Our View-Colorado prof fired for cheating on dissertation might be rehired

Ideas are like the air we breathe, flowing through the land and giving us life. Just as we are dead without air, we likewise die when the ideas of those before us are not reflected upon to help us reach an elevated state of thought.

There would be no Plato without Socrates, no Dylan without Guthrie, and no W. Bush without Rove. You get the gist.

The point is, we all draw inspiration from others. Those influential teachers, musicians and philosophers have almost as much to do with who we are as our genetic predispositions.

So where’s the line between original thought and borrowed thought? More specifically, are the ethics of respected teachers questionable if they’ve allegedly plagiarized parts of their dissertations?

This question is being pondered by the students and faculty at the University of Colorado. Ward L. Churchill, the former head of the ethnic studies department at the university, was fired in 2007 for supposedly falsifying parts of his scholarly work on the persecution of American Indians, according to The New York Times.

A judge will soon decide if Churchill, who believes he was wrongfully terminated, should be reinstated at the university — much to the dismay of several faculty members.

Elizabeth Dunn, an associate professor of geography and international affairs at the University of Colorado told The New York Times, “It is really hard to conceive of working collaboratively with somebody that doesn’t share the fundamental values of honesty and truthfulness in scholarship.”

This is a valid point, yet there seems to be some additional circumstances that have created the animosity toward Churchill.

In 2005, Churchill wrote an essay about Sept. 11, 2001, referring to some of the victims as “little Eichmanns.” This caused a media sensation, infuriating many of his fellow colleagues. Two years later, Churchill was let go for his alleged plagiarism.

Was Churchill’s firing a justifiable punishment or an excuse to get rid of a controversial teacher?

Margaret LeCompte, an education professor at the University of Colorado told The New York Times she had always thought the university wanted to get rid of Churchill because of his comments about Sept. 11. “I would welcome his return to campus,” said LeCompte.

Just as respectable academics are against plagiarism, they should be equally as opposed to denying a faculty member their inherent right to freedom of speech.

It just doesn’t seem that Churchill is some fraudulent hack who cheated his way up the ladder. This is a man who was so compelled to write about his personal views on Sept. 11 that it may have cost him his job.

Plagiarists, whether they are Milli Vanilli or discredited journalist Jayson Blair, don’t have the guts to speak their minds; they’d rather use the work of others to further their interests. While Churchill may have not cited the writings of others while putting together his dissertation, his overall track record doesn’t measure as that of a cheater.

This doesn’t mean Churchill should be let off the hook for plagiarizing another’s work, but it does raise a suspicion that his punishment does not fit the crime.

After all, the dissertation that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote for Boston University contains several writings that were allegedly plagiarized. Likewise, Jesus Christ used the teachings of John the Baptist as a blueprint for his sermons; it’s also widely accepted that Christ was more than Mary Magdalene’s rabbi.

Obviously, Churchill is not nearly at the level of these historic men, but it is worth noting the comparisons. Effective teachers are often flawed, yet their legacies should be based on the lives they influence.

The big problem with that thinking is that we don’t know if cheaters will or will not achieve public acclaim while they’re writing their papers — only long after.