Professor who called 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns" see free speech threatened

A professor of the University of Colorado has said the media uproar over his comments likening 9/11 victims to a Nazi official shows that unfettered academic inquiry and free speech in the United States were being under threat. Ward Churchill said efforts to remove him from his post were signs of growing intolerance of academic freedom and public debate. "It is our job to confront orthodoxy in a critical fashion, to raise uncomfortable questions, to insult people, if you will, to force a response to form a dialogue that furthers public understanding of issues," Churchill told reporters in Honolulu, Hawaii. His essay about the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks had ignited a firestorm. Written in the hours following the attacks, the essay refers to many of the World Trade Center victims as "little Eichmanns". Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann organized the extermination of Europe's Jews during World War II. Churchill has since revised the essay and he urged reporters and others to interpret it in its current context.