University Changes Its Focus in Investigation of Professor

DENVER, March 25 - Prof. Ward L. Churchill cannot be fired from his job at the University of Colorado for controversial opinions like his comparison of some victims of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack to Nazi technocrats, the university said in a report released late Thursday.

But the professor could be fired if accusations of academic misconduct, including plagiarism, are borne out, the report said.

The report, by the university's interim chancellor, Philip P. DiStefano, is a fork in the divisive debate over Professor Churchill, whose name has become a rallying cry across the political spectrum in the past few months, ever since an essay he wrote shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks became widely known.