Accused by a Boulder, Colorado TV reporter of plagiarizing, then selling, famous artwork depicting American Indians, academia's golden boy responds by taking a swing at the reporter's cameraman:

BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) An exclusive report by CBS4 News indicates embattled University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill may have broken copyright law by making a mirror image of an artist’s work and selling it as his own.

Placing Churchill’s work beside that of renowned artist Thomas E. Mails and the two look like mirror images. But one is a copyrighted drawing. The other is an autographed print by Churchill.

When CBS4 News tried to talk to Churchill about a possible copyright infringement, we received an angry response.

“Get that camera out of my face,” Churchill said.

CBS4 News reporter Raj Chohan: “This is an artwork we’ve got called ‘Winter Attack.’ It looks like it was based on a Thomas Mails painting; it looks like you ripped it off. Can you tell us about that?”

That prompted Churchill to take a swing at Chohan.

Should he lose his tenure? Jim Geraghty has an interesting discussion on the topic, as does Glenn Reynolds.

Update: Watching the video again, Churchill took a (rather wussy) swing at the reporter himself, not his cameraman.