Tribe, Churchill locked in standoff

Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 19, 2005 at midnight

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University of Colorado ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill on Wednesday blasted as "categorically untrue" a statement from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians that his claim to membership in the tribe is fraudulent.

In an escalating war of words between the professor and the Tahlequah, Okla.-based Cherokee band, to whom he has long staked his status as an American Indian, Churchill said the tribe has the right "to disenroll me. . . . What it does not have a right to do is falsify history at its own convenience."

Churchill also said he hasn't been notified that he has been disenrolled. "Therefore," he said, "I cannot reasonably be accused of 'fraud' for having represented myself (as being enrolled)."

Tribal spokeswoman Marilyn Craig said she would be sending Churchill a copy of Chief George Wickliffe's statement disavowing his membership.

"I want to settle this thing, once and for all," Craig said.

Churchill, in speeches around the country, typically opens with the words, "I bring you greetings from the elders of the Keetoowah Band of Cherokee, my mother's people."

Critics inside and outside the American Indian community over the years have questioned whether Churchill has any Indian ancestors.

And the statement released Tuesday in Wickliffe's name makes clear that the United Keetoowah Band isn't eager to send greetings to anyone through Churchill, whose claims of Indian ancestry and scholarship are now under investigation by CU's faculty committee on research misconduct.

The statement, posted Tuesday on the tribe's Web site, didn't mince words: "All of Churchill's past, present and future claims or assertions of Keetoowah 'enrollment,' written or spoken, including but not limited to biographies, curriculum vitae, lectures, applications for employment, or any other reference not listed herein are deemed fraudulent by the United Keetoowah Band, and should be respected by all media, government and private institutions to be so."

The United Keetoowah Band said Churchill's associate status with the tribe was strictly honorary, and Craig dismissed the importance of video from a 1994 tribal council meeting that Churchill is citing as proof of his membership.

"That doesn't mean anything," said Craig. "You can take a picture of me in a cap and a gown walking across a stage, and it doesn't mean anything. It just means that I lined up with those folks."

"We are saying that associate memberships mean nothing," she said.

Churchill said his associate membership in the tribe did indeed require proof of Cherokee descent, "and mine was confirmed not once, but twice by the membership committee before I was issued my Band card and placed on the UKB membership roll."

Churchill insisted in an e-mail to the Rocky Mountain News Wednesday that the video proves his tribal membership, "conclusively so."

And as for any challenges to his tribal membership, he wrote, "Go ahead, make my day."

Craig said she would be forwarding a copy of Wickliffe's statement to the CU faculty committee investigating Churchill to determine, in part, whether he misrepresented himself as an American Indian in order to gain employment-related benefits or to add credibility or gain public acceptance for his scholarship.

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