The recent controversy over an essay written three and a half years ago by University of Colorado Ethnic Studies Professor Ward Churchill has brought the issue of academic freedom and the limits of free speech into the national spotlight.
The storm that has broken out over Churchill’s description of American businessmen in the World Trade Center as “little Eichmanns,” after the chief engineer of the Nazi “Final Solution,” began when Hamilton College, a university in upstate New York, rescinded an invitation for Churchill to speak. This was due to the sensitivity of the community to the issue of Sept. 11, which led to threats of violence against Churchill.
After the reason for the cancellation of his speech a movement began to remove Churchill from his position as a university professor. He has been condemned by both the state House and Senate of Colorado, and the governor, Bill Owens, has called for his removal.
Clearly a majority of people find Churchill’s comments in his essay “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” to be grossly offensive and insensitive to those who died in the attack on the twin towers. However, simply because someone is offended by an item of speech does not mean that the individual responsible for it should be removed.
Churchill, as an American citizen, has a right to free speech. The essay in question was not a class assignment, but merely his view on the results of American policy. Indeed, most of his essay is simply garden variety extreme leftist sentiments that have been tossed around for years.
Churchill’s accusers are, by and large, decent folks who are simply outraged at something they disagree with. Of course, under our First Amendment, they have as much right to criticize the embattled professor as Churchill has to speak.
On the other hand, one cannot help but catch a tiny whiff of political opportunism on the part of folks such as Gov. Owens.
Readers should not take this editorial as a defense of Churchill as a man, or his ideas. He is an unabashed radical whose views, though certainly interesting, fall so far from the mainstream of rational debate that he has few comrades.
Indeed, Churchill’s case is not an isolated example. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a libertarian economist an UNLV, is facing sanction because of a student’s complaint that one of Hoppe’s comment’s on gay spending habits made him feel uncomfortable. Some may remember a few of the fights we have had on this campus over policy, including the vandalization of the cross demonstration on the parade grounds, the sex column in the Daily Reveille and the display two years ago of what some considered anti-American propaganda on the door of communications studies instructor Shaun Treat.
The battle for freedom of speech is nothing new. It has been fought for years and those who serve this noble cause have suffered much. In this time of interments without trial and a powerful government our hard-won rights of expression may well be sliding backwards. We protest this, since we know where this type of repression can lead. After all, this very newspaper had staff members removed by Gov. Huey P. Long for attempting to publish facts he did not agree with. We know what the stakes are.
So, let us cherish our rights and defend even those whom we cannot stand. For if we do not stand with them now, while they are unpopular and despised, who, in turn, will be willing to stand with us when, perhaps, it is our turn on the firing line.
 
The Daily Reveille Editorial Board is: Scott L. Sternberg, Editor-in-Chief; Mark F. Bonner, Managing Editor; Ryan Merryman, Opinion Editor; Dorothy E. Paul, Online Editor; Jason Dore’, Columnist.
The Editorial Board produces weekly editorials written by the Opinion Editor which express the views of the Editorial Board. However, the opinions of the board do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of The Daily Reveille’s staff.
This editorial was written by the editorial board of The Daily Reveille. The views expressed are those of the board and do not reflect the views of the entire staff.