Churchill said the World Trade Center victims were not innocent and deserved to die because they were a willing part of "the mighty engine of profit." He went on to describe them as "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organized Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate Europe's Jews.

....In his letter to Gleeson, Churchill said, "While I am immensely proud of my administrative accomplishments in the chair's position over the past two-and-one-half years, it is my considered view that the present political climate has rendered me a liability in terms of representing either my department, the college or the university in this or any other administrative capacity."

There have been calls for me to rescind the Kirkland Project's invitation to Ward Churchill and cancel the event. But there is a principle at stake, for once the invitation was extended by the Kirkland Project and accepted by Ward Churchill, it became a matter of free speech. I have also received many messages urging the college to stand by its principles. However repugnant one may find Mr. Churchill's remarks, were the College to withdraw the invitation simply on the grounds that he has said offensive things, we would be abandoning a principle on which this College and indeed this republic are founded. Free speech is put to the test precisely in circumstances like these when the speech in question is abhorrent. As Justice Brandeis put it, "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."