Index on Censorship Censors Itself

We couldn’t make this up.

Not so long ago, Yale University Press, on direction from the university, pre-emptively self-censored images of Mohammed from The Cartoons that Shook the World by Jytte Klausen, a scholarly examination of the controversy that erupted over the publication of cartoon images of Mohammed by the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. Yale’s action was met by a torrent of criticism from left, right and center.  NCAC coordinated a letter to the university signed by a number of free speech organizations and, with the American Association of University Professors, coordinated a Statement of Principle and Call to Action calling on institutions of higher education to do more to defend intellectual freedom.

As if it wasn’t absurd enough that an academic press would first agree to publish about a set of images and then would decide to remove the very images that are the subject of the book, the Index on Censorship has gone a step further. The Index conducted an interview with Klausen about Yale’s censorship of the images, and then itself censored the same images. If you think I’m making it up, it’s all posted here. 

Several visitors to the Index website have called for resignation of board members who voted to censor the cartoons.  That would be a first step in the direction of restoring the Index’s credibility.  Next, they should publish the images.

Forget staging “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”

This week, in a decision that is likely to limit what theaters decide to produce, Colorado’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on theatrical smoking.

The 2006 Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act prohibits smoking inside public buildings. This is something we welcome! However, contrary to the situation in other states where smoking on stage is exempt, Colorado performers are banned from smoking even herbal cigarettes. Yet, smoking is often a necessary component of a play’s plot and of character development.

Therefore, three not-for-profit theaters in Colorado sued the state’s department of Public Health and Environment on the grounds that the ban on theatrical smoking was an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech.

In an amicus brief to the Colorado Supreme Court, NCAC and the Dramatists Guild of America argued that theatrical smoking constitutes expressive activity, and that the state had not demonstrated that banning theatrical smoking was necessary so as to protect Colorado residents from the health hazards of second hand smoke. The brief referred to the expressive role of smoking in the plays of playwrights such as Edward Albee and Eugene O’Neill.

We also argued that the ban on theatrical smoking was not tailored in such a way that expression was only restricted in so much as it was absolutely necessary in the interest of protecting health. We cited bans on indoor smoking from 13 different jurisdictions, which included exceptions for theatrical smoking.

Despite our disappointment in the decision of the court, we are heartened by the dissenting opinion, which stated that: “The smoking ban containing in the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act, as applied to theatrical performances when the script of a play calls for smoking, is unconstitutional because theatrical smoking constitutes expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. In a play’s performance, smoking becomes a form of expression that is distinct from the act of smoking itself; it is used to communicate meaning and thus to convey a particularized message. The characters and plots would lack depth and expressive force without the hovering smoke on stage, the poignant exhale of a puff of smoke, and even the ability or inability to smoke.”

Senatorial “Secret Holds” Are Censorship

According to a recent report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a number of Senators have failed to abide by Section 512 of the 2007 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA) which prohibits the use of “secret holds” on legislation and nominations but provides no mechanism for enforcement of the law. Under the system of holds, in effect since 1914 but, more commonly used since the 1960’s, a single senator can block or indefinitely stall votes or use a hold as a bargaining chip or to buy more time to study proposed laws and nominations.

The problem, from a free expression and right to know perspective, arises from the key word “secret.” Senators can, with apparent impunity, engage in censorship to hide their activities from the electorate. They anonymously use this quintessentially undemocratic maneuver while keeping the public totally in the dark about both the fact of the hold and the reasons for it.  This is the very antithesis of open government.

Under the provisions enacted on HLOGA, a senator must now, among other procedures, place a notice of the hold on the appropriate Senate calendar with his or her name attached to it but since the HLOGA has been in effect, there have been only two public holds placed on the calendar. In order to determine if there were, in fact, other holds during that period, CREW made a day-by-day analysis of the Senate Calendar of Business for the relevant period. They identified several nominations and bills, pending after HLOGA was passed, that appeared to have secret holds on them but which had no objections and no public statement from the “holder” were found. These included, ironically, the Presidential Records Act Amendments, a public transparency bill and the nominations of Dr. John Holdren as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology and Jane Lubchenco as Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), both agencies implicated in the censorship of science by the Bush Administration. In some instances the senators later admitted their roles while in other instances there was only speculation, or not even that, as to who put on the secret holds and why.

CREW addresses these issues from the perspective of ethics and has requested that the Senate Select Committee on Ethics investigate the matter. NCAC views the problem through the lens of censorship and the public’s right to know. Either way, it is a disappointing bolt on the reputation of the so-called “world’s greatest deliberative body.”

NCAC, AAUP and Others Issue Call to Action Over Censorship in Response to Threats of Violence, Real and Imagined

The National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Association of University Professors, joined by leading groups in the academic, civil liberties, journalism, and free speech fields, issued a Statement of Principle and Call to Action urging governments, institutions and private individuals to support freedom of expression and academic freedom, and to resist caving in to threats of violence, real and imagined.

The failure to stand up for free expression emboldens those who would attack and undermine it. It is time for colleges and universities in particular to exercise moral and intellectual leadership.

Self-censorship is a way of avoiding issues that should be addressed and avoiding responsibility for being part of the conversation.  The right to free speech is meaningless if it can be defeated simply by saying that someone might take offense and lash out.

The statement notes that threats of violence against words and images are not the sole province of religious extremists. Among the examples cited in the statement: