University of Colorado argues against rehiring Ward Churchill

Here is an excerpt from the CU brief, a document in which CU officials argue they shouldn’t have to rehire Churchill. They also make a pretty convincing argument on why the jury award of $1 for nominal damages to Churchill should be enough to meet the school’s obligations to Churchill.

From the brief, starting with a reference to David Lane, Churchill’s attorney:

Mr. Lane started with the proposition that awarding Professor Churchill $110,000 a year was “easy,” then told the jury that the value of a destroyed reputation is “worth a hell of a lot more than a little bit of money,” then suggested that the case might be worth up to $25 million, and finished by reminding the jury, “All you can do is give money.” But that was just the beginning. Mr. Lane returned to the same theme in his rebuttal and asked the jury to award Professor Churchill a massive amount of damages: And in the great American justice system, where all pain and all human misery translates into money, I’m still not going to give you a number, because that is justice, okay? What do you believe fairly compensates a man for the crushing of his identity? What fairly compensates somebody for destroying his reputation, absolutely dragging it through the mud on a national level, on an international level

They are all about sending messages. They want to send a message to students. They want to send a message to faculty. You need to tell students, you need to tell faculty, not only at the University of Colorado; you need to tell faculty from one end of this country to the other, and you need to do it in a big way.

This is only an excerpt from a 131-page brief, which offers many solid reasons on why CU should not have to pay more than $1 to Churchill. I will be writing more about this soon. Jodi Rave