That was the verdict of the Colorado Supreme Court on Monday, reported in this IHE piece. The court upheld the university’s 2007 decision to sack the former ethnic studies professor, after a faculty panel concluded that he was guilty of plagiarism, falsification and other instances of academic and professional misconduct. The decision was the latest judicial rejection of a series of appeals by Churchill, who argued that the university had violated its own procedures in terminating his employment as it did. Churchill’s lawyer indicated that the case would be appealed to the US Supreme Court.
Churchill has had his backers from the beginning, including the AAUP and its president, Cary Nelson, who has repeatedly called for his reinstatement..
But for NAS – see Peter Wood’s 2009 take on the controversy after Churchill lost his first appeal – the case has presented a very bright line between academic freedom and academic fraud, a distinction that continues to elude some of the professor’s defenders. Justice prevailed in Colorado.
