(published on the YDN posting board 1/13/15)
It is worth repeating to you, the editors, as well as to one of your columnists:
In the midst of the greatest assault on the right to read (Je suis Charlie) in my lifetime we are talking about campus minutiae here and in the entire YDN edition today.
Do you have your heads in the sand?
The disgraceful --- shameful --- capitulation of Yale University Press to the fear of terrorism two years ago in removing controversial cartoons of the Islamic Prophet from a book it published about those very same cartoons; that capitulation by one of the foremost academic publishing institutions in the world, lead INEXORABLY to the murders in Paris last week.
This is a story, dear fledgling journalists. It is in your very back yard.
Either wake up to the world around you YDN and Yale's impact on that world, or fall into the irrelevancy of the "ladies who come and go talking of Michaelangelo."
I am embarrassed for you.
Paul D. Keane
M. Div. '80
M.A., M.Ed.
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED SOON AFTER MY POST---datelined the 13th but in the January 14th edition.
Paris attacks prompt reexamination of 2009 Yale Press controversy
University pulled images of the Prophet Muhammad
After last week’s terror attack against the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, Yale students, faculty and experts have revisited Yale University Press’ controversial 2009 decision to censor images of the Prophet Muhammad.
In 2009, Yale University Press faced criticism for its decision to redact images of the Prophet Muhammad — including a controversial 2005 Danish cartoon and other historical depictions of the figure — from Brandeis University Professor Jytte Klausen’s book, “The Cartoons That Shook the World.” The University defended the decision at the time, arguing that it had consulted with two dozen authorities that unanimously advised against the publication of the images. However, in light of last week’s attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, Yale faculty, students and experts have raised new criticism of Yale University Press’s 2009 decision and urged the University to modify its stance for the future.
“If the major educational institutions of the Western world cannot summon the courage to defend freedom of speech, who is going to do that?” said Executive Director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Jonathan Brent, who was the YUP’s commissioning editor of the book at the time. “[Yale] was not behaving as a beacon of democratic culture or in a self-aware capacity as a protector of liberal values it teaches — it was acting rather as a corporation protecting its interests abroad and protecting its interests in the Arab world.”
Brent said he argued in favor of keeping the controversial images in the book, but the Press faced pressure from the administration, which feared that publishing the offensive images would incite anger and put the campus at risk. Although he conceded that universities have a commitment to protect their faculty and staff, Brent said the decision set a bad precedent and undermined the very values taught in Yale classrooms.
Klausen said the University was overly risk-averse in its decision, since there was no credible threat in printing the photographs. She published an article earlier this week in Time magazine condemning Yale’s 2009 decision and arguing that this type of censorship impedes the dissemination of knowledge.
“I am not in favor of provocation; I am an academic and not a free speech martyr,” Klausen told the News. “In the process of discussing the nature of image, it is of course important in religious law to republish the offending image.”
However, it appears unlikely that recent events will lead to substantive change from the administration.
University spokesman Tom Conroy wrote in an email that there is no formal University policy on publishing controversial images or cartoons, nor has there been any cause to revisit the issue regarding Klausen’s book.
Still, questions regarding Yale’s censorship of sensitive content continue to surface. Not only have the attacks in Paris recast the debate, but some of the authorities consulted in 2009 have since publicly disavowed their decisions.
Most notably, former Yale Corporation member Fareed Zakaria ’86 wrote in a Washington Post column last month that he “deeply regretted” writing a statement in favor of the University’s decision to redact the images. He said he was swayed by concerns for the institution at the time, but said the correct decision — then and now — would be to affirm freedom of expression.
Although Klausen’s book was first published in 2009, she said Zakaria’s statements may influence whether the University will print the cartoons in a paperback edition of the book. Six years later, whether the YUP will reprint her book — let alone include the offending images — is not clear. Yale University Press director John Donatich did not reply to multiple requests for comment.
Students and professors on campus have come forward condemning the University’s decision and have argued that in light of the recent attacks, the stakes are even higher for Yale to act in a way that affirms freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
“Yale University Press should have published the Danish cartoons because they weren’t created at Yale and were already widely available,” political science lecturer Jim Sleeper wrote in an email. “YUP isn’t a provocative newspaper like Charlie Hebdo; nor is it a propaganda organ. It had a scholarly obligation to pursue truth with relevant evidence.”
Sleeper joins a multitude of other voices within academia arguing that Yale ought to change its stance on censoring sensitive content, especially in academic texts.
Religious scholar Reza Aslan, who withdrew a supportive blurb for the book in 2009 after Yale’s decision to censor the images, said universities have a role in distinguishing between free speech and hate speech.
However, Aslan said Yale’s decision was outside the boundaries of appropriate action for a university.
“I think the idea that we cannot print images … that are actually part of Islamic history, images that are drawn by Muslims themselves in an academic book about depictions of the prophet, because we are afraid of the Islamic response is gross Islamophobia,” he said. “This was an academic book primarily for an academic audience … and to not produce those images is intellectual cowardice, frankly.”
Still, some students came to the defense of the YUP’s decision to retract the sensitive images and argued that its decision was within its right as a press to choose which content to publish.
President of the Muslim Students Association Ahmad Aljobeh ’16, who said he was not speaking on behalf of the organization, said the application of the term “self-censorship” to the actions of the YUP is not entirely correct.
“If [YUP] decided that publishing them would be gratuitous then they have the right to make that decision,” Aljobeh said. “Some might refer to this as ‘self-censorship,’ but they’re forgetting that we have the moral prerogative to choose to not offend people, just as we have the right to free speech.”
French citizen Aube Rey Lescure ’15 drew the distinction between the 2009 incident and the cartoons at the center of the events unfolding in Paris. She said that as an academic institution, Yale cannot afford the amount of backlash the publication of sensitive material would create.
“Yale is not Charlie Hebdo. Charlie Hebdo prides itself for offending and pushing boundaries — it is both a bastion of insolence and an invaluable French institution,” Rey Lescure said.
Despite the recent backlash, it remains unclear how Yale will decide in future instances regarding the publication of sensitive material. However, some fear Yale’s decision fit into a larger trend of an unwillingness to offend on campus.
The University’s decision lowered the quality of scholarship and undermined the principle and practice of academic freedom, sociology professor Julia Adams said.
“At the time, I disagreed with the decision,” Adams said. “I still do, if anything more strongly.”
“Nous sommes tous Charlie,” she added. “We are all Charlie.”
_______________
to BubbaJoe123
Where is your umbrella, Mr. Chamberlain?
Paul Keane
M. Div. '80
To YDN Editors:
That's better.
PK
Let's cut to the chase. Regardless of the claims they make, the YUP didn't censor the images because of concern about what the right role of an academic press is. They censored them because the administration was concerned (and not without justification) that publishing the cartoons could lead to violence against the University or its staff.
Does this set a terrible precedent, showing that violent action can drive self-censorship? Yes.
Is it a completely unreasonable concern for the administration to have, that can just be dismissed out of hand? No. I'm not sure that, for example, the Local 35 member opening the mail at the YUP, or the Local 34 member taking out the trash or fixing the radiator, signed up for the risk of having their place of work firebombed, or worse.
theantiyale • 5 hours ago
http://www.wsj.com/articles/be...
Islam must be freed from radical Islam. We must say and say again: To assassinate in
the name of God is to make God an assassin by association.
Bernard-Henri Levy
________________________
As for Yale courage:
In the 1950's McCarthy commie-under-every-pillow madness , the distinguished Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History and author of the biography of Martin Luther "Here I Stand", Professor Roland H. Bainton, was approached by a former student then working for the government .
The former student offered Bainton a proposal from his government bosses that Bainton spy on his colleagues at Yale as an act of patriotic service. Bainton, a Quaker, replied: "Tell your bosses to go to hell."
That courage is missing at Yale today.
joey00 • 6 hours ago
I recall seeing a beautiful painting of the Prophet Muhammad at an art gallery downtown.
Wonder what the oldest depiction is,where it is,He preached roughly 600 AD?
Some books have been written, Divine Comedy,Inferno ;
"No barrel, not even one where the hoops and staves go every which way, was ever split open like one frayed Sinner I saw, ripped from chin to where we fart below.His guts hung between his legs and displayed His vital organs, including that wretched sack Which converts to shit whatever gets conveyed down the gullet.As I stared at him he looked back And with his hands pulled his chest open, Saying, "See how I split open the crack in myself! See how twisted and broken Mohammed is! Before me walks Ali, his face Cleft from chin to crown, grief–stricken"..
Terror of offending Islam isn't a method to impose some goal.
Terror of offending Islam is the goal, the new reality, that Islam wishes to impose, apparently. Some religions have never advocated violence, other religions gave it up centuries ago. Only Islam regularly practices murder and enslavement of entire populations in the 21st century.
Sisi has recommended Islam reform its teaching and drop the right to murder whoever offends them. Obama OTOH, has not. The Democrats in the WH are still calling jihadist murders "workplace violence" and will not name Islam as part of the problem. Why?
Obama is leading Democrats in the entirely wrong direction on the issue of freedom of speech. It is time for good Democrats to reclaim the principle of freedom of thought and speech. To do this you must first denounce Obama's tolerance of the evil done by Islam's always present Jihadists, because Islam built this.
Any change will come from the students. Your faculty dare not defy either Obama or Islam...everybody knows that :-)
