Corporate Governance

Covering Churchill v. University of Colorado

By J. Robert Brown

This Blog has undertaken a number of innovative tasks.  One is that it continues to serve as a rare example of student-faculty collaboration.  As part of that approach, the Blog looks for unique content that has pedagogical value.  One way to do this is to have students cover important trials and blog about them.  They learn substantive law, observe talented lawyers in action, and refine their writing skills.  As part of that approach, this Blog covered the trial of Joe Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest, with students attending every session during the six week trial.

Consistent with that approach, students from the Race to the Bottom and the Student Employment Law Association at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, and faculty from the College of Law and the Daniels College of Business, will be providing daily coverage of the suit brought by Ward Churchill, a former tenured faculty member in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, against the University of Colorado.  The trial begins on Monday, March 9.

Churchill came to the public forefront when reports surfaced about an essay he wrote that contained critical comments about the US concerning the 9/11 attacks on the trade towers in NY (the comments are posted on Wikipedia). Churchill was ultimately dismissed from the University of Colorado. He has brought suit alleging essentially that he was dismissed for exercising his first amendment rights because of the criticisms in the 9/11 essay.  The University of Colorado, on the other hand, is asserting that Churchill was dismissed because his conduct fell "below minimum standards of professional integrity." 

Students and faculty will attend every session of the trial. They will post after each session, assessing the progress of the trial. In addition, others will be asked to participate and write occasional commentary.

The trial is not a corporate governance matter so the posts will not appear on the main page of The Race to the Bottom.  Instead, there is a special link to Churchill v. University of Colorado accessible from the main page of The Race to the Bottom.  

Primary materials, including the complaint and the answer, are posted on the DU Corporate Governance web site. 

Full post as published by The Race to the Bottom on March 06, 2009 (boomark / email).