(2005-02-10) -- In a celebration of free speech inspired by a University of Colorado professor who compared America's 9/11 victims to Nazis, an ad hoc consortium of business leaders announced today that it would fund an endowed professorship in honor of Professor Ward Churchill.

The business group, Little Eichmanns for Free Speech, said it "rejoices in Mr. Churchill's efforts to open a fresh dialogue between America's businesspeople and the academics whose important work is funded by the overflow of our insatiable greed."

The group said it would donate a "substantial sum" to create an endowment with the condition that "Mr. Churchill be appointed as the Little Goebbels Professor of Ethics, in recognition of his efforts to establish the reputation of businesspeople in a fashion reminiscent of what Joseph Goebbels did for the Jews."

Under the terms of endowment, university news releases about Mr. Churchill's research and public speaking must always identify him with the phrase "the Little Goebbels Professor of Ethics."

A spokesman for the university's board of regents said it "welcomes expressions of free speech, especially when they're written in the memo field of a personal check."