A cold light on the Ward Churchill controversy

Thomas Sowell takes up this Ward Churchill business, and uses it to explain the meanings of free speech and academic freedom. Along the way he rips up the parquet floor of the faculty tenure system at American universities. A sample:

While this column is protected by freedom of speech, that does not stop any editor from getting rid of it if he doesn't like what I say. But, even if every editor across the length and breadth of the country refused to carry this column, that would be no violation of my freedom of speech.
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Unfortunately, many of those who talk the loudest and longest about "freedom of speech" and "academic freedom" are in fact trying to justify the imposition of propaganda on a captive audience in our schools and colleges.

At one college, some gutsy students start chanting "OT" -- for "off topic" -- when one of their professors starts making political comments that have nothing to do with the subject of his course.

Should a professor of accounting or chemistry be fired for using up class time to sound off about homelessness or the war in Iraq? Yes!

There is no high moral principle that prevents it. What prevents it are tenure rules that have saddled so many colleges with so many self-indulgent prima donnas who seem to think that they are philosopher kings, when in fact they are often grossly ignorant or misinformed outside the narrow confines of their particular specialty.