EDITORIAL: Everyone would benefit from the US Supreme Court recounting the lessons that Ward Churchill doesn’t seem to learn

Colorado’s recurring nightmare is back. Again.

Disgraced CU professor Ward Churchill was, once more, handed his lunch by a state court this week and told that he was rightfully fired for his misdeeds.

The Colorado Supreme Court upheld Churchill’s firing in 2007 by the University of Colorado. It was the third state court to do so. The disgraced professor had tried to persuade a jury earlier that his firing was the result of a state witch hunt against a controversial college prof who angered the establishment with his controversial and politically incorrect opinions.

Churchill became immediately infamous in 2005 when a college newspaper in upstate New York revealed Churchill’s now-notorious earlier rantings about whose fault the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were. The essay alleged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were retaliation for a long list of American sins. The murdered victims in the World Trade Center were “a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire,” he wrote. He compared them to “little Eichmanns,” referring to Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking German Nazi who saw to the details of shipping millions of Jews to death camps.

While his tasteless and poorly written opinion was hurtful, it was hardly grounds for the bounty that puffy-chested politicians put on his head. State officials, including then-Gov. Bill Owens, only fueled Churchill’s misbegotten case against the state by giving his nonsensical writings any credence.

Yet, it was that sophomoric piece and his finger-in-your-eye demeanor that led to uncovering his real crimes. Not only was some of his work illogical, it was stolen.

Extensive research showed that Churchill plagiarized parts of his essays. He mis-characterized those he supposedly quoted, and he fabricated parts of these writings as well. Any first-year journalism student would be tossed from school and banned for life for much lesser sins. Churchill became an embarrassing testament to everything a college student, teacher or writer should never be.

And yet he pressed on in demanding he be allowed to continue teaching.

The CU Board of Regents agreed to fire Churchill, pointing out that he had plagiarized plenty in his work. A Denver jury later found in Churchill’s behalf, that it was the politically charged witch hunt that led to his firing, but the jury awarded him only $1. Clearly, because CU did not pay close attention to the quality of Churchill’s work, he would certainly still be teaching there had his sloth not been uncovered because of the political flap.

But the unsavory witch hunt has nothing to do with what was subsequently uncovered about Churchill’s writings.

CU was right to fire Churchill, and three courts were right on the mark in upholding his dismissal.

Still, Churchill says he will press on, taking his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It would be the good fortune of the state, and of higher education as a whole, for the court to hear the case. The nation needs to understand how egregious Churchill’s sins against academia have been. All students and teachers need to understand the damage dishonest work is to others, and ourselves.

While we all wish this sad man would just go away, if he can prevent others from making the same mistakes he did, he would have done so more outside the classroom for college students than he ever did from the inside.