Angry in the Great White North

"Gary" at Autonomy & Solidarity announces the next stop on Ward Churchill's world tour:

Monday, October 30th

1). 1:30 pm. Upper Fraser Auditorium, FA-056,
Laurentian University.

2). 7pm. Canisius Hall,
University of Sudbury.

Ward Churchill is a Keetoowah Band Cherokee, professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado/Boulder, and member of the Colorado American Indian Movement. He is the author of more than 20 books including Marxism and Native Americans, Fantasies of the Master Race, Struggle for the Land, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, From A Native Son, Critical Issues in Native North America, The COINTELPRO Papers, Indians R Us?, Agents of Repression, Since Predator Came, Pacifism as Pathology, and A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas. Most recently two governors, four state legislators, several members of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, as well as the chancellor and a faculty committee have called for him to be fired because of his views on U.S. foreign policy.

Sponsored at Laurentian University by the Department of Native Studies; Native Human Services; Department of Sociology; Department of Geography; Department of Women’s Studies; Department of Political Science; Students General Association; Laurentian University Faculty Association; and in the community by the Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty.

For more information including transportation arrangements from downtown for the 7pm evening talk contact Gary Kinsman at 675-1151 ext. 4221 or gkinsman@laurentian.ca

Is "Gary" Gary Kinsman himself? Probably. Now here is what I find odd. I would have expected that the Department of Native Studies would have taken the lead to bring Churchill to Sudbury. Indeed, Native Studies is the first department listed. But Kinsman is not associated with Native Studies. He works for the Department of Sociology, and his specialty is queer studies, specifically the social construction of deviance.

So what do Gary Kinsman and Ward Churchill have in common? Not all that much:

Gary has been a strong force in lesbian/gay, feminist, labor union, global justice, anti-poverty, and left issues. He was a central figure in the publication of Rites (1984-1991), a Canadian national gay and lesbian magazine published out of Toronto. He helped found Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere (GLARE) and the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee of Toronto. He was later involved in AIDS ACTION NOW!, and in AIDS organizing in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. He helped to organize the first Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Two-Spirited Pride march in Sudbury in 1997.

Check out Kinsman's list of articles and other publications. Everything is about queer studies. Nothing on American Indian issues, which is Ward Churchill's focus, or for that matter on labour or poverty, despite what the Ryerson University bio says. So whatever Kinsman's personal views on these topics, when it comes to Laurentian University, he's a one trick pony.

So why is Kinsman the main contact? Maybe he drew the short straw. Or maybe this is his idea, and no one at Native Studies is all that interested in being connected with Ward Churchill and his dubious claim to Native status.

Regardless, why is Churchill being paid to come to Sudbury in the first place? My best guess is that Churchill comes cheap. Churchill has all the credentials to be a downright celebrity to hardcore leftists, regardless of the topic. But I bet Churchill's legal fees are mounting, given that he is undergoing a second investigation by the University of Colorado on new charges of plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct, after having been found guilty after the first investigation. Combine a desperate need for cash with dwindling notoriety, and Ward Churchill is off to northern Ontario.

Cheap or not, I would think any university of any size would consider carefully the implications of inviting an academic found guilty of plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct to deliver a speech, no matter how popular he is among the Marxists in the faculty.