BOULDER, Colo. -- Embattled professor Ward Churchill said he won't participate in this year's protest of the Columbus Day parade, saying his presence might be distracting.

"It's not necessary that I be there right now," Churchill said in an article published Tuesday in The Campus Press University of Colorado-Boulder. "If I were to show up and pull out a statement then it would be all about me, and I'm not the issue. Columbus Day is the issue."

Organizers of the Oct. 8 parade said it is meant to honor Christopher Columbus for his discovery of the New World, which protesters say started the genocide of indigenous people.

Churchill ignited a firestorm with an essay comparing some World Trade Center victims to Adolf Eichmann, one of the Nazis who orchestrated the Holocaust. He has refused to retract the statement but said he wishes he had phrased it differently.

After the university determined he couldn't be fired for his essay, an investigation was launched into allegations involving plagiarism, misuse of others' work and falsification and fabrication.

Last year's parade resulted in the arrest of about 240 people for disruption. Eight protest leaders including, Churchill, were acquitted in a January trial in Denver County Court. Charges against all remaining defendants were then dismissed.

Two new city ordinances will be in place for this year's parade that city officials said should result in more successful prosecutions for disrupting permitted events.

The parade resumed in Denver in 2000 after they were halted in 1991.

The American Indian Movement in Colorado has asked Denver's mayor to stop the parade, scheduled for this Saturday. The group has sent a letter to the mayor asking for a declaration to end the celebraton. They say money used for police overtime would be better spent on healthcare and education.

But that argument doesn't sit well with parade organizers.

"The money wouldn't have to be spent. It's not our fault they're down there protesting. The police protection is because of their violent protests," said parade committee president George Venegnia.

"We have never been violent. There are no accounts of violence on our part as protester," said Leslie Andrews, with the American Indian Movement.

Mayor John Hickenlooper said he's not about to tell one side or the other not to exercise their right to free speech. He said he's not taking sides and is willing to facilitate a constructive dialogue.

Opponents of the Columbus Day celebration say they will conduct an educational activity against the parade but wouldn't reveal exactly what that activity would be.