DENVER -- The single CU Regent who voted not to fire Ward Churchill told jurors she deferred to other faculty members in deciding his fate.

Cindy Carlisle testified Monday afternoon in the controversial professor's civil suit as he tries to get his job back.

Churchill claims he was fired because of anger over his Sept. 11 essay comparing the victims to low level Nazis.

An investigative committee found him guilty of academic fraud and a second group of faculty members recommended he be suspended.

The Regents voted to fire Churchill in the summer of 2007.

"If the students are the heart of the institution," she said. "The faculty is the soul."

Carlisle said she believed that Churchill should have been disciplined and believed he was treated fairly.

A professor for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs testified that Churchill was not sacrificed to please critics who were demanding that Churchill be fired.

Mary Anne Cutter said if her students had done what Churchill was accused of, they would have failed her class.