Profs file countercharges against Churchill investigating committee

Well, they said they would. The komedy kut-ups over at the Ward Churchill Solidarity Net have it. The main charges by the nine profs against the committee:

relying on a biased and flawed source for major arguments;

improper exclusion of reputable independent sources that contradict the Report’s argument;

suppressing text from a cited source that contradicts the Report's argument;

excluding valid scholarly interpretations at variance with the Reports [sic] claims;

rhetorically exaggerating the strength of the case against Professor Churchill.

These charges revolve, of course, around blood quantum, John Smith, and the Mandan. Reading through the "evidentiary packet" I noticed my favorite, that the committee wrongly excluded a speech by Mandan leader Four Bears in support of Churchill's "infected blanket" charge--a speech for which there is no contemporaneous evidence.

So, nothing new, but as PB (who had it first!) says, it'll muddy up the waters ahead of Churchill's suit against CU. It might even stall his firing. And how edifying, the spectacle of two groups of CU faculty coming to death grips (or such grippings as faculty can manage). Mission accomplished, CU President Hank Brown!

Update: As Noj mentions in a comment at PB, not only is there no evidence that Four Bears made the speech imputed to him, but:

What Churchill's supporters cover up is the fact that Four Bears did not mention gift blankets, did not mention the Army, did not mention a smallpox infirmary in St. Louis, and did not mention Army doctors deliberately telling Indians to scatter. In short, Four Bears does not substantiate any of the elements that Churchill himself fabricated and then attributed to Thornton.

So even if he did make the speech, it doesn't bear out any of Churchill's claims.