ACLU of Wisconsin Defends Ward Churchill's Right to Speak at UW-Whitewater: Encourages Chancellor to Resist Pressure from Legislature

February, 23 2005

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Foundation responded today to the passage of Assembly Resolution 8, which urges UW-Whitewater to cancel a speech by controversial professor Ward Churchill, which is scheduled for March 1, 2005. The ACLU wrote to Whitewater Chancellor Jack Miller to urge him to resist the Legislature’s pressure to censor Churchill.

“A free society does not suppress speech it finds uncomfortable, or even offensive,” said Larry Dupuis, the ACLU of Wisconsin Foundation’s legal director. “Many people find Professor Churchill’s statements about the victims of September 11th insensitive and crude. But the appropriate response to speech with which we disagree is to speak out against it, not to censor it.”

The ACLU’s letter, which was also sent to Representative Steve Nass, a sponsor of the resolution, points out the importance of robust debate on public issues in a democracy. Acknowledging that many found Professor Churchill’s comments about September 11th “crude and insensitive,” the letter stressed that “the First Amendment must protect such controversial speech if it is to have any meaning. Mild and innocuous speech needs no such protection. As the Supreme Court has said, ‘[A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.’”

Read letter sent University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's Chancellor