Yale’s Self-Censorship

By: Steve Huston

The latest controversy involving the First Amendment comes from a book slated to be published by the Yale University Press. “The Cartoons that Shook the World” by Brandeis University Professor Jytte Klausen recounts the contention surrounding the distribution of 12 political cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammad in a Danish Newspaper in 2005. As you may remember, the publication of these cartoons infuriated the Muslim World, birthing riots and confusion all over Europe.

As one would expect from the subject of the book, Professor Klausen’s work originally included the controversial cartoons. Now Yale Press has decided not to include these illustrations due to a “clear threat of violence and loss of life”, as Yale board member Fareed Zakaria puts it. Yale Daily News reports that around 200 people have died because of the violence surrounding the cartoons. The University begged counsel from a wide range of experts and concluded that comics would indeed be offensive to Muslims. However, they have not released the names of their panel, and several panel members who have come forward on their own have said that they told Yale it was not offensive.

The overwhelming public response to this decision is strong disapproval from both liberal and conservative. “Gutless”, “cowardly”, and “indefensible” are the words that are being used to describe it. Some are even saying that the decision arises from a desire to please the wealthy Persian Gulf States. Regardless of the reason, Yale’s deletion of these images is a text book example of censorship.

This is truly an ironic situation. Yale and her bedfellow, the ACLU, have for years been proponents of “freedom of speech” in any and every instance where a Christian has been offended or felt his beliefs encroached upon. The double standard becomes very clear in this light. The Left believes in the freedom to speak what they want to hear.

The problem immediately presents itself. If our universities of “higher learning” will allow themselves to be influenced by this radical religion, how can we claim to have freedom of speech? According to Forbes.com, nearly one third of U.S. Presidents and half of our Supreme Court Justices attend these Ivy League schools. It is these centers of learning that shape the leaders of our nation. Examples like this not only help explain the problems we have today but also give us a taste of what we have to look forward to.

Conservative Yale Alums weigh in on this travesty —

A group of prominent conservative alumni has joined the chorus of critics of Yale’s decision to remove caricatures of Muhammad from an upcoming book about the 2005 Danish cartoon controversy.

John Bolton ’70 LAW ’74, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and a group of other graduates who call themselves the Yale Committee for a Free Press, is currently circulating a letter to the editor of the Yale Alumni Magazine that renounces the ‘shameful censorship.’ The group is asking for other graduates to sign the letter and to call on the University to publish ‘The Cartoons that Shook the World’ with the cartoons that shook the world intact.

But Jytte Klausen, the Brandeis University professor who wrote the book, said the effort is coming too late. The book, she said, is already being printed and will be published in a few weeks. The original schedule for publication would have made the book available in November.

Even still, Bolton said ‘the whole episode was an example of intellectual cowardice.’

‘To publish a book on the controversy around the cartoons and not publish the cartoons is just mindboggling'” he said in an interview Wednesday. ‘If they were scared they should’ve just not published the book.’

Or, as David Frum ’82 GRD ’82, the former speechwriter to George W. Bush ’68, put it, Yale should have just reversed its decision.

‘Every organization does things that in retrospect don’t look like good decisions,’ said Frum, who signed the letter that was written by Michael Steinberg ’74, a lawyer. ‘When you haven’t made a good decision it is a sign of maturity and wisdom to reconsider.’

For his part, Steinberg, who is senior counsel at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, said he was compelled to write the letter because he was shocked that his alma mater, ‘one of the leading universities in the world, would be the first to take the step of censoring a book in order to appease potential extremists around the world in the absence of any threat.’

Bolton put things more bluntly: ‘The fascists have won.’

Klausen added that the experts Yale consulted with about the matter would have had little experience in predicting when a terrorist attack would occur.

But Bolton, speaking by phone, had an entirely different point of view. Instead of consulting with diplomatic experts, he said, Yale should have just called the police.

‘If Yale had a concern about somebody behaving illegitimately they should go to the local law enforcement and say we’re worried and we think we need protection,’ he said. ‘That’s why you have police forces; presumably that’s why Yale has a security force.’

Yale officials, of course, see the matter differently. While John Donatich, the director of the Yale University Press, did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday, University President Richard Levin said in a recent interview that the University acted prudently and was faced with a ‘situation where two important values come into conflict.’

‘The decision that was made was a reasonable one and the right one,’ Levin said. ‘It was not an easy call.’

Steinberg said the call could have been easier for Yale if it had just stayed true to its mission as an educational institution. He said he cannot think of another instance in which a university press censored a publication because it feared a potential terrorist attack.

‘As far as I know this is entirely unique,’ Steinberg said. ‘That the campus of Nathan Hale should be the place where censorship in America begins is just horrifying.'”
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8226

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