This could only happen in America. A teacher accused of plagiarism, fraud, and shoddy scholarship was fighting to get his old job back.

Ward Churchill is a fake. This has been established beyond any reasonable doubt. As it turns out, his termination was considered by one jury to be retaliation for his "little Eichmann" crack, thus a violation of his right to free speech, but the regents who fired him have absolute immunity to do as they wish according to the appeals court judge:

The Court of Appeals held that Churchill would have had to establish that his First Amendment rights had been violated when the university decided to investigate him.

"Whether an investigation alone is sufficient to constitute an adverse employment action has not been resolved by the United States Supreme Court, and there does not appear to be a definitive consensus on the matter among federal courts," the ruling states.

The opinion stressed that Churchill continued to be paid and held his position as professor with tenure while the investigation into his activities was underway.

The opinion further stated that the regents, as an independent and elected board, "can conduct their functions without harassment or intimidation." It rejected Churchill's appeal, which argued that as elected officials, the regents were under extreme political pressure to fire him.

"Simply because regents are elected does not defeat impartiality," stated the ruling, adding that the dismissal process gave Churchill "extensive procedural safeguards."

The opinion rejected the assertion that the regents had acted with bias before voting to fire him.

"That a university is zealous in policing the academic standards of its faculty does not demonstrate bias against a noncompliant faculty member so much as it demonstrates a bias in favor of compliance with the rules of academia," the opinion stated.

Churchill says he wants to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. He may be able to pull the wool over the eyes of impressionable kids but scholars and academics know what his game is and are on to him. The regents acted correctly in firing him - not for his obscene remarks about 9/11, but because he was terrible at doing his job; teaching objective truth to his students while maintaining the highest standards of scholarship in his published writings.