Fighting Words 101

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In Colorado, legislators have momentarily stepped back into an oversight role, giving the university the chance to look into Churchill's case, his credentials (he lacks a Ph.D.) and his research (other academics accuse him of doctoring facts about Native American history, a charge he has not answered). An investigative panel expects to issue its findings this week. Hagedorn believes he has the votes in the Democrat-controlled legislature to pass his bill, but Governor Owens is considered unlikely to sign it. Hearings on the bill probably will not begin until later this month, by which time, Hagedorn says, "we're hoping tempers will have quieted a bit."

The return of dispassion--and the legislators' temporary retreat--is a welcome thing, especially for some students who think that in the ballyhoo of the Churchill case, politics has blurred the educational focus of college life even more than a keg party. "The university is losing, and students are losing," says Scott Heiser, 20, a political-science major at Colorado. "We as a university could try to figure things out ourselves. It would be a dark day if we couldn't do it without Mommy and Daddy in the legislature making these decisions for us. We have to try to learn from each other." And this, if nothing else, is a teachable moment. --With reporting by Rita Healy/Denver and Chris Maag/Cleveland