Via Little Green Footballs, the latest news from Ward Churchill is that he's accusing the University of Colorado of acting like Nazis.

DENVER (AP) — A lawyer for the professor whose remarks about Sept. 11 victims touched off a firestorm wants officials to clarify how they intend to prove he is an American Indian, asking if they plan to use "the Nazi standard for racial purity."

A University of Colorado faculty committee is investigating whether professor Ward Churchill should be fired over allegations he plagiarized others’ work, and that he falsely claimed to be an American Indian to give his work more credibility.

"Do you wish to employ the Nazi standard for racial purity? Do you wish to employ the standard adopted by the United States government for determining Japanese ancestry in order to qualify for internment?” attorney David Lane asked in a letter dated Monday to acting chancellor Philip DiStefano.

(Original tip from M. Simon.)

As far as setting up racial definitions is concerned, of course the University of Colorado bureaucrats are acting like Nazis. There is nothing new about the use of race to determine entitlement for programs like Affirmative Action (and in employment). The University of Colorado and virtually all federally funded universities do it as a matter of official, federally-mandated policy.

Here's the Nazi Federal, er, standard itself:

1. Definitions

The basic racial and ethnic categories for Federal statistics and program administrative reporting are defined as follows:

* a. American Indian or Alaskan Native. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America, and who maintains cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition.

And Churchill now disagrees with the idea that race matters?

I have to say I'm amazed. Will he be the new darling of anti-affirmative action forces?

Who knows? Maybe there's a vacant spot for Ward on the University of California's Board of Regents.

The ironies are rich. (The only way this could get better would be if he directly accused university race bureaucrats of being "little Eichmanns". . .)

HISTORICAL NOTE: It just so happens that the real Adolf Eichmann, in his official capacity at the Wansee Conference, helped write the working definition of who was Jewish for purposes of the Final Solution. It's oddly reassuring to know that Ward Churchill is (apparently) broadening his analogy.