Interversity.Org

CNN
Wednesday, February 9, 2005 Posted: 11:01 AM EST (1601 GMT)

BOULDER, Colorado (AP) -- A University of Colorado professor who likened September 11 victims to Nazis got a standing ovation when he told a campus audience of more than 1,000 people that "I'm not backing up an inch."

Ward Churchill, who had filed a lawsuit after the state university threatened to cancel his address, was interrupted several times by thunderous applause.

Churchill has resigned as chairman of the university's ethnic studies department. Gov. Bill Owens has called for Churchill to be fired, and the university's Board of Regents is investigating whether the tenured professor can be removed.

"I don't answer to Bill Owens. I do not answer to the Board of Regents in the way they think I do. The regents should do their job and let me do mine," Churchill said to thunderous clapping. "I'm not backing up an inch. I owe no one an apology."

In an essay, Churchill wrote that workers in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who ensured the smooth running of the Nazi system. Churchill also spoke of the "gallant sacrifices" of the "combat teams" that struck America.

The ethnic studies professor said Tuesday his essay was referring to "technocrats" who participate in what he calls repressive American policies around the world.

A longtime American Indian Movement activist, he said he is also culpable because his efforts to change the system haven't succeeded. "I could do more. I'm complicit. I'm not innocent," he said.

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