Academic freedom is not absolute.

Most of us understand the need for academic freedom, but many do not understand that this freedom is not absolute. Here is the text from the Laws of the Regents at University of Colorado which addresses its own rules explaining the restraint imposed on academic freedom [emphasis added]:

5.D.1 Intent and Definition

(B) For this purpose, “academic freedom” is defined as the freedom to inquire, discover, publish and teach truth as the faculty member sees it, subject to no control or authority save the control and authority of the rational methods by which truth is established.

(C) Within the bounds of this definition, academic freedom requires that members of the faculty must have complete freedom to study, to learn, to do research, and to communicate the results of these pursuits to others. The students likewise must have freedom of study and discussion. The fullest exposure to conflicting opinions is the best insurance against error.

5.D.2 Faculty Responsibility

(A) Faculty members have the responsibility to maintain competence, exert themselves to the limit of their intellectual capacities in scholarship, research, writing, and speaking; and to act on and off the campus with integrity and in accordance with the highest standards of their profession. While they fulfill this responsibility, their efforts should not be subjected to direct or indirect pressures or interference from within the university, and the university will resist to the utmost such pressures or interference when exerted from without.

(C) The faculty member is entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing the subject, but should be careful not to introduce into teaching controversial matter that has no relation to the subject.

(D) Faculty members are citizens, members of learned professions, and members of the academic leadership of an educational institution. When speaking or writing as citizens, they should be free from university censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As faculty members however, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and institution by their utterances. Hence faculty members should be accurate at all times, should exercise appropriate restraint and show respect for the opinions of others, and when speaking or writing as private citizens should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.

OK, Ward Churchill violates at least two of these laws. His crazed, irresponsible, wildly wrong, grossly offensive, tangential speech is not protected under academic freedom. (It is protected under the First Amendment since it does not directly cause the suffering of others.) If he is punished in some way for his comments, it will not be because of his politics. It will be because he has violated the terms of his academic contract.

With rights come responsibilities. In this case, the abandonment of the latter forfeits the former.