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Open Letter to Chancellor PetersonBy Barry Romo and 17 othersOctober 7, 2006
Chancellor G. P. "Bud" Peterson
Dear Chancellor Peterson: We members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War ask you to intervene against your university's handling of the case of Professor Ward Churchill. We condemn the treatment of Professor Churchill as anti-democratic and anti-academic. We have known and admired Professor Churchill for decades. Not only is he an important scholar, but of special importance to us is his role as a Vietnam veteran who has gone on to serve his nation in other ways. We believe his works are scholarly and reflect an accurate interpretation of world conditions. As a Native American scholar, Professor Churchill is a rare treasure for students all over this country. He is a resource for other scholars and widely read laypersons. We feel that the action of dismissing Professor Churchill is an act of racism against a people already grievously wronged. The crimes against American Indians have without question been genocidal. Why hasn't the University of Colorado afforded Professor Churchill the rights of free speech and intellectual expression that you provide for the other professors at the university? Professor Churchill has received condemnation from both the ultra-right and the ultra-left. In addition to the current criticism by the right, Churchill and the entire American Indian Movement were attacked by the Stalinist cult called the Revolutionary Communist Party in the early eighties. The leftist cult justified their attack on the American Indian Movement for that organization's failure to recognize the superiority of European Marxist interpretations of world history. We feel that the University of Colorado has joined the ranks of those who accept only cultural and intellectual ideas based in European versions of history. We proudly support Professor Churchill.
Barry Romo
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