January 29, 2005 -- Having been frustrated in their efforts to hire an unapologetic — albeit presidentially pardoned — terrorist to teach a course on "Resistance Memoirs," the folks at upstate Hamilton College have recruited yet another ersatz "scholar" to harangue their students with over-the-top political screeds.

Ward Churchill, an American Indian activist and professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, is set to appear Feb. 3 as part of a panel called "Limits of Dissent?"

His self-proclaimed academic specialty is "the U.S. government´s genocide of Native Americans."

But his remarks will likely have more to do with an essay, titled "Some People Push Back," that he wrote just 24 hours after 9/11 — a day he described as a case of "chickens coming home to roost."

Those killed in the Word Trade Center, he wrote, "were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America´s global financial empire."

Indeed, he wrote, "if there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the Twin Towers, I´d really be interested in hearing about it."

Time hasn´t mellowed Churchill. In an interview last year, he declared that "it may be that more 9/11s are necessary" — a position he calls "a no-brainer."

Nice fellow, no?

The thing is, at Hamilton College, Churchill is merely the flip-side to Susan Rosenberg, the unrepentant ´60s Weather Underground terrorist who was set free from a 58-year prison term, courtesy of Bill Clinton.

Having been denied an opportunity to parade Rosenberg on campus (she withdrew after her appointment sparked an understandable controversy), the folks up at Hamilton apparently have decided to stick another thumb in the eye of common sense: Churchill.

All in the name of academic freedom, to be sure.

And Hamilton College, of course, is perfectly free to do so.

Just as we´re free to point out to Hamilton College parents — now spending a gazillion dollars a year on tuition and fees — just where their money is going.

"Free" speech, indeed. (Copyright 2005 NYP Holdings, Inc. 01/29/05)