re: #494 Son of the Black Dog

One thought on the Ward Churchill trial. Maybe the university threw the fight. The administration probably has the usual leftist orientation, but felt the political pressure strongly enough that they had to give Ward the boot. Now, however, they can point to the court decision as proof that they have to reinstate him with full honors, backpay, etc. We didn’t want to, but the court made us do it.

I think they presented a half-hearted defense for a simple reason — a full-throated defense would mean going to war against most of their race/gender/literature departments.

If they pounded his lack of scholarship and dearth of evidence behind his “work”, they would be holding him to a standard that many in their humanities departments cannot meet. It would fundamentally change the admin vs. faculty relationship forever. Many of them would see that they could be fired too, and would preemptively undermine the faculty from this day forward.

It would come down to a question — “Who runs the school?” And the faculty were afraid to find out.