There remains the troubling question why Russell Means apparently
supports Ward Churchill.
Alan Strudler
On Feb 13, 2005, at 2:53 PM, Ginny Maurer wrote:
> I do not know why people "create" ancestries.
>
> I am told that people actually try to fudge their family trees in
> order to get into hereditary societies; that must be in response to
> some segment of larger society that accords belonging and social
> status to being descended from the puritans or from Poncahontas or
> from revolutionary war soldiers. In reality, I am told, a lot of the
> U.S. hereditary societies know this happens and selectively overlook a
> not-well-documented ancestor now and again. They need the dues and
> anyway if he weren't descended from, for example, French Huguenots, he
> should have been. I am thinking Elisa Doolittle, too (Hungarian, and
> not just Hungarian but of royal blood).
>
> Undoubtedly some people create new ancestries in order to lose their
> old ones, in response to a larger society that devalues or punishes
> their ethnic or religious origins, or possibly because they themselves
> devalue it and want to "lose" it and start afresh with new ancestors.
> One can do that in many parts of the U.S. (think: the frontier) where
> most people do not care and it may be considered rude to inquire
> deeply.
>
> And I am certain that some people -- in fact many Americans --
> "create" ancestries because they really have no idea where some of
> their people came from. For example, while family geneologists have
> traced and documented a couple of strands of my ancestors, some of
> the lines (my mother's father's) have large gaps where no one seems to
> know where they came from; they just showed up. I suspect my mother
> and grandmother just made up an ancestry for him (East Anglians, I
> believe) to complete the picture. The people in Ely sort of look like
> he did, so I guess their guess was as good as any. Now and again, the
> family geneologists would speculate about royal blood, but . . . give
> me a break. Frankly I think this kind of creative geneology is great
> sport and rather harmless; everybody needs a sense of belonging and
> identity, and it seems harmless to create one if you don't have one.
>
> On the other hand, creating a false ancestry to defraud others -- to
> sell paintings at the Indian market by pretending to be Indian --
> is and should be a commercial crime.
>
> In addition, the story in Gavin's posting is the first time I have
> been aware of someone in the U.S. allegedly creating an ancestry in
> order to identify with and attack the descendants politically. What on
> earth motivates a person to do that, especially when the tribes keep
> records and know. If what the posting says is true, it speaks very
> poorly to the issue of basic integrity, and I think in a way that is
> not so implicated by the behavior of someone adopting or shedding
> ancestors for some of the above reasons.
>
> I am wondering whether there are other circumstances in which faking
> ones [long-deceased ] ancestors has legal implications, apart of
> course from the obvious situation of claiming financial inheritance to
> which one is not entitled.
>
> Ginny
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> "Ingulli, Elaine" <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent by: "Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk"
> <[log in to unmask]>
>
> 02/12/2005 11:42 AM
> Please respond to "Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk"
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> To
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> Subject
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> Re: First Amendment and Ward Churchill
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> For the oft-quoted section of the leading case on free speech in the
> university, see attached. Sorry i can't seem to cut and paste on
> Outlook Express.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk on behalf of
> Keith Maxwell
> Sent: Fri 2/11/2005 3:56 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: First Amendment and Ward Churchill
>
>
>
> Gavin’s background information about the professor is interesting and
> raises another question: How is the “mixed motive” issue dealt with in
> First Amendment cases, if at all? Are the Title VII mixed motive cases
> (Price Waterhouse and progeny) analogous here? Clearly, fraud would be
> a justification for termination, but it seems to me that the state
> will have a difficult time denying that the dismissal (if he is
> dismissed) was motivated initially, and perhaps primarily, because of
> their offense to protected speech. If the university was not
> investigating nor acting on fraud allegations before the current
> episode occurred, and only found out and acted on it because of the
> complaints about his political views, can they reasonably argue that
> they would have taken the same action if they had not considered the
> offensive speech? (Hmm, maybe I’ll have to write an article about
> this.)
>
>
>
> Keith
>
>
>
> ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
> Keith A. Maxwell
> Nat S. and Marian W. Rogers Professor
> Professor of Legal Studies and Ethics
> School of Business and Leadership
> University of Puget Sound
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gavin Clarkson
> Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 11:57 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: First Amendment and Ward Churchill
>
>
>
>
> Halito Okla Ikhana (which in Choctaw means "Greetings, fellow
> scholars"):
>
> As someone who knows a bit about Ward, there are a number of grounds
> to boot him out that don't violate his First Amendment rights.
>
> For those who want to read his essay (trust me, it's not worth your
> time), here's a link
>
> http://www.darknightpress.org/index.php?i=print&article=9
>
> Separate and apart from the fact that his initial screed and
> subsequent rantings intentionally dishonor the memory of brave
> warriors from several tribal nations, such as PFC Lori Piestewa (Hopi)
> who was ambused near Nasiriyah during the first weeks of the Iraq war
> or Spec. Bellanger McFarlane (Leech Lake Ojibwe) who was killed
> exactly a month ago by a roadside bomb, Churchill will likely get
> fired because he will be found to be a fraud, both personally and
> academically.
>
> Churchill will likely run into trouble once the UColorado regents
> begin to examine the sloppy nature of his pseudo-scholarship (some
> have even called it blatantly fraudulent). Equally problematic is the
> fact that Churchill has made a living pretending to be an Indian. If
> he misrepresented himself to the University of Colorado during the
> hiring process, would that not be grounds for dismissal, even for a
> tenured professor?
>
> As someone who himself is clearly a pigmentationaly challenged Indian
> who was raised in the dominant society, but whose parents were both
> enrolled tribal members, I will leave it to others to point out the
> depth of Churchill's pseudo-Indian identity fraud, which a number of
> my colleagues are doing right now.
>
> My friend Suzan Harjo wrote one of the better pieces yesterday in
> Indian Country Today ...
>
> -- begin excerpt --
>
> I met Ward Churchill 15 years ago, before he gained his present
> infamous reputation. My friend, a college professor, said this
> Cherokee-Creek guy wanted to meet me. I expected to meet an earnest
> young student who would relate to me as Creek (I'm Hodulgee Muscogee
> on Dad's side and enrolled Cheyenne on Mom's).
>
> Instead, there was Churchill. Caucasian in appearance and in his
> mid-40s, he was wearing dark glasses and going for the look of an
> Indian activist circa 1970.
>
> I asked him who his Creek people were and other questions we ask in
> order to find the proper way of relating. Churchill behaved oddly and
> did not respond (it's unusual to find Indians so deficient in social
> skills).
>
> Churchill now refers to that as an ''interrogation,'' which tells me
> he still does not know how to be with us.
>
> Most Native people want to know each other's nation, clan, society,
> family, Native name - who are you to me and how should I address you?
> It's an enormously respectful way that we introduce ourselves and
> establish kinship.
>
> It wasn't much of an encounter, but it was enough to tell me that he
> was not culturally Muscogee or Cherokee and had not been around many
> of our people.
>
> The next time I heard his name was from Native artists at the Santa Fe
> Indian Market. Churchill was peddling a scandal sheet, railing against
> White Earth Chippewa artist David Bradley and the New Mexico and
> federal Indian arts and crafts laws, which Bradley and other Indian
> artists helped to enact.
>
> It turned out that Churchill was a painter - not a good one, but bad
> art is not illegal - who would face stiff penalties if he promoted his
> work as made by an Indian if he were not, in fact, an Indian.
>
> The Indian arts laws bow to tribal determinations of tribal citizenry
> or membership. There's also an ''artisan'' category as a way for a
> Native nation to claim an artist who does not meet its citizenship
> criteria, but who is part of one of its families.
>
> People began to check out Churchill's claims. Cherokee journalist
> David Cornsilk verified that Churchill and his ancestors were not on
> the Cherokee Nation rolls. Creek-Cherokee historian Robert W. Trepp
> did not find them on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation rolls.
>
> Churchill lashed out against tribal leaders, sovereignty, citizenship
> and rolls, attacking Native people who did not support his claims as
> ''card-carrying Indians'' and ''blood police.''
>
> Then, he went tribe-shopping. He added Metis, then Keetoowah,
> variously claiming to be an associate member, an enrolled member or
> 1/16 or 3/16 Cherokee.
>
> Oneida comedian Charlie Hill recalls Churchill interviewing him in
> 1978. ''I asked him, 'Are you Indian?' And he said, 'No.' Later, I
> heard that he was saying he was Indian and wondered just how that
> happened.''
>
> Churchill started listing his various ''Indian'' credentials on
> resumes as he moved into academe. He also moved into American Indian
> Movement circles, but most of the activists did not accept him as an
> Indian or as an activist.
>
> AIM founders and leaders Dennis J. Banks and Clyde H. Bellecourt, both
> Ojibwa, state that ''Churchill has fraudulently represented himself as
> an Indian, and a member of [AIM], a situation that has lifted him into
> the position of a lecturer on Indian activism. He has used [Denver
> AIM] to attack the leadership of the official [AIM] with his
> misinformation and propaganda campaigns.''
>
> Churchill took up ghostwriting for Oglala actor/activist Russell
> Means. Together with a small following, they protest the annual
> Columbus parade in Denver.
>
> As Churchill has lurched through Indian identities, he has not found a
> single Native relative or ancestor. He is descended from a long line
> of Churchills that Hank Adams has traced back to the Revolutionary War
> and Europe. Adams, who is Assiniboine-Sioux and a member of the
> Frank's Landing Indian Community, has successfully researched and
> exposed other pseudo-Indians.
>
> Adams traced Churchill's ancestors on both sides of his family,
> finding all white people, including documented slave owners and at
> least one spy, but zero Indians.
>
> The United Keetoowah Band has disassociated itself from Churchill, so
> he will have to stop flashing that ''associate member'' card that has
> enabled him to bully his way around campuses and newsrooms.
>
> -- end excerpt --
>
> The full article is available at
> http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410335
>
> Also, another friend of mine runs a website called Indianz.com and has
> a lot of information about Churchill, including a story where when one
> of his students dared to question his pseudo-Indian identity, he
> changed her grade from an A to a C-.
>
> (see http://www.indianz.com/News/2005/006324.asp )
>
> So, while Churchill may have the First Amendment right do validate the
> perception that he is a wacko, the First Amendment does not insulate
> him from the consquences of fraud.
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> Dr. Gavin Clarkson
> Assistant Professor
> University of Michigan
> School of Information
> School of Law
> Native American Studies
> 303C West Hall
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092
> 734-763-2284
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.si.umich.edu/~gsmc
>
> <Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom.doc>
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