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Saturday, March 12, 2005
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Ah! A life crowded with incident… …as Lady Bracknell said of Mr. Worthing. She might have been talking about America’s own Bunburyist, Ward Churchill, a man whose many identities have generated almost as much farce as Wilde’s play. Act XXX of the Ward Wars, you recall, ended with everyone’s pen suspended above a buyout contract which would have rid the University of Colorado of the man forever. BUT! Just as things were about to resolve themselves, yet another chapter of Churchill’s life came to light: He is alleged to have plagiarized a paper by a professor at Dalhousie University in Canada; and, when the professor complained about this, he is alleged to have threatened her: “Cohen told Dalhousie officials in 1997 that Churchill had called her in the middle of the night and said: 'I’ll get you for this.’” So the buyout is apparently off the table as trustees pursue this latest report. It occurs to UD that in the matter of “turpitude” - word known to all professors because it often appears in a scary clause in their employment contract that says that even though they have tenure, moral “turpitude” can still do them in - Churchill has left few stones unturned; and yet there must be some turpi… turpi… turpitudities Churchill has committed that we don’t yet know about. (UD’s own turpitude, the thought of whose discovery by her university has always terrified her, is that the bottom left drawer of her office desk is piled high with a decade’s worth of Paris Match magazines.) For instance, we have yet to hear of that old standby, fraternization with undergraduates … or conflict of interest (this one’s hard if you’re not in the sciences or the school of business) … and the whole area of professional irresponsibility still seems open (not meeting your classes and that sort of thing)… In short, the game grinds on, and no professor -- not Protsch Von Zieten, not Thomas Murray -- seems able to distract the public from this particular professor. He is our Michael Jackson. |