HOW HE SEES IT University should buy out Churchill

By PAUL CAMPOS
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
In "The Great Gatsby," Nick, the naive young narrator, is stunned when he learns that his friend Gatsby's "business associate" Meyer Wolfscheim is the man who fixed the 1919 World Series. "How did he happen to do that?" he asks Gatsby.
"He just saw the opportunity," Gatsby replies. Astonished, Nick asks "why isn't he in jail?" Gatsby responds suavely to his young friend's flustered innocence. "They can't get him, old sport. He's a smart man."
By now, innocent observers might be wondering why "they can't get" Ward Churchill. The answer is that, like so many talented American con men, from Arnold Rothstein (who actually did fix the 1919 World Series), to Ken Lay and Dennis Kozlowski, he's a smart man.
Churchill has spent his academic career running an increasingly elaborate scam -- the sort of thing that's known among grifters as "the long con."
Whatever else one might say about Churchill, it must be admitted that he has an abundance of the trait that marks all truly great con men: shameless audacity. Confronted by an academic job market that would normally laugh in the face of someone with his lack of credentials, Churchill hit upon an ingenious scheme: He decided to become an American Indian.
Taking advantage of the natural reluctance most people have to question someone's ethnic self-identification, Churchill, who has no detectable Indian ancestry, simply began insisting that he was, in fact, an Indian. Everything that has happened in the years since has been enabled by Churchill's continuing use of that phony claim to get away with the academic equivalent of murder.
Last week, according to a reliable source, the University of Colorado reached an agreement with Churchill, in which he agreed to resign in return for a payment roughly equivalent to three years worth of salary and benefits.
Understandably, this news provoked a firestorm of protest among people who were appalled by the prospect that the university appeared to be rewarding Churchill for his misbehavior. That backlash seems to have killed the deal, at least for the moment.
'White Republican critics'
As a part of the group that Churchill has labeled his "white Republican critics" (I'm actually a Mexican-American Democrat, but as we have seen facts aren't Churchill's strong point) I'm in favor of the proposed settlement. Here's why.
First, it will likely save the university, and therefore Colorado's taxpayers, a great deal of money. Even if one assumes that in the absence of a deal, the university will fire Churchill, and then win the lawsuit he is sure to file, the sum of the settlement is considerably less than what the university will have to pay to defend the lawsuit, which could easily drag on for years.
But there's a far more important consideration: What if in the end Churchill wins his suit? He will then spend another 10 or 20 years at a university that will now be helpless to do anything about the situation.
With all threat of sanction removed, it's hard to imagine how bad Churchill's behavior is likely to become. Under such circumstances, the damage he might do to the university, and especially to students who are imprudent enough to expect minimal competence and civility from all their professors, is incalculable.
Of course it's extremely distasteful to pay Churchill anything. If life and law were fair, he would have been fired long ago. But they aren't -- and one consequence of this is that there's a real risk Churchill will win his lawsuit.
The university already made one disastrous decision when it hired Churchill. It would be even more disastrous not to get rid of this high plains grifter immediately, at what, all things considered, is a bargain price.
X Paul Campos is a law professor at the University of Colorado.