A professor on the committee that will investigate allegations against Ward Churchill of academic fraud previously defended Churchill in a newspaper ad.

Steven Guberman, an associate professor in the School of Education, is one of 12 members on the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. He also was one of nearly 200 faculty members who signed a full-page ad that appeared in the Daily Camera on Feb. 28 supporting the controversial professor's freedom of speech and saying "the investigation of professor Churchill's scholarly record has been initiated in direct response to criticisms of his ideas ... ."

The ad demanded that the "investigation of professor Churchill be stopped immediately."

At that point, the investigation was in the hands of three CU administrators after an essay Churchill authored ignited a national controversy over the limits of academic freedom.

Thursday, the administrators forwarded claims of fraud to the research misconduct committee for further examination, although they found Churchill's controversial opinions to be protected by the Constitution.

Guberman said Friday that he doesn't plan to recuse himself from the review and does not have preconceived notions about the outcome.

"I think we're talking about separate issues — freedom of speech and research misconduct — and it should be easy to keep them separate," he said.

Guberman said he objected to the seven-week administrative review of Churchill because it was not the "normal process" for handling accusations against professors. But now that the Churchill investigation is in the hands of a faculty group, he said, he believes it is an appropriate examination.

The committee has a policy that calls for members to withdraw if they have a conflict of interest. The chair of the committee may also disqualify members.

The spokesman for the committee, professor Joseph Rosse, said the group will discuss all potential conflicts of interest but does not see Guberman as having one.

The committee will investigate allegations that Churchill plagiarized work, fabricated history and misrepresented himself as an American Indian. The ethnic studies professor denies all of the allegations and has said the administrative review team — headed by interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano — didn't give him a chance to refute them.

"If they had talked to Ward Churchill ... he would have refuted their allegations, and they would have been forced to investigate his refutations and the result would have been no action being taken," said Churchill's attorney, David Lane. "CU could not politically afford to have no action being taken."

The misconduct committee is expected to begin meeting next week and report back to officials within seven months. The chancellor will then decide whether to begin firing proceedings against Churchill.

State Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, said committee members "should not already have a result in mind" and that the peer review of faculty members accused of wrongdoing is "probably not the ideal approach."

"I think the university has interests that are broader than just the faculty perspective," he said. "But if (the faculty review) is what the tenure contract calls for, then the university probably doesn't have much choice."

Barbara Bintliff, chair of the Boulder Faculty Assembly, said peer investigations are rigorous.

"We can't allow someone to engage in academic misconduct without all of us being tarnished," she said.

Contact Camera Staff Writer Elizabeth Mattern Clark at (303) 473-1351 or clarke@dailycamera.com.