New York Post Online Edition: ‘NAZI’ PROF BLASTED AS INDIAN FIBBER

I don’t see much real evidence in this article – and the NY Post is not real high on my “valid sources” list… but this was too funny to pass up.

February 5, 2005 — Ward Churchill, the university professor under fire for likening victims of the 9/11 attacks to Nazis, has been misrepresenting himself as a member of an American Indian tribe, a Cherokee official claims.

Churchill, coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado, claims to be a member of the Keetoowah Cherokee tribe in Oklahoma but “is not in the database at all and is not a member of the Keetoowah,” tribal clerk George Mauld told the Rocky Mountain News.

A past student, a Manda-Hidatsa Indian named Jodi Rave, reported years ago that Churchill had enrolled in the Keetoowah tribe under a program that allowed almost anyone to sign up.

The program was later discontinued, and all who had joined the tribe under it were “disenrolled,” Rave said.

Despite what Rave calls Churchill’s “fraudulent” claim of American Indian heritage, he serves as co-director of the Colorado chapter of the American Indian Movement and as vice chairman of the American Indian Anti-Defamation Council.

Meanwhile, University of Colorado administrators have ordered a review of Churchill’s speeches and writings to determine if there are grounds for his dismissal.