SOMETHING ELSE TO BE THANKFUL FOR – AT 7:49 P.M. ET:   Be thankful for small blesssings.  From the Denver Post:

The Colorado Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court decision denying University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill's effort to get his job back.

The court ruled that Denver District Judge Larry Naves was right to direct a verdict in favor of the university and to find that the university was entitled to "quasi-judicial immunity."

"We conclude that the nature of the decision reached by the university and its regents, and the process by which that decision was reached, shared enough characteristics with the judicial process to warrant absolute immunity from liability," states the opinion from Judge Dennis Graham, who was writing for the Court of Appeals.

Churchill's lawyer, David Lane, said he will try to convince the Colorado Supreme Court to take up the case. He predicted the case could eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Churchill has vowed that he will teach again at the university.

"All I can say is that it's a shame that in America some of our most cherished freedoms are in the hands of the politicians and bureaucrats in black robes to protect," Lane said.

Right decision.  Churchill wasn't fired for his opinions, as obnoxious as they were.  (He likened some victims of the 9-11 attacks to Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi official who organized the Holocaust.)  He was fired for various academic offenses, like plagiarism and fraud.

Churchill is one of those academic leftovers from the sixties era – all rights, no responsibilities.  He is one of a number of academic jokes on college campuses, teaching students who pay vast fees to hear the accumulated wisdom.

Maybe Code Pink has a job for him.

November 24, 2010