Ward Churchill, idiot with tenure, University of Colorado Boulder, spoke last week at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater during their third annual Native Tribe week.

Churchill is the now famous professor who called the businesspeople who died in 9/11 "little Eichmanns" and wrote of them: "True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."

Thanks to the Internet I was able to hear him try and acquit himself of the more unseemly implications of his essay.

Between boasts about his body of work his ideology became clear. It is a complex mish-mash of sophomoric hot-button concepts. Bureaucracies unhinge personal morality and responsibility from the outcomes of ones actions. That's in there. Modern terrorism is the result of failed American policy in the Middle East; in other words we made the mess we're in. Check. The United States has no respect for the rule of law or the rights of men. He's got some of that. Establishment media is a worthless cog in the machinery of status quo. Can't leave home without it. The white man is the Devil. In spades.

His drivel is important for anyone who appreciates free-speech. It is invaluable to those who find truth by disproving falsity. I wish Donnybrook Lane provided me the space to discount him point for point. But it doesn't. Despite my lofty aspirations I have recently discovered that the paper, or the university, is not a utopia where all ideas are exchanged and examined with equal fervor. Some ideas, gain favor while others drift into intellectual obscurity. Apparently there are limits on time, space and money.

With those constraints why does Churchill get speaking engagements? Is it because what he has to say carries the weight of truth and logic, or is it because it has the cache of provocation? Mostly the latter. If that is going to be the standard for booking speaking engagements, then invite the head of the white supremacist group National Alliance to speak on April 20th so that he can counter Churchill's assessment of white America.

A university should be a place for the exchange of radical ideas, but when someone is given a podium and a mic in front of a stage it lends them legitimacy that may be undue. Blowhards and bigots should never be imparted with such a gift.

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Mar. 10 2005.