University of Colorado ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill, who described the victims of the 9/11 attacks as “little Eichmanns,” has resigned his post as chairman (but not his professorship), and released a lengthy statement defending his vile essay: CU’s Churchill resigns as dept. chair. (Hat tip: Enik.)

Churchill has been in the eye of a media hurricane since last week when students and 9/11 victims’ family members began to protest his scheduled Thursday appearance on a panel at Hamilton College, in Clinton, N.Y. Churchill had triggered angry reactions in many quarters with his argument that American foreign policy, including support for U.N. sanctions of Iraq following the first Gulf War, had done much to provoke the terrorists’ actions.

In his statement released Monday, Churchill protested what he called “grossly inaccurate media coverage,” which had “resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself,” Churchill stated.

The essay, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, was intended to make the point “that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences.”

Denying that he is a “defender” of the September 11 attacks, Churchill said, he had simply been “pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned.”

“I have never said that people ‘should’ engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, ‘Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable’.”