It is a disturbing yet very important question. 

     Ward Churchill recently lost his court battle to be reinstated to his teaching position at the University of Colorado.  The controversy began after he wrote a controversial essay declaring the attacks on 9/11 were the result of our country’s actions abroad.  Many in Colorado and around the country condemned Churchill as treasonous and called for his tenure to be revoked.  After the uproar, the University conducted a series of investigations into Churchill’s writings and teachings and found seven alleged acts of unrelated academic misconduct and terminated him.  Churchill sued and on April 2, 2009, won a jury verdict finding the University’s termination was in retaliation for his exercise of free speech.

     Just this week, a Colorado Judge disregarded the jury verdict finding Churchill could not be reinstated to his teaching position.  Churchill vows to appeal the decision.  So again, I pose the question:  Why should we care?

     Churchill’s speech was first and foremost offensive.  Even Churchill should agree.  I believe Churchill purposefully used offensive language to bring as much attention as possible to his overall point:   To call attention to our government’s actions around the world as causing others to hate America.  No doubt, there is no justification for the attacks of 9/11 despite Churchill’s point.  But does his offensive language and lack of justification warrant retaliation for his speech?

     Although dealing with freedom of association, the United States Supreme Court faced a similar challenge to the First Amendment in Wieman v. Updegraff.  Some in Oklahoma may still remember this 1952 case, where the Court overturned an Oklahoma statute that required government officials to sign an oath that they had not been a member of the communist party for at least five years. “To thus inhibit individual freedom of movement [and speech] is to stifle the flow of democratic expression and controversy at one of its chief sources.”  Wieman v. Updegraff.    The Wieman Court recognized that constitutional freedoms do not disappear in times of international turmoil:

During periods of international stress, the extent of legislation with such objectives accentuates our traditional concern about the relation of government to the individual in a free society. The perennial problem of defining that relationship becomes acute when disloyalty is screened by ideological patterns and techniques of disguise that make it difficult to identify. Democratic government is not powerless to meet this threat, but it must do so without infringing the freedoms that are the ultimate values of all democratic living.

     Our constitution requires protection for even the most egregious of comments.  Whether those comments are conservative, liberal,  questioning our government, or just plain dumb; all such speech must be protected or no speech is protected.  So why should we care about Churchill’s plight?  Because his fight is just as much about your right to speak as it is about his.