DENVER – A professor who likened some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi fired back yesterday at a committee that recommended he be suspended over plagiarism allegations, saying a flawed panel had produced a report rife with falsehoods and misrepresentations.
In a toughly worded, six-page response to the University of Colorado, ethnic-studies professor Ward Churchill denied some of the allegations outright and said that in other cases the committee used “the slightest of pretexts to conclude that I engaged in significant research misconduct.”
Churchill also accused university officials of being biased against him and said they solicited complaints in hopes of finding reasons to fire him.
The investigation began last year after Churchill's comments about Sept. 11 victims triggered a national uproar and calls for his dismissal. The essay described some of the victims in the World Trade Center as “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann.
The university concluded that Churchill, who is tenured, could not be fired for those comments, but school officials directed a faculty committee to review allegations of research misconduct.
