Ansonia, Connecticut

Middle school students in Ansonia may have trouble finding copies of One Fat Summer, by Robert Lipsyte. The coming-of-age novel was pulled from the local schools’ display at the Ansonia Public Library, following a parental complaint about the book’s content. Parents objected to a paragraph describing the masturbation fantasy of a teenage boy. School officials asked the library to remove the book from its special display of titles for middle school students. The book will remain in circulation on the public library’s regular shelves.

Reported in: School Library Journal, August 31.

Fargo, North Dakota

An English instructor and book reviewer wants to remove a novel from her daughter’s school library in Fargo. Pamela Sund Herschlip and her husband, Mark Herschlip, asked that Mick Harte Was Here be pulled from the Centennial Elementary School library because of the “damaging nature of the material.” The book, written by Barbara Park, contains themes and language inappropriate for elementary students, they said in a letter to the school. Their daughter is a fourth-grader.

“Can’t we let our children be innocent?” Sund Herschlip said. “Do we have to expose our children to coarseness through public schools? It’s such a tender age.”

Sund Herschlip became aware of the book after overhearing her daughter and two friends discussing it. She then read the book herself. Sund Herschlip is an adjunct instructor at Minnesota State University in Moorhead and Minnesota State Community and Technical College. She teaches art, poetry, and research writing. She also reviews art exhibitions and books.

In her professional evaluation of the book, she found some redeeming qualities. “But I think it takes the structure of an adult mind to deal with most of the themes in the book,” she said.

Mick Harte Was Here details the grieving process of thirteen-year-old Phoebe after her twelve-year-old brother dies in a bicycle accident. The eighty-eight-page novel is told from Phoebe’s point of view. An author’s note in the back said she wrote the novel to encourage students to wear bike helmets. The book contains profanity, including use of “damn, “ “suck” and the phrase “Oh Jesus.”

The Herschlips also were disturbed by a discussion of unplanned pregnancy and what they viewed as a glorification of eating disorders. As Phoebe describes Mick’s personality, she mentions he was a surprise. “He loved it, too. Being a surprise, I mean,” Phoebe tells the reader. “He was always teasing my parents about it. Telling them that even before he existed, he could outsmart two chemistry majors with birth control pills.”

Mark Herschlip, a chemical engineer, said the mention of birth control isn’t appropriate in a book for younger students. It isn’t something he wants his daughter to talk about. “The problem is there is no rating system on books,” he said. “There’s no indication of what might be in the book unless you read it, so we rely on our professionals in the schools to choose appropriate materials.”

Librarians carefully choose books and materials after consulting reviews, award lists, and other resources, Fargo Schools Superintendent David Flowers said. If a parent objects to any material, he or she can challenge it, Flowers said. When that happens, a committee reviews the material and determines whether it meets school and community values.

The district’s policy states “the value and impact of any literary work will be judged as a whole, taking into account the author’s intent rather than only individual words, phrases, incidents, or illustrations.”

“It’s a protection so that no single parent or principal or librarian can arbitrarily decide what a community’s values are and dictate that,” Flowers said.

In 1997, Mick Harte Was Here received the Flicker Tale Award, which is given annually by the North Dakota Library Association. Flicker Tale finalists are chosen by librarians and teachers, said Marvia Boettcher, a member of NDLA and a public librarian in Bismarck. Most finalists are nominated because of quality or their popularity among young readers, she said. North Dakota students select the winner by casting a vote for their favorite finalist. Between 10,000 and 13,000 students vote each year, Boettcher said.

But despite its popularity among children, Mick Harte Was Here has faced controversy before. The book has been challenged in five different school districts since 1998, according to the American Library Association. In two of the cases, which involved Texas schools, the book was removed from the shelves for “offensive language.”

The other three challenges, two of which took place in Texas and the other in a middle school in Seneca, South Carolina, resulted in the book being retained.

Reported in: Fargo Forum, October 7.

Athens, Ohio

A small anti-war art exhibit on the third floor of Ohio University’s Alden Library displaying posters and pages from books in the library was altered earlier this month at the request of one or more distinguished professors who apparently pressured the dean of libraries to remove pieces they found to be offensive.

The action sparked an energetic censorship debate on campus, with the Faculty Senate approving a resolution urging the library dean to restore the exhibit to its original state.

Lisa Garr, a twenty-one-year-old senior studying viola performance and a resident assistant in Martzolf House, researched and put the display together. Entitled “Art of War,” the exhibit came from existing materials in the library, she said. The exhibit shows how artists respond to wars, and the display also sends a pro-peace message, Garr explained.

In an e-mail sent September 7 to Dean of Libraries Julia Zimmerman, Charles C. Alexander, distinguished professor of history, complained about the exhibit’s inclusion of a piece depicting President George W. Bush in an unflattering, war-like manner and use of the word “f___” in two other images.

“However one might feel about President Bush and the war on terror,” Alexander wrote, “surely such a display in a facility dedicated to diverse inquiry and balanced learning should have no place in this or any other university library.”

Alexander also objected to the display’s placement between photo-portraits of OU’s distinguished professors (including himself) and named Ping Institute professors. His e-mail was copied to OU President Roderick McDavis, acting Provost Kathy Krendl and several distinguished professors.

According to Garr, Gary Ginther, head of the Fine Arts Library where the display is located, approved the project for display. He was also partially responsible, according to interim Provost Krendl, for taking out certain pieces of the exhibit that offended Alexander.

The incident sparked a flurry of e-mails that flowed through OU’s faculty grapevine. The e-mails, mainly critical of what senders characterized as “censorship,” came from various other faculty. One of them, circulated among School of Theater faculty and staff, came from Maureen Wagner, assistant director of the School of Theater. In it, she writes that “according to (Library) Dean Zimmerman, ‘intense pressure’ was applied by (distinguished) professors Alexander, (Alonzo) Hamby and (Richard) Vedder to remove a number of so-called ‘offensive’ artworks.”

Hamby confirmed that he also lodged a complaint with Zimmerman against the exhibit. “It seems to me the exhibit was in terribly bad taste, displayed little talent, and had a partisan edge that public institutions (which after all are paid for by taxpayers of all parties) should avoid,” Hamby wrote.

He noted that “any First Amendment expert will tell you that the Constitution gives one the right to say just about anything, but not anywhere or any place.” He denied exerting any “pressure” on Libraries Dean Zimmerman, other than “voicing a complaint—as many people do on many issues.

“I guess she thought there was some merit to it. I haven’t heard back from her,” he said.

As a result of the professors’ complaints, five artworks photocopied from two books containing anti-war art were removed, according to Garr. She said that professor Alexander saw the display on September 3, Ginther was informed of the complaint on September 7, and he removed the pieces from the exhibit on that day.

The pieces in question featured World War II-era posters supporting the 1940s war effort that were altered to carry sarcastic and pointed messages about the current policies of the Bush administration. The five removed pieces are from the books, Peace Signs: The Anti-War Movement Illustrated, by James Mann, and You Back the Attack! We’ll Bomb Who We Want!: Remixed War Propaganda, by Micah Ian Wright.

One of the posters criticized by Alexander depicted President Bush with red eyes, a menacing fist and a mock Nazi armband with a dollar sign on it. The slogan (supposedly stated by Bush), “What the f___ you gonna do about it?” (with the actual f-word), is printed at the bottom of the poster. Another poster shows a U.S. soldier in combat and the words: “Keep it up brother! There’s a lot of countries left to invade.”

In his e-mail, Hamby said that he probably would have lodged a complaint if the exhibit had trashed Sen. John Kerry as offensively as it trashed President Bush. “I would have had the same attitude about something studded with hammer-and-sickle emblems purporting to show John Kerry locking lips with Jane Fonda while American prisoners of war were abused in the background,” he said.

Provost Krendl said that the issue was not just about censorship. “The library controls the space there. If they remove something from their space, that is not the issue,” she said. “The issue here is how do we sort through the issues and protection for a free and open debate?”

Krendl emphasized the importance of developing a procedure for dealing with these types of incidents, and said that a public forum was planned to discuss that procedure. Experts in these issues, such as lawyers and scholars, were being consulted by OU officials for help with the forum, she said.

Krendl confirmed that the decision to remove the pieces of art was made by Libraries Dean Zimmerman, Associate Dean of Libraries Gary Hunt and fine arts librarian Ginther. Garr, however, said she believes that pressure from “higher-ups” in the university was placed on the library administration to remove the art, and that it was removed by library staff under duress. In one of the e-mail messages, William Owens, chair of the Classics and World Religions Department, said that Zimmerman told him that the pressure to remove the offending pieces had been “intense.”

“Censorship is a violation of the First Amendment,” Garr said. “You shouldn’t take the display down; you could just put up your own. Or take your class to the display and have a discussion about it. This is a public university.”

The art removal incident was the central issue at the Faculty Senate meeting September 20. Several faculty senators decried the art removal as censorship and drafted a resolution that encouraged Zimmerman to reinstate the pieces, while some senate members criticized the exhibit for being unbalanced.

One reason the issue surfaced via circulated e-mails was that the OU Theater and Art schools found out about the situation and feared that the case set a bad precedent that might eventually affect their programs, Garr said.

“What is ironic about this is that the foreword for ‘Peace Signs’ was written by historian Howard Zinn, and the foreword for ‘You Back the Attack’ was written by novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr, both of whom are highly respected in the academic field, and (yet) a history professor is the person who called for the books to be removed from the display,” Garr said.

The Fine Arts Library has never had complaints before, despite previous displays that had the potential to offend, according to Garr. “The previous exhibit in that space had pictures of a naked obese woman with one of the pictures showing her naked on a toilet, and no one complained,” she said.

Reported in: Athens News, September 23.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Does a governor have the right to remove controversial links on a state library’s Web site? No, say library supporters in South Dakota who want links to Planned Parenthood and other helpful sites restored to the library’s Teen Center section.

It all started when Republican Governor Mike Rounds demanded the removal of specific sites after receiving a letter from Bishop Robert Carlson of the Sioux Falls Catholic Diocese, who said the library was encouraging “our young women and men to turn to Planned Parenthood for any guidance, whether it be sex education or the intrinsic evil of abortion.” Bowing to pressure from the governor, the state library board voted earlier this summer to remove the link.

Rounds then asked the library to remove a link to Go Ask Alice!, a Columbia University Web site that provides sexual health information. But the governor’s directives didn’t stop there—he requested that Teen Center be shut down pending a sixty-day review of all its links. Eventually, two librarians deemed responsible for posting the links lost their jobs.

It didn’t take long for protesters carrying anti-censorship signs to start gathering outside the Sioux Falls and Rapid City public libraries. “We’re trying to uphold and protect the librarians’ job to select materials,” says Eric Abrahamson, the sole library board member to vote against removing the Planned Parenthood link. Joe Van De Rostyne, another board member, admits to having mixed emotions about his vote because although the board ultimately takes orders from the governor, the library’s main duty is to provide information. “I’m against censorship,” he says.

Meanwhile, Rounds has balked at being labeled a censor, saying that the sites can be accessed directly. But actions speak louder than words: since ordering the removal of the library links, the governor has organized a task force to review the Web sites of all state agencies. To make matters worse, Rounds is recommending that none of the library’s online resources link to any organization with a political bent.

Although the result of the sixty-day review is unclear, board members are pleased that there’s still an ongoing dialogue, Abrahamson says. However, creating “objective criteria” for selecting online resources won’t be easy, he adds. The board’s next step is to review Teen Center’s content and make recommendations to Education Secretary Rick Melmer. “Some of [the links] might go back online,” says Richard Van Beek, vice chair of the board.

Reported in: School Library Journal, September 1.

Mesquite, Texas

Donna Williams says there’s a limit to what she wants her children to learn at school. A book Sydney Williams borrowed from her fifth-grade classroom at Pirrung Elementary School two weeks ago crossed the line, the Mesquite woman said, and she wants it removed from the district’s school libraries.

“This kind of book scares me,” Williams said, flipping through a copy of Alice the Brave, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. She pointed out references to sex acts written about in The Arabian Nights. Throughout the book, the title character obsesses over her widowed father’s relationship with her teacher and whether her father is sleeping with the woman.

Williams said her daughter is easily influenced. “And for children like her, this type of book is dangerous.”

Reported in: Dallas Morning News, September 15.

Montgomery County, Texas

A respite from more than three years of challenges to the book selection policies of Montgomery County Memorial Library System ended rather emphatically this summer with the filing of sixteen requests for reconsideration—fifteen since mid-June. The complainants “have a right to their opinion,” Library Director Jerilynn A. Williams said in the July 27 Conroe Courier, adding, “We support their rights to choose books for their children to read.”

The objections to the books, mostly consisting of young-adult fiction with a gay-positive theme, were posted at the Library Patrons of Texas Web site, whose launch was announced at a July 26 press conference by activists Sheila and Tommy Taylor. The language describing the books is similar to those posted at the Web site of the Fairfax County, Virginia-based Parents Against Bad Books in Schools, to which Library Patrons of Texas links. “It seems to be a concerted effort,” Williams commented.

A review committee has considered the Taylors’ challenges to The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky, and The Sissy Duckling, by Harvey Fierstein, neither of which were removed or restricted. The other fourteen challenged titles are: My Father’s Scar, by Michael Cart; Dance on My Grave, by Aidan Chambers; Stuck Rubber Baby, by Howard Cruse; My Brother Has AIDS, by Deborah Davis; Deal With It!, by Esther Drill; Eight Seconds, by Jean Ferris; My Heartbeat, by Garret Freymann-Weyr; The Drowning of Stephan Jones, by Bette Greene; Good Moon Rising and Holly’s Secret, by Nancy Garden; Hey, Dollface, by Deborah Hautzig; What I Know Now, by Rodger Larson; Rainbow Boys, by Alex Sanchez; and Peter, by Kate Walker.

The Library Patrons of Texas site claims it “does not advocate censorship,” but favors “local control of taxpayer-funded libraries and responsible age-appropriate selection, classification, and access policies sensitive to local community standards and values.”

Reported in: Conroe Courier, July 27.

Anchorage, Alaska

Most West High students know the story of Harper Lee’s classic and controversial tale of broiling racism in a small Alabama town, To Kill a Mockingbird. The Pulitzer-winning novel is required reading in West classrooms. But its content is apparently too much for their stage.

West principal Jim Bailey in late September canceled the school’s planned production of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Bailey said he didn’t learn of the play’s selection until after the first round of auditions. According to school policy, Bailey should have reviewed the play months ago and denied or approved it then, he said.

Troubled by the play’s use of the word “nigger,” Bailey asked teacher and drama adviser David Block if they could censor out that word. Block said no. “I didn’t even go into rape, murder, all the other things in the play,” Bailey said. “I said, ‘What preliminary things have been done to prepare our community, our school, and our kids for a play like this?’ He said, ‘Nothing.’

“And I said, ‘We’re not going to put the play on.’ “

To Kill a Mockingbird chronicles three years in the life of a little girl, Scout, as her father, Atticus, defends a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman. The accused, Tom Robinson, is ultimately killed. So is the woman’s father, the racist alcoholic Bob Ewell.

Block, a graduate of West and teacher there for ten years, said the play seemed ideal for his students—talented young actors raring to broaden their thespian skills. “The kids have wanted to focus on doing something serious and meaningful,” Block said. “It just seemed like the one to try.”

Block knew the play had potential to cause controversy. But that’s true of theater in general, said Block, an active participant in Anchorage’s community theater scene. “What may be perfectly appropriate for somebody may be offensive to somebody else,” Block said. “We’ve received calls from the community probably on every show we’ve done.”

Other schools around the country have put on Mockingbird since it was adapted for the stage in 1997. Other schools have canceled productions, too. Administrators at a high school in Indianapolis dropped the play after the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) objected.

The Rev. William Greene, president of the NAACP Anchorage, said a school’s staff and students should carefully consider their motives for staging a play that deals seriously with racism, and consider the possible fallout.

“What do they expect to accomplish by reacting this?” Greene asked. “Do they feel this is something that would expose racism? And help to eradicate it? Those are the kind of things I would look at. Because we don’t need something that’s going to inflame the city and make a lot of tension.”

Block said he was disappointed when Bailey canceled the play but didn’t argue with his boss’ decision. “I’ve never known (Bailey) to make a decision that was capricious or unfounded,” he said.

Some students have told Block they understand why Bailey canceled the play. Others aren’t so understanding.

Margo Edwards, a senior in the school’s swing choir, said in an interview that administrators are overlooking the play’s message. “The point of the play is that racism is wrong,” Edwards said. “And they are basically banning something that sends a good message.”

Hugh Lyford, a senior playing the starring role in West’s musical production of “Little Shop of Horrors,” said the decision is “hypocritical.” It doesn’t make sense that students are required to read the book but won’t have the option to watch the play, he said.

Students also disagreed with Bailey’s suggestion to omit the racial epithets. “Art is art,” said Jared Lindman, a junior and a member of the drama, debate, and forensics team. “You can’t change it.”

Denya Kohler, a senior with a lead role in the school’s “Little Shop of Horrors,” called the cancellation “an educational loss” for West students. “If we can read it in class our freshman year and watch the movie, I don’t see the problem with putting it on stage,” Kohler said.

But Bailey and Block agreed that there’s a difference between the classroom and the stage. A classroom is a controlled environment, Block said. If something is disturbing or material is sensitive, there’s time to talk through it, he said. When racial epithets are used on stage, you lose that “teachable moment” opportunity, Bailey added. He said he’s open to letting students do the play in the future, as long as it’s done right.

Reported in: Anchorage Daily News, October 3.

Gwinnett County, Georgia

The town of Hempstead, New York, has a message for Gwinnett County school administrators: Before you target a student wearing a Hempstead shirt, look at a map. Terrell Jones, a student in Gwinnett County’s Grayson High School, was weeded out of a classroom by a school administrator because he wore a shirt that read: “Hempstead, NY 516,” a reference to the Long Island town and its telephone area code.

According to Jones’ family, which moved from Hempstead to the Atlanta suburb, the school thought the shirt referred to marijuana. Jones wasn’t allowed to return to class until he persuaded school officials to search the Internet for the town name.

The town’s Web site says the area may have been named for Hemel-Hempstead, England. Another theory cites the Dutch city of Heemstede, because settlers had come years earlier from the Netherlands.

In any case, “before they would jump to any conclusions, they should be sure of what they’re talking about,” town spokeswoman Susie Trenkle said of the Georgia officials.

Hempstead is the nation’s largest township, with 759,000 residents spread across twenty-two villages and more than 142 square miles, she said. The student’s father, James Jones, said he wants an apology for the August 23 incident.

“It’s important to remember that the vigilance of our administrators is important. The administrator saw a phrase on the T-shirt that raised a red flag,” said Sloan Roach, spokeswoman for Gwinnett County schools.

Terrell Jones says he will keep wearing the shirt to school.

Reported in: Associated Press, August 26.

Bellingham, Massachusetts

A Bellingham High School teacher who assigned students to view photographs of abused Iraqi prisoners filed a federal lawsuit August 24 against his principal and superintendent, claiming they violated his civil rights when they took away his “current events” class this year.

In May, Bellingham High social studies teacher Brian Newark instructed students in his current events class, an elective course, to log onto the CNN or MSNBC Web site and look at photos of prisoners who were abused by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Newark told students the assignment was optional and said they were entitled to a substitute assignment if they found the images upsetting, according to his lawsuit. Two days later, now retired Bellingham High Principal Gilbert Trudeau told Newark that a parent had complained about the assignment and instructed him to stop using the prison photos in his class.

In June, the chair of the high school’s social studies department informed Newark that he would not be teaching current events this year due to “fallout” from the “current events incident,” the lawsuit alleges. Newark, in turn, contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts and filed a grievance with the local teachers union.

ACLU attorney Sarah Wunsch said the First Amendment protected Newark’s right to use the photos in his classroom as he sees fit. “This was an appropriate assignment,” Wunsch said. “These photos were shown everywhere. You would have to have your head in the sand not to see these photos . . . apparently the only place kids couldn’t see them was in that class.”

Newark is suing Trudeau and Bellingham Schools Superintendent T. C. “Chris” Mattocks, accusing them of violating his constitutional rights. Newark also claims the episode has had a “chilling effect” on teachers’ First Amendment rights to free speech.

“This was a current events course and Abu Ghraib was certainly an appropriate subject for discussion,” said Leonard Singer, a Boston lawyer who also represents Newark.

According to Newark’s lawsuit, Mattocks also accused the teacher of assigning students to watch the videotaped beheading of Nicholas Berg on the Internet, which Newark denies. Wunsch said Newark never assigned students to watch a tape of the American’s beheading. The teacher did not learn of that allegation until July, when Mattocks sent him a letter denying his grievance claim.

“That’s one of the reasons we think this whole thing is fishy,” Wunsch said.

The unidentified parent who complained about Newark’s assignment did not object to using the graphic photographs in class. Instead, the lawsuit states, the parent claimed the assignment was “unbalanced” because Newark did not instruct students to view pictures of Berg’s beheading.

“The necessary implication is that (Newark’s) reassignment was a reaction to (his) political perspective,” the lawsuit says. “To the extent that (school officials) were motivated by plaintiff’s political views, what they have done is entirely repugnant to the First Amendment.”

Newark worked for the Bellingham public schools since 1993, has taught social studies at the high school since 1998 and has been teaching current events since 2000. This spring, twenty-five of the twenty-eight students in his current events class were seniors.

“Quite literally, any one of these students could find him or herself at the Abu Ghraib prison, guarding Iraqi prisoners, within months of the May 10 assignment,” the lawsuit states.

More than 100 students had signed up for Newark’s current events class this fall, which would have forced the school to expand the course from one to four sections. “The kids like his teaching,” Wunsch said. “There’s no reason for them to take him away from teaching this class.”

Newark filed a grievance with the teachers union on June 8. Trudeau denied his petition a week later, while Mattocks rejected it on July 2, according to Massachusetts Teachers Association spokeswoman Laura Barrett.

Reported in: MetroWest Daily News, August 25.

San Marcos, California

Filmmaker Michael Moore had been invited to appear October 13 at California State University San Marcos, but university President Karen Haynes rescinded the offer September 13. The move surprised students and faculty, because the student government overwhelmingly approved Moore’s appearance and partial payment for the event—and the approval had been sought just two days before the cancellation by the university.

According to an e-mail she sent to some faculty and students, the president didn’t want Moore speaking on campus before the election because she felt the university would be unable to get a conservative whose stature ranks with Moore’s.

“Universities are about the exchange of ideas,” Haynes said in her brief e-mail. “Some ideas are uncomfortable, but being exposed to them is how we become confident of our own beliefs and values. That said, however, it is important that discussions be balanced.”

Later, in a statement posted on the campus Web site and released to local newspapers’ opinion pages, she said: “As a public university, we are prohibited from spending state funds on partisan political activity or direct political advocacy.” She argued that Moore has campaigned for Democratic candidates and publicly declared his desire to oust Bush, but she said the university would welcome him as a speaker after the election.

Civil liberties lawyers disagreed, however, saying partisan figures have for years spoken at universities, and that sitting presidents, including George Bush, often speak at college commencements, with funding by public universities during an election year.

Nancy Sasaki of the American Civil Liberties Union San Diego chapter concurred with Haynes that the university itself cannot endorse Bush or challenger John Kerry or other political views, and it cannot donate public money to them. But she said the law does not limit the free speech on a university campus or prevent colleges from having speakers with political views, even if universities pay their honorariums.

“It’s ludicrous to say you can’t invite any speaker with a political viewpoint,” said Sasaki.

Student government official Roy Lee immediately said he would ask Moore to come anyway, at a reduced fee, now that the university has withdrawn its support. “It’s a disservice to the students, it restricts our academic freedom,” said Lee, a junior business major. “We want students to talk about things, we want people to argue. Whatever gets them interested.”

Other students and faculty members also questioned whether Haynes’ action infringed on the academic freedom of the university. A petition signed by 78 faculty members protested the decision.

The university tried to forge a compromise by offering to postpone the speaking engagement, originally scheduled for October 13, until after the election. Neither Moore nor the students would accept that concession. Indeed, the filmmaker threatened to sue the university for breach of contract. “If they don’t do the right thing, follow through on the contract—and we have a written contract and an oral one—then we will take legal action,” he said. The university maintains there is no contract.

Meanwhile, the university’s student government, Associated Students Inc., started raising its own money to sponsor Moore’s visit. The group collected $46,000 to cover Moore’s $35,000 fee and the $11,000 cost of renting a hall in nearby Escondido. One donor who gave $15,000 is locally based Herring Broadcasting, which runs the “WealthTV” network. Said programming director Chris Moore, “It didn’t matter whether it was for (conservative) Bill O’Reilly or Michael Moore, we wanted to help the students bring someone who provokes and promotes political debate.” The speech was rescheduled to take place on October 12, a day earlier than originally planned.

Lura Poggi, executive director of the student organization, said that the group was inundated with telephone calls after the university announced the cancellation. Many of the calls were pledges of money from San Diegans eager to have Moore appear. Poggi said that the group’s main reason for inviting Moore was so that he could “inspire or anger—one of the two—our students to get out and vote.”

“What’s important to us is that we get students involved in the political process,” she said. Poggi said the controversy unified the student body. “Even our conservative students,” she said, “are saying, ‘Absolutely, he needs to come and speak.’”

Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel of the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C., disputed any charges of censorship. “They’re not saying Michael Moore can never appear; all they’re saying is his views will have a counterpoise. There’s nothing alien in that all.”

Lee said the point was to get students involved, and for all his controversial stands on issues, Moore would have done that. The student government is interested in balance, said Lee, who is vice president of communications, and that long before Moore, they invited Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to speak, but “We never heard back from him,” Lee said.

University vice president for student affairs Francine Martinez, who was part of the executive council that consulted with Haynes about the cancellation, said she was unaware of any effort to seek a conservative speaker before they decided to cancel Moore. Martinez said Moore’s $25,000 speaking fee and $12,000 security and travel accommodations would have come from a combination of funds, from the university, from student-paid campus fees, and $6,500 that student government leaders voted 12–3 to spend.

Moore was set to come to Cal State San Marcos last October, but his appearance was canceled because of the Southern California wildfires. Though Moore’s flamboyant style and liberal politics have always been front and center in his films and best-selling books, that first invitation came before his record-breaking documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, created such controversy with its attack on President Bush, his family, and his policies. It made film history by becoming the biggest money-making documentary. The university held a free screening of the film October 5.

Other universities have scheduled Moore to speak before the election, including Syracuse University, Pennsylvania’s Dickinson College, and Central Michigan University. Although some campuses that invited him have faced controversy, including Utah Valley State College and the University of Nevada, his speeches there were not canceled.

Some universities have sought to offer a conservative viewpoint in response to criticism of the outspokenly liberal Moore. Moore said that when he learned Cal State administrators were concerned about balance, he offered to find them a conservative speaker. “Some schools want that, and we’ve done that in the past. We even got Ann Coulter for one place, we held our nose, but we did it,” Moore joked. Coulter is an outspoken conservative television commentator and best-selling author.

Chemistry professor Jackie Trischman, chair of the Academic Senate, said the faculty had been hoping to host a political debate on the presidential election. “It would have been a great opportunity, but maybe this will be what gets everybody talking and interested in a debate,” she said.

Professor Meryl Goldberg, who heads the committee that hosts such lectures, films, and programs, saw a potential upside. “It gives us an opportunity on campus to grapple with some difficult and challenging issues,” she said. “Of course, if he was here, people would be talking too. Maybe people would be shouting.”

Reported in: San Diego Union-Tribune, September 15; Chronicle of Higher Education, September 20.

Naples, Florida

A Utah author who wrote she has been “sick at heart” since President George Bush took office was asked to delay her visit to Florida Gulf Coast University’s campus until after the November election. The decision, supported 10–1 by the university’s Board of Trustees on October 6 was made by President Bill Merwin after reading The Open Space of Democracy, by Terry Tempest Williams.

The university paid Williams $5,000 to speak on October 24 at an event for freshmen and on October 25 at two public lectures, but postponed the events after administrators read the book. Freshmen are required to read Williams’ book, along with two books by other authors, and discuss and write essays on the readings as part of a freshmen program called “First Year Experience.”

The book, published by the nonprofit Massachusetts-based The Orion Society, was approved by a faculty committee overseeing the event. But the book was not shipped to the university until a few weeks ago, and Merwin said he didn’t get to read the book until recently. Merwin called the book “blatantly politically biased” and said university dollars should not be spent on one-sided political forums. Instead he wanted to make sure there was a balance of opinions—especially so close to the upcoming presidential election—and hoped to get another speaker to counter Williams’ speech.

The episode occurred amid controversies at two other public universities where another outspoken liberal and opponent of President Bush—the filmmaker Michael Moore—had been scheduled to speak. George Mason University, in Virginia, and California State University at San Marcos both canceled university-supported appearances by Mr. Moore on their campuses (see pages 234 and 258).

Williams, who is the Annie Clark Tanner Fellow in Environmental Studies at the University of Utah and a writer who focuses on environmental and free-speech issues, said that she strongly dislikes many of the policies of President Bush’s administration, but that she had not intended to give a partisan speech. Indeed, she said, her goal was to help people overcome partisan contrariness and to better understand one another through civil dialogue.

Alfred J. Wohlpart, chairman of the Florida university’s Division of Humanities and Arts, said he and the other organizers of the event had repeatedly told Merwin that Williams would not deliver an attack on the president. Merwin is “doing what he thinks is in the best interests of the university,” Wohlpart, who is also a professor of English, said. But the president’s sudden reversal had left him “completely flabbergasted,” the professor added.

Although Ms. Williams said she had promised not to make a partisan presentation, she declined Merwin’s request to put that assurance in writing. With that refusal, Merwin said, he had no choice but to postpone the event.

In a letter to Merwin, Williams wrote: “The fact that you view my presence as “threatening” to your university because of statements I have made in print regarding President George W. Bush is deeply troubling. If our institutions of higher learning can no longer be counted on as champions and respectors of freedom of speech, then I fear no voice is safe from being silenced in this country. I understand this morning the Board of Governors supported your decision by a vote of 11 to 1, the dissenting vote belonging to the president of the senate, a faculty member, the only trustee not appointed by Governor Jeb Bush. As an American writer, I believe that to deny the students their own Convocation at this point in time, when this is precisely the conversation we are having now as a nation, is not only a breach of contract, but more tragically, a breach in democracy.”

“We have missed a rich opportunity for compassionate understanding and empathy.” Williams continued. “Censorship betrays the students’ intelligence, individual power of discernment, and their own passionate exploration of ideas as they prepare to vote. I believe your action has stopped the dialogue around Convocation at a time when we need it most. Consequently, the student body of Florida Gulf Coast University is being robbed of the experience of emancipatory education, the gift of being able to participate in critical thinking, meaningful dialogue, and debate, the very process inherent in an open society.”

Williams, a registered independent who freely admits her disdain for Bush environmental policies, launched a cross-country tour October 8 to promote her book. In a passage singled out for criticism by Merwin, Williams writes that she has been “sick at heart, unable to stomach or abide by this administration’s aggressive policies directed against the environment, education, social service, health care, and our civil liberties—basically the wholesale destruction of seemingly everything that contributes to a free society, except the special interests of big business.”

But what the university is not examining are her next few paragraphs, Williams said. She calms down, goes for a walk, and writes a letter to U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett R-Utah, and suggests partnering as an example “of how people can come to listen to one another with real, authentic exchanges.”

“I’m taking myself to task and asking for a deeper vision,” she said.

The message of the book is not to promote her political views but to create an “open space of democracy,” a forum for students to think and discuss opposing thoughts, Williams said. “It’s the students who are being harmed by this decision,” Williams said.

Laurie Lane-Zucker, executive director of The Orion Society, said the university responded to an advertisement for the tour. FGCU was an easy choice because The Orion Society had worked with the university in the past and the school was in a place likely to have energy because it was a swing state, one of the handful of states that could help decide the presidential election. Of the 133 institutions and organizations that were sent the advertisement, ten were in Florida.

In a letter to President Merwin, Lane-Zucker charged that the decision to cancel Williams’s appearance was “undertaken from what I understand was an explicitly political rationale by appointees of Florida Governor Jeb Bush . . . without prior consultation with any of the eight co-sponsoring organizations, and at such a late date (months after the contract was signed and a mere few weeks before the events) that I am, frankly, stunned.”

“Both Terry Tempest Williams and The Orion Society . . . have very little interest in one-dimensional political rants,” Lane-Zucker continued. “We believe they are unproductive and contrary to our educational process and principles. The primary goal of The Open Space of Democracy Tour, and Terry’s book by the same name, is to open, not close, dialogue and to inspire active citizen participation in our democracy. As we state in the tour’s descriptive materials, the tour features ‘readings and dialogue on questions of American leadership and values, the qualities of a peaceful and secure homeland, and the responsibilities of civic engagement.’”

“What is it exactly that you and your Board colleagues fear? Ideas? Well-articulated passion? Truth? This action is an insult to the intelligence of your students and faculty and exposes a frailty of commitment on the part of your administration and Board of Governors,” she concluded.

Although the event was postponed, university spokeswoman Susan Evans said discussions and course work concerning Williams’ book would continue as planned.

Williams, who returned her $5,000 payment from the university and asked that the money be given to students to set up a “forum for open expression,” said she still would like to visit the university after the election. She has not decided if she will accept payment.

Student Government President Matt Hall, who sits on the Board of Trustees and supports postponing Williams’ visit, said he had not read the book and he was concerned because students wouldn’t have an opportunity to rebut what could be a political speech.

Merwin said he doesn’t want there to be even the suggestion that the university is endorsing a presidential candidate or giving one candidate an advantage. Merwin, who contributed $2,000 to the Bush campaign in 2003 and another $1,750 to the Republican Party of Florida and candidates since 2002, said he would have had the same decision if Williams’ views were on any other politician. The decision was made because of a need for balance, he said.

Trustee Edward Morton said he would like to see Williams return after the election. Perhaps a speaker of an opposing view could talk at a later time during the year.

“Without balance, this would be no different that inviting Sean Hannity to make a commentary on Deliver Us from Evil,” he said, referring to a book written by the conservative radio and television show host. A university needs speakers of different ideologies but must balance them because many students are impressionable and may be just beginning to form opinions, he added.

But the university is mistaken in thinking they must balance a speaker’s views, said Jonathan Knight, director of Academic Freedom and Tenure at the American Association of University Professors in Washington, D.C. “There’s no reason for the administration to assume that the appeal of this author or of any author constitutes some kind of statement about the university itself,” he said.

Trustee Donna Price Henry, who is the president of the Faculty Senate, said postponing the event felt like censorship. “Part of what we try to do with our students is to open up the dialogue,” she said. “She (Williams) is very biased in her viewpoint, but to me, it’s not like we are inviting Michael Moore to campus.”

Reported in: Naples Daily News, October 7.

Fairfax, Virginia

George Mason University became the second public college in weeks to cancel a planned speaking engagement by the controversial filmmaker Michael Moore, citing misgivings about using public funds to pay Moore’s $35,000 fee. Officials from the university-life division of George Mason had set up the engagement earlier in September, Daniel Walsch, a spokesman for the Virginia institution, said October 1. But the university’s president, Alan G. Merten, who had been out of town when those arrangements were made, intervened to cancel the booking, the spokesman said.

Moore’s most recent film, Fahrenheit 9/11, is a scathing attack on President Bush, and the director’s partisanship figured in the decision last month by officials of California State University, San Marcos to call off a university-sponsored appearance by Moore on that campus (see page 234).

Walsch said President Merten’s reasons for canceling Moore’s appearance at George Mason differed from those of the Cal State officials. The San Marcos administrators had said they feared that political debate on the campus would be skewed by Moore’s appearance in the run-up to the November election. But Walsch said that neither politics nor the electoral calendar had played any role in George Mason’s decision.

“Michael Moore could have been anybody,” Walsch said. “He could have been Rush Limbaugh. It was just the use of public monies that we were looking at.”

Walsch also said the university’s decision was not influenced by complaints from state legislators that poured in after word got out about Moore’s scheduled appearance. One such complaint came from Virginia Delegate Richard H. Black, a Republican from neighboring Loudoun County, who said it would be profligate to spend $35,000 in tax money on a single speech—especially one by an avowed liberal trying to unseat President Bush.

“There are a million people in Virginia who would give anything to make $35,000 a year,” said Black. “How do we justify giving Michael Moore, a multimillionaire, $35,000 for a one-night stand?” Black said he had never before opposed a paid speaking engagement.

Speakers’ fees vary widely, and can run as high as $100,000—the price for an appearance by former President Bill Clinton or the conservative talk-show host Sean Hannity.

Walsch said George Mason’s contract with Moore gave leeway for either party to back out within five days of the scheduled date for the speech. “We were well within our contractual rights to do this,” he said.

Moore threatened Cal State-San Marcos with a lawsuit for breach of contract when that university canceled his engagement on its campus. The student government there quickly raised enough money to sponsor Moore on its own, and has confirmed with his booking agency that the filmmaker will appear at a venue off the campus on October 12.

The California and the George Mason appearances were to have been part of Moore’s twenty-state “Slacker Uprising Tour,” which is described on Moore’s Web site as “a coast-to-coast effort to bring the nonvoting majority out of hibernation and kick some political butt.”

At a recent event at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Moore’s sold-out appearance garnered $12,000 in ticket sales from an audience of about 3,700, according to Ashwini Hardikar, the student-government officer who set up the engagement.

Moore’s appearance at George Mason would have taken place in a 6,000-seat facility, and people not connected with George Mason would have paid $5 per seat to attend.

Reported in: Chronicle of Higher Education online, October 4.

Las Vegas, Nevada

The Bush administration denied entry to all sixty-one Cuban scholars scheduled to participate in the Latin American Studies Association’s international congress in Las Vegas, deeming them “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” The last-minute move, which came on the heels of new restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba, provoked anger and dismay among leading American academics, who called it an unprecedented effort to sever scholarly exchanges that have been conducted since 1979.

Darla Jordan, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said the decision reflected the stricter policies toward Cuba announced last year by President Bush as a strategy to hasten the end of Fidel Castro’s government. Citing sixty-eight members of the opposition in Cuba who remain in prison there after being arrested in 2003, she said, “We will not have business as usual with the regime that so outrageously violates the human rights of the peaceful opposition.”

But organizers of the conference said they learned of the denial only a few days before the meeting, after months of assurances by State Department officials that the visas were on track. Those rejected include poets, sociologists, art historians, and economists, among them a professor who was a visiting scholar at Harvard last fall and others who have frequently lectured at leading American universities.

“This is attacking one of the fundamental principles of academic life in the United States, which is freedom of inquiry, “ said Marysa Navarro, a historian at Dartmouth who is president of the association, the world’s largest academic organization for individuals and institutions that study Latin America. “I asked when was the decision made, and I was told that it was very recent and it was very high up, so it was either the secretary of state or the White House.”

“It’s an election year,” she added, “and I think we’re being held hostage to satisfy that sector of the U.S. electorate which is against any kind of relations with Cuba.”

The Bush administration has undertaken tough measures against Cuba in the pre-election season that administration officials say are intended to help establish Cuba as a democratic free-market state. But critics say the measures are chiefly devised to strengthen the incumbent’s backing among Cuban-Americans in Florida, a swing state.

“Restricting access of Cuban academics to the United States is consistent with the overall tightening of our policy,” Jordan said, noting that Cuban academic institutions are state run. “Our policy is not about restricting academic exchanges or freedom of expression. It is the Castro regime that does that through its restrictive issuance of passports and exit permits only to those academics on whom it can rely to promote its agenda of repression and misrepresentation about Cuba and the United States.”

But this characterization of the invited Cuban academics was angrily rejected by John Coatsworth, director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. “I can tell you with a certainty that that’s a lie,” Professor Coatsworth said, noting that among the scholars denied visas are five contributing authors to a book on the Cuban economy in the early twentieth century, which the center is publishing next month.

He said that one, Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, who was a visiting scholar at Harvard last fall, even wrote his dissertation on the benefits of direct foreign investment in Cuba. “They are honest, they’re courageous, they do superb work,” Professor Coatsworth said. “These are the kind of people who let the Soviet Union become Russia. This policy of restricting people-to-people contacts only benefits those who would benefit from violent change instead of a peaceful transition.”

Professor Navarro said that the United States had not imposed blanket restrictions on scholars from other countries where political dissidents are jailed. Among the presenters at the conference are four scholars from China who apparently had no difficulty with visas, she said.

Though 75 percent of the association’s 5,000 members live in the United States, its international congress, held every eighteen months, draws participants from all over the world. Forty-five sessions out of 600 will have to be canceled, organizers said, including panels on contemporary Cuban poetry, gender in Cuban literature, and Cuban agriculture.

The message it confirms to the rest of the world, said Kristin Ruggiero, a historian who directs the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, “is that the borders are closing.”

Reported in: New York Times, October 1.

Washington, D.C.

Pop singer Janet Jackson’s bare breast flash earlier this year during the nationally televised Super Bowl football game will cost twenty CBS television stations a record total of $550,000 for violating indecency rules, U.S. communications regulators said September 22. The Federal Communications Commission voted to fine the CBS stations, owned by conglomerate Viacom, Inc., $27,500 each for airing the incident.

“The U.S. Constitution is generous in its protection of free expression, but it is not a license to thrill,” said FCC Chairman Michael Powell. “The context of the halftime show leads us to conclude that the breast-baring finale was intended.”

Jackson’s fellow singer Justin Timberlake ripped her costume, briefly exposing her bejeweled breast during the halftime show at the National Football League’s championship game on February 1, sparking about 542,000 complaints filed with the FCC.

The agency decided against fining the other 200-plus CBS affiliates that aired the show but are not owned by the network, stating that they were not involved in the planning, selection, or approval of the halftime festivities.

“Every licensed station broadcasting over the public airwaves has a legal obligation to uphold community standards,” said Brent Bozell, head of the Parents Television Council which had complained about the Jackson incident.

In addition to owning the CBS television network, Viacom also owns the MTV network, which was involved in producing the halftime show. The FCC said Jackson’s partial nudity was in apparent violation of the broadcast indecency standard, but decided against taking action against other parts of the broadcast as well as commercials despite other complaints.

U.S. regulations bar television and radio stations from airing obscene material, and they are limited to airing indecent material, such as explicit sex talk, to late hours when children are less likely to be watching or listening.

CBS countered that it had no advance knowledge of the stunt and did not believe indecency rules had been violated. “We are extremely disappointed in the ruling,” the CBS network said in a statement. “We are reviewing all of our options to respond to the ruling.”

The Jackson incident also prompted a crackdown by the FCC on the antics of television and radio stations to the point that many broadcasters are now instituting tape delays of live events to ensure they do not run afoul of the rules.

The $27,500 fine is the maximum currently allowed by law although Congress is contemplating legislation to hike that to as much as $500,000 per incident.

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein dissented from the decision only to fine the CBS-owned stations, noting that the fine was paltry compared to the $2.3 million on average the network took in for a thirty-second commercial during the game. “Today’s enforcement action goes out of its way to focus narrowly on the exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast on twenty CBS-owned stations,” he said.

Reported in: Wired News, September 22.

New York, New York

CBS announced in late September that it would not air a report on forged documents that the Bush administration used to sell the Iraq war until after the November 2 election. A network spokesperson issued a statement declaring, “We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election.”

The 60 Minutes segment was ready to air on September 8, but was bumped in favor of the now infamous report that relied on supposed National Guard memos whose authenticity CBS now says it cannot confirm. The furor over the Guard memos created a situation where CBS executives say “the network can now not credibly air a report questioning how the Bush administration could have gotten taken in by phony documents.”

The shelved 60 Minutes story deals with the origins of documents purportedly showing that Iraq under Saddam Hussein tried to obtain uranium from Niger—documents that turned out to be forgeries. The story, according to a Newsweek online report, asks “tough questions about how the White House came to embrace the fraudulent documents and why administration officials chose to include a sixteen-word reference to the questionable uranium purchase in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech.”

Though such questions are clearly relevant to a presidential campaign that largely revolves around Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, CBS said it would keep the answers to itself until the election has passed. Some questioned whether there might not be another motive behind the decision. Sumner Redstone, CEO of CBS’s parent company Viacom, made an unusual political statement at a gathering of corporate leaders in Hong Kong. “I don’t want to denigrate Kerry . . . but from a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal. Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on,” he said. “The Democrats are not bad people. . . . But from a Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company.”

Redstone repeated these sentiments in an interview with Time: “There has been comment upon my contribution to Democrats like Senator Kerry. Senator Kerry is a good man. I’ve known him for many years. But it happens that I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and I do believe that a Republican administration is better for media companies than a Democratic one.”

According to a write-up by Forbes, which sponsored the conference where Redstone issued his endorsement of Bush—the CEO asserted that “he never gets involved in any aspects of the network’s news coverage.” But many found that claim hard to believe when made by any media industry chief executive, and it seemed particularly dubious given Forbes’ report that “Redstone said he has been talking daily to top CBS officials and to Viacom board members about the controversy” over the Guard memos. Reported in: FAIR-L, September 28.

Denver, Colorado

City officials removed three pieces of art from a rotating display at Denver International Airport in July after six employees complained about them. The art was deemed too stressful for passengers and workers to view in light of the heightened security following 9/11, said Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, communications director for Mayor John Hickenlooper.

The contemporary art display called “The Luggage Project” was organized by Max Yawney, a New York artist. Yawney asked artists from around the world to make suitcases into art. One of the banned pieces was created by artist Madeleine Hatz, who lives in New York. Her suitcase is splattered with glossy red and black paint and contains bricks. A bumper sticker inside the suitcase reads, “Blood for Oil. Billionaires for Bush.” Billionaires for Bush is a satirical group that opposes President Bush.

Hatz claims she’s been censored. “Art is controversial, and we have a right to freedom of speech,” she said. “I’m showing that there’s a connection between blood spilled and oil spilled,” she said.

Another banned suitcase was a piece of luggage with a Dalmatian print and a handle made from a box cutter. A third piece showed a yellow case containing small toy planes and missiles. It was later reinstated after Vicki Braunagel, co-manager of aviation at DIA, decided it was only “borderline offensive.”

Braunagel said she found the three pieces “inappropriate” and pulled them July 9—the same day the exhibit went up—after consulting with Hickenlooper’s office.

The airport doesn’t have a written policy defining controversial art, but is considering developing one, Braunagel said. It hasn’t been an issue up until now, said Colleen Fanning, arts program manager for DIA.

The luggage display originally contained forty-three pieces and was part of a rotating show on the walkway between the concourse and Terminal A. It was located before the security screening area, and all the art was enclosed in glass cases. Reported in: Rocky Mountain News, July 30.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

When he proposed to “lynch” the Confederate battle flag on the Gettysburg College campus, John Sims wondered whether he’d get a thumbs down from the school’s art committee. Instead, “Oh my god, they were more psyched than I was,” recalled Sims, a thirty-six-year-old artist based in Sarasota, Florida. “I was like, wow, these are some cool white people.”

He doesn’t think so anymore. After complaints and threats against the artist and college officials, plans to dangle the politically charged symbol of the Confederacy from a noose atop a thirteen-foot gallows on the quadrangle—near the bloodiest battlefield of the Civil War—have been changed. Sims’s exhibition, which also features a rebel flag dolled up drag-style in fuchsia satin and a feather boa, was moved indoors, to the college’s Schmucker Art Gallery.

“They put a release out like a month before the show that said, ‘Artist to Lynch Confederate Battle Flag,’” he said about the work he calls “The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag.” “And then they say, ‘Turn this into a teaching moment.’ Get out of here.”

Classes were in session and fall was in the air at Gettysburg College as police secured the perimeter of the art gallery. Outside, a few of the school’s 2,500 students wandered a quadrangle lined with red antebellum buildings. Inside, students worked beside a uniformed guard, installing Sims’s “Recoloration Proclamation: The Gettysburg Redress.”

The exhibit displays Confederate battle flags, but in the colors of the African liberation movement (green, red, and black), along with other colors. One hangs next to voting booths used in Florida for the 2000 presidential election. And across from them is the flag with white feathers on fuchsia and silver spangly stars—a collaboration between Sims and a friend.

The Confederate battle flag is a symbol of bigotry and hatred to many people, but to others it is a way to remember the 258,000 Southerners who died in the Civil War. Members of the college art committee had hoped to use the exhibit to foster discussion of Gettysburg’s history, but officials and students acknowledge that those plans have tripped, skidded, and fallen flat.

Sims “picked a hot town for this,” said Elizabeth Basham, 21, a senior from Lexington. “I’m upset he’s not coming to explain what he was trying to do here.” Students should get behind the artist, she said. “But I think a lot of them are scared.”

In an airy office with a bodyguard outside, college President Katherine Haley Will called the experience “fascinating.” She has been in the job only since June 1 and said it’s been “a really interesting issue as a new president” to try to balance “artistic expression and freedom of speech and the need to secure a campus of students you’re responsible for.”

The reality of the second part came to her when the FBI called last month. “You really do have to take them seriously,” she said about threats to harm the school, the students, and the administration. “So we’re preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.”

On August 16, the school’s public relations department sent out its news release with the headline “Artist to ‘Lynch’ Confederate Flag at Gettysburg College.” It had the college’s contact information and Sims’s Web site address on it.

Back in Florida, Sims said he got hundreds of e-mails and calls. So did Will and other college officials, about 200 in all. “Well, maybe 300,” said Patricia Lawson, a college public relations official. “I’ve personally received an e-mail from a Klansman,” Will said. Insofar as the FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, can determine, several groups are behind the threats, the college said. A Confederate veterans group threatened to boycott the town, which makes its living from battlefield visitors. The town has given permits to groups whose leaders say they were bringing hundreds of demonstrators to protest at the exhibit opening.

“It’s pretty bad timing,” Sabrena Meyerhoff, a leader of the Adams County Republican Party, said of the art exhibit controversy. “And history is history. So many men died here; we should respect that.”

At Ernie’s Texas Lunch, a few blocks from the campus, “I hear the KKK’s coming, skinheads, and that’s totally ridiculous,” said Jessica Stouffer, 30, ringing up a customer. “The man’s an artist. It’s nothing against the actual flag and what the flag stands for. But that’s kind of scary, with the college kids. I mean, they’re only 18 or so.”

Molly Hutton, Schmucker Art Gallery director, led the committee that signed on to the gallows plan. She moved to Gettysburg two years ago from the San Francisco Bay area, where she was curator for a private art collection. She said the mock hanging of the flag was meant to be “something people couldn’t avoid, that you would have to confront multiple times.”

Hutton added: “We are an institution that witnessed the before and after of the Civil War. This was to try to begin a dialogue about one of the symbols of that conflict. . . . I think we’re all a little disappointed.”

Sims has done flag-related art shows in Harlem and Tampa, but he designed the gallows especially for Gettysburg. To him, the Confederate battle flag “speaks to a notion of white supremacy. It cannot be the symbol that represents southern heritage. It just can’t.”

He said he’s not coming because “I have every right to lynch it [and] I wanted to do it outside.” About the people he has dealt with at the college, he said, “I think they’re all great. They just got in over their heads.” Reported in: Washington Post, September 3.

McAllen, Texas

Weslaco artist Rene Garza, 27, was surprised and upset that the International Museum of Art and Science rejected a controversial sculpture of his for an upcoming installation in the museum’s fledgling sculpture garden. The installation was for a fund-raiser in late July for the sculpture garden. By the time the piece was rejected, the museum’s two curators had already indicated they liked the six-foot sculpture of a globe made of gas station signs and scrap mufflers sitting on an oil barrel, Garza said. Museum staff had picked up the piece from Garza’s Weslaco home days earlier and the sculpture had been on display.

When Lewis Savoie, the museum’s executive director, returned from a trip in Spain, he indicated he did not want Garza’s sculpture in the installation. “It was so 1980s,” Savoie said, referring to the pieces’ themes of the oil industry’s effect on the world’s societies and economies. “It was a political statement that was outdated and possibly damaging to the museum. “We’re not a platform for political statements.”

Two of the museum’s major contributors are oil and energy companies, Savoie said. “I need to consider the overall well-being of the museum,” he explained.

Garza, who describes his art as looking at the global world and the need for freer markets, said he doesn’t understand the reference to 1980s art, but said he finds the United States to be very similar to that of more than twenty years ago. “You’ve got (President Ronald) Reagan, you’ve got (President George W.) Bush, we’ve got the same political climate,” Garza said. “How do you boycott this (oil and gas) industry? We are run by this industry.”

The museum is a private charity but receives more than half its revenue from public coffers, according to the museum’s 2002 tax forms.

Fifty-seven percent, or $843,741, of the museum’s $1.48 million revenue came from government contributions, according to the 2002 tax form. The city of McAllen gave the museum $672,075 this current fiscal year, which ends September 30, said Jerry Dale, the city’s finance director.

McAllen city commissioners Hilda Salinas and Brian Godinez said they had not received any complaints or comments about the situation. The museum operates under its own board of directors and the city has little influence on its decision, although it is one of its largest contributors, Godinez said.

“If the artist or those in the artist community felt it was wrong, I’d encourage them to come and let us know,” Godinez said. Another board member, Mike Blum said the museum has grown tremendously in the past few years and he understands Savoie’s decision to avoid some controversial pieces of artwork in order to ensure that contributions continue to increase. “There’s a war going on in Iraq and there’s terrorism in general around the world and there are people that are critics of the U.S. for various reasons,” Blum said. “One can conclude from looking at this particular piece and draw some conclusions that a (non-profit organization) that is out in the business world trying to raise money might upset people that don’t need to be upset.”

Savoie said Garza was told he could submit another piece of work but failed to do so. Garza said he felt this piece had the most important message. “If you have art that is friendly to corporations, then you can exist,” Garza said. Reported in: McAllen Monitor, August 8.

Salt Lake City, Utah

Just three weeks before it officially kicked off, the first-ever city-sponsored book club generated controversy with one of its first recommendations. And the Salt Lake City mayor’s office hunkered down to head off an anticipated firestorm over the book club’s profanity- and blasphemy-laced choice. Meanwhile, at least one councilman asked the mayor’s office to consider picking a new book.

City officials apparently became aware of the controversy after the Deseret Morning News inquired about the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by English author Mark Haddon. The popular book about an autistic Sherlock Holmes wannabe who uncovers the truth about a slain dog is replete with four-letter words, including at least twenty-two f-words, sixteen s-words, and thirty-three profane references to Jesus Christ and God. The book also includes a four-letter reference to female anatomy that—in context—is “horribly abusive” to women, one council member said.

“If young men were talking to their girlfriends and mothers that way, we as a society would be offended and rightfully so,” Councilman Eric Jergensen said. “We as a society should not be recommending this type of literature.”

Annette Daley, the only person on the mayor’s book committee who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, agreed there weren’t many, if any, social conservatives on the panel who might have provided more balance to the selection process.

“This is the mayor’s book club, and the mayor certainly doesn’t make any beans about the fact that he’s not conservative,” she said. “(The committee members) reflect his political and intellectual ideologies.”

Daley said she loved the book and believes others of her faith can enjoy it. After all, she said, kids hear worse language in high school.

“It’s just going down the road of book censorship,” one of the mayor’s staffers said. “I read the book and I don’t see what’s so offensive about it.”

The book was part of the inaugural “Salt Lake Reads Together” initiative, which kicked off September 15 and was designed to get city residents reading the same books together. Many cities have run popular citywide book clubs beginning with one created by Seattle’s public library in the late ’90s.

Council members insisted their motives weren’t to censor but rather they want the mayor’s office to choose a book that the whole community can read. This book, some council members said, could not be enjoyed by most LDS faithful (who make up 45 percent of Salt Lake City residents), as well as Baptists, Muslims, Catholics, or even atheists offended by profanity.

Jergensen said people should be free to read the book and check it out at city libraries but Salt Lake City, the municipality, shouldn’t be promoting or encouraging people to read it. “I think we as a city would not recommend dropping the f-bomb every other word, so why are we promoting it?” he said. “Politicians are excoriated for using that kind of language in public.” Reported in: Deseret News, August 24.

Beijing, China

The Internet’s most popular search engine, Google, has been accused of supporting Chinese internet controls by omitting contentious news stories from search results in China. State-sponsored Internet providers in China routinely block access to Internet sites deemed inappropriate by the government. These include both Chinese and foreign news sites carrying reports that criticize the Chinese government.

Researchers at Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT), a US company that provides technology for circumventing Internet restrictions in China, have discovered that the recently-launched Chinese version of Google News omits blocked news sources from its results. The origin of a computer sending a search request can be identified using its Internet protocol (IP) address.

Google admits to omitting some news sources within China but says this is meant to improve the quality of the service. “In order to create the best possible news search experience for our users, we sometimes decide not to include some sites, for a variety of reasons,” says a statement issued by the company. “These sources were not included because their sites are inaccessible.”

Bill Xia, chief executive of DIT, however, accused Google of reinforcing Chinese Internet restrictions by leaving some sites off its list. “When people do a search they will get the wrong impression that the whole world is saying the same thing,” he said.

DIT enables Chinese Internet users to get around government restrictions by connecting to computers located outside of the country. Some users recently reported that Google’s Chinese news search returned different results depending when they searched using a computer based outside of China. The claims were substantiated by researchers who connected to computers inside the country.

In the past, other search companies have also been accused of supporting Chinese Internet controls. In 2002, for instance, Yahoo’s Chinese search engine was modified to provide only limited results for queries related to the banned religious group, Falun Gong.

And Xia noted that Google recently acquired a stake in a Chinese search company called Baidu.com.

Ben Edelman, of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, part of Harvard University in the United States, said Google will face increasing pressure from the Chinese government to adhere to its restrictions as it extends its reach. “As Google gains more interest in China and even comes to have financial interests in China, it’s hard to imagine Google won’t do so,” he told commented. Reported in: New Scientist, September 21.

Baghdad, Iraq

Iraq’s interim government closed the Baghdad office of the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television network for one month in August, citing national security concerns. “This decision was taken to protect the people of Iraq and the interests of Iraq,” Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told a news conference August 8. Allawi said the order to close Al-Jazeera, which was to take effect immediately, came after an independent commission monitored the network’s reports.

“They came up with a concise report on the issues of incitement and the problems Al-Jazeera has been causing.”

Jihad Ballout, the network’s spokesman, told CNN in an interview from Qatar: “I don’t think that Al-Jazeera ever incites violence.”

Government ministers had been critical of the Arabic-language network, saying it has been airing dangerous, inciteful images and reports. Among those images are videos of people abducted in the recent wave of kidnappings.

“I got an order from the National Security Committee to close Al-Jazeera starting from today for one month just to give them the chance to readjust their policy against Iraq,” said Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib. When asked why, al-Naqib said “you know exactly” what the network has been doing. “They have been showing a lot of crime and criminals on TV. They transferred a bad picture about Iraq and about Iraqis. They have encouraged the criminals and the gangsters to increase their activities in the country,” al-Naqib said.

In a statement, the Interior Ministry added: “Al-Jazeera has accepted to be the mouthpiece of terrorist and criminal groups thus contributing to attempts to impair security and achieve aims of terrorism in spreading terror in the minds of peaceful Iraqi citizens with activities that have nothing to do with acts of violence. In so doing, it has contributed to hindering the Iraq reconstruction process by justifying kidnappings and killing of foreigners working here. It has also subjected the security, safety, and property of citizens as well as government facilities’ security and safety of national armed forces to danger.”

Reported in: CNN.com, August 8.

Kuwait City, Kuwait

Kuwait, a major U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf, has banned Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 because it deems the movie insulting to the Saudi Arabian royal family and critical of America’s invasion of Iraq. “We have a law that prohibits insulting friendly nations, and ties between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are special,” Abdul-Aziz Bou Dastour, cinema and production supervisor at the Information Ministry, said.

He claimed the film “insulted the Saudi royal family by saying they had common interests with the Bush family and that those interests contradicted the interests of the American people.”

The ministry made the decision to bar Fahrenheit 9/11 in mid-July after the state-owned Kuwait National Cinema Co. asked for the license to show the movie. The company monopolizes cinemas in Kuwait, but all movies must first be sanctioned by government censors.

Fahrenheit 9/11, which won the top honor at May’s Cannes Film Festival, depicts the White House as asleep at the wheel before the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington. Moore accuses President Bush of fanning fears of future terrorism to win public support for the Iraq war.

The Saudi royal family took issue with the movie for claiming that high-ranking Saudi nationals were allowed to flee the United States immediately after the attacks at a time when American airspace had been closed to all commercial traffic. The 9/11 commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals took place before the reopening of national airspace on September 13.

The film is already playing elsewhere in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.

Reported in: Associated Press, August 1.

Beirut, Lebanon

Dan Brown would have never predicted that his novel would be censored. “I can’t imagine why,” he answered on his Web site to the question of whether he feared repercussions because of the controversy surrounding The Da Vinci Code. “The theory I reveal is one that has been whispered for centuries. It is not my own.”

However, the Catholic Information Center in Lebanon didn’t care, they wanted the book off the market. Surete Generale banned the world bestseller after the Catholic Center complained. On September 10, Lebanese booksellers had to take all French, English, and Arabic copies off the shelves. The ban came after Surete Generale asked the Catholic Information Center two weeks ago for their opinion on The Da Vinci Code, which has sold millions of copies worldwide.

According to an official statement by the Directorate Generale of Surete Generale, the department always contacts religious authorities when new books might cause trouble. “Religious books are referred to the Catholic Center of Information, Dar al-Fatwa, the Higher Shiite Islamic Council or to the Mashaykhat al-aql (Druze) to be studied,” the statement said. “The measure . . . aims at making the concerned religious authorities take part in subjects that either touch religions or sensitivities among sects, especially . . . such books that include a distortion of the religion . . . which might cause disturbance due to the society’s sensitivity over such issues.”

“Our answer was that the books harmed Christian beliefs,” explained the center’s president, Father Abdou Abu Kasm. “It said that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and sired a bloodline. We denounce such attempts to harm Christian beliefs. It may be allowed in other countries, but in Lebanon, the law forbids the harming of religious beliefs,” he said.

The law allows the “censoring authorities” to censor obscene and pornographic materials, political and religious materials, which could harm the national security of the country. This clause is regularly applied to films. In January 2002, Virgin Megastore was raided by Lebanese police confiscating 600 DVD films including “The Great Escape,” “Rush Hour,” “Key Largo,” and comedies such as “Some Like It Hot” and “The Nutty Professor.” “The Insider” by Michael Mann, a film about the tobacco industry, was only shown in Lebanese cinemas after an interview with Shiite Sheikh Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was taken out.

Lebanese filmmaker Randa Sabag was asked by authorities to cut forty minutes from her award winning A Civilized People. She refused and it was never shown in Lebanon.

However, print products are usually left alone. Only a few books on the civil war have been censored. In fact, Lebanon is regularly praised for its low level of censorship in a region where the banning of books is daily business. But with the banning of The Da Vinci Code,” Lebanon became the first and only country worldwide to ban it.

“The Syrians have permitted it,” said Bassam Shibura, a partner with Dar Al Arabia Lil Ouloum (Arab Publishers for the Sciences), that holds the rights for the Arabic edition of The Da Vinci Code. According to Shibura, the book has passed the censors in the Gulf and he is now awaiting Saudi Arabia’s decision. “I told Surete Generale, you are the only country to ban a book that has been translated into fifty languages,” he said.

The Lebanese publishers’ association sent an open letter to President Emile Lahoud to denounce “such suppression of freedoms.”

“We now have a Culture Ministry, so why do security authorities deal with culture?” the letter asked.

Even though Shibura did not expect the novel to be banned in Lebanon, he was aware that it might cause problem. “When I was translating it, I was trying to amend some things in order to appease the Saudi authorities, because that is our biggest market. But you would have to change the whole story.”

Reported in: Lebanon Daily Star, September 16.

©2004 American Library Association.
Office for Intellectual Freedom
The American Library Association
50 E. Huron Street
Chicago, IL 60611-2795
1-800-545-2433 ext. 4223
fax: 312-280-4227

This site is best viewed with Internet Explorer 6+