced panel. Second, she announced that her administration would conduct a badly needed review of the Kirkland Project, which hopefully will determine exactly what the project means when it says that it wants to promote"rigorous intellectual analysis and engagement with ideas that is characteristic of a liberal arts education and necessary for social justice movements." This approach stands in sharp contrast to the (continued) defense of the appearance by anti-semitic PSM by the Duke administration.
The reaction of outside organizations is intriguing. The AAUP--incorrectly, in my opinion, has spoken out against the review of the Kirkland Project. But certainly a college president has the right to review subunits of her college, to determine whether they are living up to their charter. FIRE, meanwhile, has defended Churchill's right to utter"vile" comments, but notes that Hamilton's speech code, while protecting the right of someone like Churchill to term victims of the WTC bombing"little Eichmanns," prohibits speech deemed politically incorrect on campus. Seems to be a double standard there.