Just Desserts

It looks like noted white guy Ward Churchill will not be getting his big cash settlement after all, thank the gods. From The Rocky mountain News: Claims of plagiarism, threat stall Churchill buyout negotiations

Allegations that University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill plagiarized and threatened a professor in Canada scuttled negotiations Friday for a financial settlement that would have ended Churchill's employment at CU.

Churchill and the university were close to an agreement that would have required the professor to give up his tenured position in exchange for a substantial payment, but several sources said a report in Friday's Rocky Mountain News disrupted those talks.

The News has also learned that a prominent American Indian artist told law enforcement authorities in New Mexico that Churchill threatened violence against him.

The Friday story detailed accusations against Churchill by a professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Professor Fay G. Cohen complained in 1997 that Churchill had plagiarized an essay she wrote on Indian treaty fishing rights. After she made the allegation, Cohen says, Churchill phoned her in the middle of the night and said, "I'll get you for this."

Dalhousie officials sent CU an internal report this week about the 1997 allegations. A spokesman for Dalhousie said Cohen decided not to pursue her allegation of plagiarism after being threatened.

Churchill said he did not plagiarize Cohen's work, nor threaten the Canadian professor.

Oh you didn't, eh?

From the introduction to the conclusion, Ward Churchill's essay on Indian treaty fishing rights mirrors one he edited the year before by Canadian professor Fay G. Cohen:

• Cohen wrote: "The treatied people of the Northwest endured more than a century of denial of their rights."

• Churchill wrote: "In the Northwest, despite clear treaty language permanently ensuring such prerogatives, treatied people suffered more than a century of systematic deprivation of their rights to fish."

• Cohen wrote: "In recent years, the treaty tribes of the United States have moved closer to regaining their rights to harvest and manage fish and other resources. Strong legal rulings have supported their claims to harvest and manage the natural resources upon which they depended for centuries."

• Churchill wrote: "After decades of conflict, the treatied people of the United States are moving closer to regaining their rights to harvest and manage fish and other resources. In recent years, strong legal rulings have confirmed their claims to the natural resources upon which they depended since time immemorial."

O.K. Mr. Churchill, we have established that you are a liar. Now why should we take your word over Prof. Cohen's?

[Beware! Categorical statement ahead!] Anyone who defends Churchill now is an idiot.

(Gleaned from QandO)