Churchill v. University of Colorado: The Obama Effect

We are waiting for the jury to return and resolve this hard but professionally fought case.  If Ward Churchill wins, it has to be at least in part attributed to what might be described as the Obama Effect. 

When the Churchill matter broke, the role of the United States in the global community was perhaps much more sensitive in this country.  9/11 was more fresh in everyone's thoughts and the merits of remaining in Iraq was much more contested than it is today.  Criticism of the US, particularly the US role in Iraq, to some seemed almost unpatriotic.  In that environment, the words of Ward Churchill generated considerable and outspoken hostility.   

Things, however, have changed.  Barack Obama ran on a platform that called for withdrawal from Iraq.  It is a position now favored by most Americans.  In a Pew Research Poll, 76% of Americans indicated that they favor Obama's plan to withdrawal from Iraq.  Other polls show that a majority now believe it was a mistake to invade in the first instance.  In this environment, criticism of the United States and its foreign affairs, particularly when related to Iraq, has become more acceptable.

In this enviornment, therefore, some of the edge has been taken off of Churchill's comments.  It does not make them any less painful, particularly to those who lost a loved one in the Trade Towers, but they do not have the same ability to induce the type of reaction that could have shut down the University of Colorado in 2005.  As a result, this trial has taken place not in the middle of a maelstron, like the one that swirled around Churchill in 2005, but in the relative calm of the Denver District Court, with a jury that can concentrate on the merits without being significantly influenced by extraneous views and commentary.  If he wins, therefore, it is likely at least in part because of this relative calm. 

Barack Obama may have had yet another affect on the outcome.  The jury, as many have noted, is very young.  Young can cut either way but most likely cuts in Churchill's favor.  The jurors probably were less affected by the controversy in 2005 and may be more liberal than the population as a whole.   The youth of the jury is a product of the voir dire and the exclusion of many jurors who were older.  In other words, its not as if everyone considered for the jury was young.  But the presence of so many young people in the array and on the jury may be a result of the massive voter registration efforts by the Obama machine.  Obama's organization targeted young voters.  Thus, to the extent those called for jury duty came off the voter rolls, the rolls may well have had a higher percentage of young voters than in the past.

If Churchill wins, the Obama Effect has to be given some of the credit.

Comments

[JKNalgon]

I have been watching several days of testimony, and I noted that at times Mr. Lane attempted to invoke a discussion about the ACTA.

It is known that the organization has an agenda to suppress the truth about Western imperialism, and to install deniers in faculties across the nation.

However, on some occasions when Mr. Lane attempted to question members, Mr. O'Rourke objected and Judge Naves sustained.

How is the ACTA staying below the radar?

J.K.

[Mark E. Smith]

This is a microcosm of Prof. Churchill's greater exposition.

If I go into a store, slip an item of value into my pocket, and walk out without paying for it, nobody cares if I went into the store intending to shoplift or if it was done on impulse. Property was stolen and that's against the law whether I intended to or not.

But when mere human lives are involved, particularly the lives of indigenous peoples or people of color, then it becomes necessary, as Prof. Churchill explains so lucidly in his book, "A Little Matter of Genocide," to prove the impossible--to prove what was in a person's mind before they did something in the past. It isn't enough to prove that somebody said they wanted to exterminate Native Americans, because they could have been speaking in a greater context (only if they didn't give up all their land and disappear from the face of the earth voluntarily), or they could have misspoken. If the founders merely intended to take all the land, then killing the Native Americans who inhabited it was only collateral damage, not genocide, because the intent was just to get the land.

In this case Prof. Churchill and his counsel are asked to do the impossible again, because it was not sacrosanct property that was stolen--the damage was merely to a human life, career, and reputation. So what CU did becomes irrelevant, and it is necessary to prove that they intended to do what they did.

If anyone can conquer that insurmountable hurdle, it would be Prof. Churchill and Attorney Lane, but I'm not getting my hopes up. As we're so fond of saying in this country, the impossible may take a little time.

[Michael Welsh]

There's a lot "staying under the radar" in the Churchill trial. Give this a try: the same publications that the CU review team went over with a fine-toothed comb, so to speak, to find Churchill such an academic fraud had been reviewed and approved at all levels of the CU administration for the duration of his career there. Chairs, deans, provosts, and regents had given their seal of approval of these publications. These became the basis of Churchill's promotion, tenure, pay raises, sabbatical leaves, and chairmanship of Ethnic Studies. The same signatories to these documents then had to become Churchill's jury and executioner, as it were. David Lane didn't mention this, nor did CU's legal team. What an interesting case: the documents that led Churchill to fame and fortune then became evidence for his removal. The only thing more ironic is that the tenure and promotion process received no scrutiny at all, since both Churchill and his supporters-turned-executioners are at fault.

[HigherEd]

I'm wondering the same thing about the ACTA. Early in the Owens administration when it was working hard at revising the core curriculum for all of Colorado's state Universities and Colleges, the CCHE, run by Owen's appointee, Tim Foster, brought in the ACTA to review the curriculum decisions that were being made. (I think. It may have been the National Association of Scholars, but I think it was the ACTA). This was not publicized but appeared in the minutes of the meetings of either the CCHE or the GT-25 Council which was creating the new core curriculum in Colorado. One of the courses withheld from that core curriculum was a Native American History class from Ft.Lewis College.