Professor John LaVelle Exposes Ward Churchill's Fakery

Picture credit: Professor John P. LaVelle

An informative article by Professor John LaVelle appeared in the Winter 1996 issue of The American Indian Quarterly.

Professor LaVelle teaches Indian Law at the University of New Mexico and is an enrolled member of the Santee Sioux Nation. He is often hired to advise Indian organizations.

More than ten years ago, Professor LaVelle pinpointed many of the issues that are now coming to a head in the investigation of disgraced Professor Ward Churchill for research misconduct.

Professor LaVelle points out that Churchill actually is a white "wannabee" who inserts himself "into the political affairs of real Indian people" and "assaults tribal self-determination under the guise of championing Indian rights" [The American Indian Quarterly, Winter 1996, page 109].

Professor LaVelle says that Churchill's writings serve his leftist, agenda, not the rights of Indians.

Professor LaVelle writes:

"There is no escaping the conclusion that in [Ward Churchill's book] Indians Are US? Ward Churchill misrepresents the writings of both Russell Thornton and Patricia Nelson Limerick in order to create a false appearance that these acclaimed scholars corroborate and partake of Churchill's hostility toward Indian tribes...the anti-tribal posturing that Churchill cunningly assigns to Thornton and Limerick is decisively negated by both authors in those very same passages...Churchill cites!" [American Indian Quarterly, Winter 1996, page 112].

Churchill really uses his position at the University of Colorado as a platform from which to repress and discredit authentic Indian voices and to appropriate and exploit Indian issues for the extreme communist "anti-imperialist" (anti-American) left. He tries to remould Indians into his "anti-imperialist" (anti-American) sock puppets.

Churchill's cynical attempts to exploit Indian issues reminds me a lot of what Churchill's supporters at the Maoist MIM say about making a tactical united front with Indian activists:

"MIM would only see importance in ...a struggle to resuscitate [First Nations] culture if it opposed imperialism........A national struggle that advances the fight against imperialism is positive. Preserving culture for its own sake is not part of the Marxist agenda. Whatever resources the tribes can wrest away from imperialism they should take." ["Resolutions on Cross-Cultural Breeding" 2004]