April 01, 2013 01:06 PM UTC

End of the Line for Ward Churchill

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• by: Colorado Pols

AP via the Washington Post reports today:

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill in his effort to reclaim his job.

The justices did not comment Monday in refusing to review a Colorado Supreme Court ruling in favor of the university.

Churchill faced condemnation and calls for his dismissal over an essay describing some victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi leader who helped orchestrate the Holocaust.

Thus ends the long battle over former tenured University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, an academic for whom a qualified defense of free speech rights was initially very much justified–but who was ultimately rendered indefensible by genuine instances of academic dishonesty uncovered during the investigations of his scholarship that ensued after his "Little Eichmanns" essay became controversial.

Former GOP Gov. Bill Owens actually testified that he was "glad" the University of Colorado "chose to ignore" his advice in 2005 that Churchill be fired solely for his essay disparaging victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Had the university done so as Owens asked, they might have made a millionaire out of Churchill instead of the pariah he has turned out to be. At best, the microscope Churchill was held up to after his essay was publicized, and the real academic dishonesty that was at length uncovered, can be summed up in the old adage, "sometimes a witch-hunt actually finds a witch"–not exactly a proud moment in Colorado civic life. As much as there is nothing for Churchill to be proud of today, we see little his detractors should celebrate either.