The Ward Churchill case

Jon Wiener, professor of history at the University of California at Irvine, recounts the story of the investigation by a faculty committee into allegations of academic misconduct by Ward Churchill, “Native American activist and professor of ethnic studies at [the University of Colorado at Boulder]“. It appears to be a balanced story, and there are lots of details there that I was not aware of (I wasn’t following this case closely enough, I suppose).

Janet Stemwedel, who’s “working the ethics beat at ScienceBlogs“, offers a crib-sheet on the important ethical questions in this case. She concludes thus:

It would have been nice if the University of Colorado had investigated the earlier allegations of academic misconduct. It would have been swell if the careful investigation that [actually] happened hadn’t been precipitated by a politically motivated firestorm. But given the facts in evidence, he has to go.