Speech Canceled; Threats Cited

Citing unspecified but “credible threats of violence,” a college in New York state Tuesday canceled a speech by an academic who once compared the Sept. 11 victims to Nazis.

Hamilton College had invited Ward L. Churchill, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, to speak Thursday about the limits of dissent. But Hamilton rescinded the invitation after a furor erupted over a paper Churchill had written after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

“We have done our best to protect what we hold most dear: the right to speak, think and study freely,” said Joan Stewart, president of the Clinton, N.Y., college. “But there is a higher responsibility that this institution carries, and that is the safety and security of our students ... and the community in which we live.”

Stewart said threats had been made against the college and members of the panel slated to take part in the forum. Police are investigating.

In a paper titled “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” Churchill called those working in the World Trade Center on the day of the attacks “little Eichmanns” who were at the “very heart of America’s global financial empire.”

“But innocent?” he wrote. “Gimme a break.”

Adolf Eichmann was the Nazi who helped mastermind the extermination of Jews in Europe during World War II.

Churchill decided Monday to step down as chairman of the university’s ethnic studies department, but he will remain a professor.

The university’s board of regents will meet Thursday to discuss the issue. Churchill, a longtime activist and a Vietnam veteran, has issued a lengthy, written defense of his positions. He said that as long as America acted outside international law, it could continue to expect attacks like those of Sept. 11.

New York Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican, chastised Hamilton for inviting Churchill, whom he called “a bigoted terrorist-supporter.” And Colorado Gov. Bill Owens said the professor should be fired.

“Mr. Churchill’s views are not simply anti-American. They are at odds with simple decency and antagonistic to the beliefs and conduct of civilized people around the world,” said Owens, also a Republican.

“His resignation as chairman ... was a good first step. We hope that he will follow this step by resigning his position on the faculty of the University of Colorado.”