This morning NPR ran a story on Yale University’s decision to force the Yale University Press to remove all depictions of the prophet Muhammed, including several controversial Danish cartoons, from Jytte Klausen’s book The Cartoons that Shook the World. As had already been reported, the University’s decision was based, in part, on various outside experts on national security, terrorism, and Islam who beleived republication of the cartoons could spark further violence. What I had not previously known, but NPR reported today, is that the experts consulted by Yale University were not asked to read the book, only to comment on the cartoons.
just a few weeks before publication, Yale University, which owns the Yale Press, mounted a second review. The university asked some 20 scholars, counterterrorism officials and national security experts to asses the risk of more violence if copies of the cartoons were included in the book.“It was fairly overwhelming that the people who knew the most about this kind of situation said ‘Don’t do it,’ that this was likely to provoke violence,” Yale Press director John Donatich said. . . .
The university told Yale Press to eliminate the cartoons from the book, along with all other images of Muhammad. And Klausen was told she’d have to sign a nondisclosure agreement if she wanted to read the experts’ comments. She declined to do so. But she says she was even more dismayed to learn that the panel had not read her book.
“My first reaction was that it was stunningly similar to what happened during the conflict itself,” said Klausen. “I disagreed with the experts’ advice. I felt that had the experts read my book, they would not have given the advice they produced.”
So we are clear: A prominent University censored content from a book based on the opinions of experts who had not read the book in question.
LTEC says:
What if the “experts” decided that no matter how fawning and apologetic the book was, the cartoons would still spark further violence? Then there would be no point in them reading the book.
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October 26, 2009, 11:43 amAssistant Village Idiot says:
Who, then, is Yale University Press in a position to criticise on issues of censorship?
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October 26, 2009, 11:48 amProf. S. says:
I guess I don’t get what the big deal is about them not reading the book. Are we suppose to think that all of the people who they were afraid would riot would read the book before doing so? This is a complete red herring.
You would do a much better job of making your argument if you focused on what mattered instead of clouding the issue with points that do not matter.
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October 26, 2009, 11:53 amSmooth, like a Rhapsody says:
yes I agree with LTEC.
What difference would it have made if the consultants had read the text? The pictures are what they are.
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October 26, 2009, 11:54 amCan't find a good name says:
I agree with LTEC, Prof. S, and Smooth.
That said, if Yale University Press was unwilling to publish the book with the cartoons included, the honorable thing to do would have been to cancel publication and allow the author to keep her advance and let her try to get the book published by a braver publisher.
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October 26, 2009, 11:59 amShelbyC says:
Cuz reading the book would make them less craven?
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October 26, 2009, 11:59 amdelurking says:
LTEC, Prof. S, and Smooth:
The University was trying to decide if the value of publishing the images and cartoons was worth the possible consequences, not just what was the probability of violence. You can’t make a judgment on the scholarly value of publishing without reading the book.
Any publications, on any topic, may offend someone. The question is always whether or not publishing the offensive material is justified by the value created by publishing.
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October 26, 2009, 12:03 pmAnon314 says:
If Yale is concerned publication of a book with cartoons in it will lead to violence, by which they mean Muslim violence, the problem is not with the book. The problem is Islam.
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October 26, 2009, 12:36 pmD says:
Did anyone hear the young muslim woman. She claimed that this was “hate speech,” in the nature of a swastika. I found this particularly unconvincing since hardly any Jews object to the use of Swastikas in books or movies about the Holocaust. Like a Swastika, the pictures of the Prophet are necessary to understanding why Muslims became upset.
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October 26, 2009, 12:41 pmSmooth, like a Rhapsody says:
delurking:
okay, but doesn’t the argument that they (the consultants) should have read the book presuppose the premise that the character of the text might change the resonance of the pictures, not for law professors in middle America but for those dedicated to jihad against the Great Satan? Is that plausible?
Are you saying then that the consultants might have come to a different decision had they read the text? (And don’t you think that the publishers gave the consultants a good precis of the text before they gave them the photos?)
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October 26, 2009, 12:45 pmGrigor says:
This may be a naive question, but I’m not an academic and have never published a book so indulge me on it. I have wondered about this since the story about this book hit the news. Does the standard publishing contract with an academic publisher not leave the author with any editorial control at all over the content of the book? Upon learning that YUP was intending to publish the book without the cartoons in it, did the author have no recourse whatever to pull the book and find another publisher? It seems to me, just approaching it from a legal perspective, that the cartoons themselves in this case are so central to the editorial content of the book that rescission would be justified.
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October 26, 2009, 1:12 pmHarryEagar says:
Better yet, is there going to be an edition in Arabic, Turkish, Urdu etc?
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October 26, 2009, 2:23 pmSteve says:
You can’t make a judgment on the scholarly value of publishing without reading the book.
Of course, every last one of the people criticizing this decision is doing exactly that.
I don’t know why they should have to read the book to levy their criticisms, but I’m not sure why it matters if anyone else reads the book, either. No hypothetical radical is going to change their behavior based upon whether the book is a great work of scholarship.
I guess after all the “read the bill” shenanigans we were about due for a “read the book” argument, but it seems really silly. Then again, if I’m the author of a niche book like this one, I guess I’d be really eager for anyone at all to read it.
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October 26, 2009, 3:20 pmSteve says:
If Yale is concerned publication of a book with cartoons in it will lead to violence, by which they mean Muslim violence, the problem is not with the book. The problem is Islam.
Maybe the problem is Yale? I mean, either the concern about violence is silly bed-wetting stuff, in which case it’s hardly an indictment of Islam, or else the concern is very real, in which case the people who like to lob accusations of cowardice are being awfully cavalier about other people’s safety.
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October 26, 2009, 3:26 pmAeon J. Skoble says:
They should be ashamed, and the rest of us should stop regarding them as prestigious
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October 26, 2009, 3:31 pmkdackson says:
I am stunned that no one has anything to say that the true deniers of free speech are the people who would be responsible for the violence caused by publication of the book.
If that is not the ultimate “heckler’s veto”, I do not know what is.
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October 26, 2009, 3:51 pmPatHMV says:
I want to know why Yale is so prejudiced against Islam that it believes many Muslims would riot if it published a few cartoons.
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October 26, 2009, 4:42 pmCarLitGuy says:
Grigor,
in answer to your question from my own experience (co-Author of a poorly distributed book to a very limited audience, many years ago), the editor had great discretion over the content of the book as it was drafted. Of course, my co-Author and I could have returned our advance, and taken our text elsewhere — but the risk that no other publisher would take on such a small print textbook for a very limited field, and the potential damage to my co-Author’s relationship with that publisher were too great to justify the risk.
So, we re-organized, re-wrote, and generally tried to emphasize the points that they said needed to be in there. Was a better book for it, but I was young and headstrong, and had to step away from the project when it was revised a few years later.
I suspect authors like Steven King, Peter Straub, Carl Sagan, and J.K Rowling are currently dictating terms to their editors, but those of us writing for much smaller audiences have commensurately smaller influence.
At least, in my limited experience.
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October 26, 2009, 5:03 pmegd says:
I think you’re being a little quick to judge here. Were the experts told what the subject of the book was, or did the publishers just ask a few friends “what would happen if we republished the Muhammad cartoons?”
Either way, Yale is cowardly in refusing to publish material which is the topic of the book, but at least in the latter circumstance the experts don’t look like idiots.
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October 26, 2009, 5:14 pmdelurking says:
Smooth responded:
That is not relevant. Imagine a different hypothetical book, which presents scientific evidence that some daily ritual mandated by the prophet Mohammed is detrimental to one’s health. It then suggests that said ritual be ceased by all Muslims. If published, one could expect a violent response from Muslims in the middle east. What if the publishers of that book then distributed only the chapter recommending that the ritual be ceased to reviewers, who recommended it not be published. Even if only moderate middle-American Muslims were likely to cease the ritual, and middle-eastern Muslims were likely to respond violently, it would still be worth publishing. The reviewers would be unable to judge that, not having seen the evidence.
The only moderating thing here is that it probably wasn’t those consultants who made the decision. One would hope that the person or committee who ultimately decided to excise the cartoons and other artistic images did read the book. Perhaps in making their decision they read the book and took into account the opinions of the consultants who did not.
I would still disagree with it, but it would not be as stupid as the alternative.
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October 26, 2009, 5:18 pmDavid Schwartz says:
Because if they haven’t read the book, the question can only be “is there a reason not to publish the cartoons?” to which the answer is obvious, “yes, it will offend people who might resort to violence”. What purpose did the experts serve then? We all knew that.
The question was whether the benefit to the book to including the actual cartoons was outweighed by the harm publishing the cartoons would do. This would require expert investigation into both the harm and the good, which apparently was not done.
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October 26, 2009, 5:19 pmLarryA says:
Right. The consultants were asked, “If we publish a picture depicting Mohammad, will people wearing bomb vests show up on our steps?” The answer was yes, regardless of the artistic merit.
It was Harvard’s responsibility to judge whether the risk was worth it.
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October 26, 2009, 5:19 pmDangerMouse says:
I want to know why Yale is so prejudiced against Islam that it believes many Muslims would riot if it published a few cartoons.
Maybe because they did before?
Not defending Yale, but Islam ain’t exactly the “Religion of Peace” they claim it is.
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October 26, 2009, 5:21 pmrichard says:
Does the standard publishing contract with an academic publisher not leave the author with any editorial control at all over the content of the book? Upon learning that YUP was intending to publish the book without the cartoons in it, did the author have no recourse whatever to pull the book and find another publisher?
In this case, whether in the contract or not, the author was given the chance to pull the book. Despite the fact that she strongly disagreed with the decision not to print the pictures, she chose to have the book published by Yale Press. Why she made that decision was unclear (at least from what I heard) on the NPR report
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October 26, 2009, 5:28 pmCan't find a good name says:
LarryA: This was Yale, not Harvard.
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October 26, 2009, 5:31 pmGrigor says:
Richard — thank you. I hadn’t heard the NPR report and never knew that the author had been given the opportunity to re-place the book. I don’t remember that ever being mentioned in any of the stories I’d seen about this. That seems like kind of a significant fact, no? Doesn’t that undermine the author’s standing to complain about the Press’s decision to omit the cartoons from the finished book? If she really had the chance to pull the book, I bet plenty of other houses, academic and otherwise, would have jumped at the chance to publish it and trade off of the controversy.
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October 26, 2009, 5:38 pmHarryEagar says:
As far as academic rigor is concerned, anyone interested enough to read the book has probably already seen the cartoons or can find them on the Internet easily enough.
The question is, do Yale and its advisers believe Muslims — or at least enough of them to matter — are murderous maniacs?
The answer to that is yes.
If the Muslims understand what is going on, Yale has not reduced its chances of being bombed.
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October 26, 2009, 5:56 pmdearieme says:
Yale, Pale, Pole, Pope. Why not just burn the bloody book and have done with it?
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October 26, 2009, 6:03 pmBama 1L says:
I don’t understand why Klausen’s appreciation of the similarity between “what happened during the conflict itself” and her own plan to publish the cartoons led her to disagree with the experts. Did she think that contextualizing the cartoons would reduce the risk of violence? Isn’t the opposite conclusion–that context did not matter to the perpetrators of violence–more likely to be true?
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October 26, 2009, 6:28 pmPatHMV says:
Duh, DangerMouse. My comment was aimed at the self-regarded tolerant liberals at Yale, to show that their actions in censoring the book on fear of violence (they were unwilling to say that their reason for censoring was because they don’t want to offend a religion, since they regularly offend Christians of all stripes) was in fact a display of the very cultural bigotry they claim to oppose.
Either there is no danger of violence, because Islam is a religion of peace, or there IS a danger of violence, because a not-insignificant number of people who consider themselves Muslim are willing to commit violence over the publication of pictures. One, and only one, of those statements must be true. But Yale and some liberals want to have it both ways, and not recognize the inherent contradiction between the two statements.
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October 26, 2009, 6:39 pmSteve says:
My thinking is that if you own a publishing house, you pretty much have the right to “censor,” if that’s even the word for it. If Yale had simply declined to publish the book in the first place, no one ever would have known. For all we know, there could be 30 other publishers who rejected the whole idea out of hand due to a craven fear of violence, yet none of them are coming under criticism.
I guess we could start a list of people who simply aren’t allowed to run their own business as they see fit. I’ll kick it off: 1) the bakers in Lochner, 2) the NFL, 3) Yale University Press...
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October 26, 2009, 6:57 pmJimbino says:
Yale School Motto:
Lux e veritas.
http://www.giftsforprofessionals.com/item/yale-university-letter-opener
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October 26, 2009, 7:45 pmricky says:
re: PatHMV
I bet you nearly every professor on that campus would scream at you if you dared to insinuate that Muslims are prone to violence. And they all would privately shudder at the thought of this book being released by their employer.
Kind of like the way many white liberals extol the virtues of “diversity” and then do whatever they can to get as far away from it as possible. The only question is, on an individual level, is it hypocrisy or doublethink?
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October 26, 2009, 8:02 pmPatHMV says:
Steve, the word “censor” is not limited to government action. Government censorship generally violates the First Amendment, but when Hollywood enforced codes of conduct for movies and TV, the people with such jobs were called “censors.” I don’t think anybody disputes that Yale has the right to control the content of books published by the Yale University Press. The criticism aimed at them is for their hypocrisy and their craven-ness.
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October 26, 2009, 8:08 pmDonBoy says:
Or, there’s the consistent position that there are a billion Muslims in the world, that 99.99% of them of are peaceful, and that the remaining 0.01 percent, at 100,000 strong, are enough scary people to be worried about.
And it’s not just that many here are loudly calling for other people to be brave with their lives; they’re calling for those other people to be brave with other, other, peoples’ lives. That is, in the event someone’s going to go suicide-vest over this, it’s pretty likely not to be at the expense of the dozen or so people involved in the decision.
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October 26, 2009, 8:11 pmricky says:
There’s always some excuse for cowardice, DonBoy. Especially from the Ivy League crowd.
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October 26, 2009, 8:16 pmProf. S. says:
Why do you believe the experts who viewed the cartoons were in any position to comment on the literary value of the book? Seems to me the ONLY thing the experts could comment on is the very thing they reviewed.
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October 26, 2009, 8:31 pmPatHMV says:
DonBoy... yes, but the same people worried enough about the potential for Islamic-related violence to the cartoons loudly denounced President Bush and conservatives for discussions about “Islamo-fascism,” no matter how careful they were to say that the small minority of Muslims committing the violence were not representative of the religion of Islam which, when properly interpreted and practiced, is one of peace.
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October 26, 2009, 8:47 pmricky says:
You know, there are a billion blacks in the world, and 99.99% of them are nonviolent, so I’m going to take the “consistent” position not to open my door to this unknown black person because 100,000 violent blacks are enough scary people to be worried about. That’s not cowardice because, after all, I’m not worried about my safety but that of my wife and children.
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October 26, 2009, 9:16 pmPerseus says:
I agree that it wasn’t necessary for the security “experts” to have read the book if they believed that publishing the cartoons could provoke further violence regardless of the context in which they were used. That said, it was a shameful and cowardly violation of the principles of academic freedom on the part of Yale University Press.
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October 26, 2009, 9:38 pmSteve says:
I don’t think anybody disputes that Yale has the right to control the content of books published by the Yale University Press. The criticism aimed at them is for their hypocrisy and their craven-ness.
I think I could get on board with the people who think Yale is afraid for no good reason and should man up.
It’s the people who think Yale has every reason to be afraid of extremist Muslim violence, yet criticize them anyway, who really blow my mind. Easy to proclaim that people other than oneself ought to take risks, I guess.
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October 26, 2009, 9:39 pmricky says:
“It’s the people who think Yale has every reason to be afraid of extremist Muslim violence, yet criticize them anyway, who really blow my mind.”
My objection is that these same Yalies who pretend that all races, religions, and cultures are equal will censor a specific cartoon because they know that it will offend a specific demographic who, as everyone knows, are more dangerous than any others.
It’s not that anyone here would deny that their fears are legitimate. It’s that they are more than willing to denounce everyone else who expresses the same fears as illegitimate. Let them invite Salman Rushdie, Geert Wilders, and Pim Fortuyn to their campus if they want to be “consistent”.
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October 26, 2009, 10:05 pmFloridan says:
In this instance, what is the difference between “censor” and business decision? Yale is a private corporation, should it not make decisions based on its perception of what is in its best interests?
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October 26, 2009, 10:12 pmPerseus says:
Yale is more than a private corporation seeking to maximize profit. It is an institution of higher learning that purports to be committed to the principles of academic freedom.
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October 26, 2009, 10:24 pmDavid Schwartz says:
As one of those people, and speaking for myself only, let me clarify. I don’t criticize them specifically for not taking a risk.
I criticize them for not rationally evaluating whether the risk is worth taking. And I criticize them for specifically stating that if they had published the cartoons and violence had resulted, *they* would have been to blame. That is, that had they published the cartoons, they would not have been brave risk-takers but irresponsible risk-takers, themselves responsible for the violence:
That is, he thinks those who publish these cartoons have the blood on their hands. How crazy is that?
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October 26, 2009, 10:55 pmPatHMV says:
Steve, is it all right for us to point out that, if Yale (or CNN, or any other entity in the business of disseminating information and opinions) self-censors as a result of a belief that some offended group will react violently, that they will be encouraging those who disagree with them to commit violence, if that is the only way to get them to be non-offensive? I mean, say you’re a pretty fundamentalist Christian who is deeply offended by “Piss Christ.” You complained, didn’t advocate either government censorship or violence, and the collective response from the media and academic circles is to thumb their nose at the critics, and republish the image at every opportunity. Then you see Muslims riot because of some ink in a Danish newspaper, and the collective response of the media and the academic circles is to say “oh, so sorry, didn’t mean to offend” and refuse to further publish the images. What lesson is to be learned from that? Not that I would condone violence in any circumstances, but if one is unwilling to fight, and to risk violence, for one’s freedoms, then one will lose them. One gives a “rioter’s veto.”
How about this... if the Klan threatens to riot if the Million Man March organization is given a permit for another parade, should we acquiesce to those threats? Or should we condemn such backward-thinking, irrational bigotry, and take steps to protect the innocent from violence by insane maniacs?
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October 26, 2009, 11:05 pmChrisTS says:
We can fault the Administration of Yale for being cowardly (afraid of being the ‘cause’ of violence) or too concerned with not offending anyone (current and prospective students, parents, staff, donors etc.). We can fault the author for not seeking another press. We can certainly fault whoever it is who might be likely to engage in violence should the cartoons be published.
Given the realities of academia today and of scholarly publishing, I cannot come down too hard on either the Press or the author.
I could come down harder on the Administration and its lawyers. That may be because I am a professor, not an administrator. I certainly would not want to endanger my college, my students, or anyone else. I might think to myself, well, the cartoons are available on the Web, so we are not really suppressing information. I honestly do not know how I would have decided in this situation. I do think the Administration ought to have been more ‘pro-active’ and not intervened at the last moment before the manuscript went to press – which made matters far more difficult for both the Press and the author.
But, I think all this facile ‘I would always/never do X’ posturing is silly. What if the University or its Press were your client? What if you were someone who was genuinely concerned about the possible violence? Don’t forget, there is nothing new to the world that is being omitted from the book; the cartoons can be found online.
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October 26, 2009, 11:12 pmPatHMV says:
And when the KKK threatens to riot if you allow Jesse Jackson to speak at your university, Chris? Academic institutions are about the most long-term-thinking institutions we have in our society. If they won’t see the inevitable consequences of succumbing to threats of violence, then we really don’t have much hope.
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October 26, 2009, 11:20 pmChrisTS says:
Just to get back to the OP:
I don’t see why the experts on violence should have read the manuscript. They were to weigh in on the likelihood of violent reaction, not on the value of the book. The latter had already been determined by the editors of the Press.
The Administration wanted to determine the likelihood of violent response to the cartoons’ being republished in the book. Someone – I am guessing it was the Administration – assessed the benefits of the book as determined by the Press against the risks as predicted by the external experts, and decided they wanted to publish the book without the cartoons.
I certainly would like to know why the author was supposed to not read the reports from the experts. Perhaps they requested this?
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October 26, 2009, 11:22 pmLeo Marvin says:
Not opening your door on a 1/10,000 chance that the person on the other side is violent isn’t the same as announcing to the whole billion that your family, at [YOUR ADDRESS] is one that the violent few are looking for.
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October 26, 2009, 11:26 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Am I the only one who doesn’t buy the whole “if you print it, they will bomb” mentality? Not one ounce.
I think the larger issue is the institution (and the perception that other institutions like it) that is supposed to stand for core values, e.g., academic freedom, succumb to the pressures du jour at the expense of those core values they portend to espouse. It’s just like they are all for civil liberties, until somebody does something un-p.c. — then that action must be banned. You have free speech, until it’s “hate speech” etc. etc. etc. It’s the larger perception that such behavior is cowardly and unprincipled that is the issue.
So we are clear: A prominent University censored content from a book based on the opinions of experts who had not read the book in question.
We went deep into this the first time, and while many quibbled that you can’t characterize this as “censorship,” I remain resolved that you can. Look up the other thread if you care for that debate.
ChrisTS, I would agree with your intuition that the administrators and lawyers might be largely to blame too, which would explain why the “experts” didn’t read the book — all the lawyers needed was an expert opinion (or 20) to hang their hats on.
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October 26, 2009, 11:33 pmChrisTS says:
Pat: I fear, and am sorry to say, that this is not longer entirely true. Higher ed has been — if not invaded — influenced by the cautious, short term thinking so common in contemporary business. It is to be much regretted, but I think at this point we can only hold the line.
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October 26, 2009, 11:53 pmChrisTS says:
Sorry, Pat. I should have been more cautious, myself. :-) Or, precise. This is difficult for me to analyze from the position of an insider. And, of course institutions of higher ed differ (we are not all Yale, Penn, etc.). So, very broadly:
We have seen lots of risky short-term behavior in the markets; I do not mean to claim that ‘business’ as such is always risk-averse or given to long term thinking. But, higher ed is increasingly influenced by the more cautious version of the business (and legal) mentality.
Faculty are ‘conservative’ in some ways: we tend to want to do things as we are accustomed to doing them, we do not sudden change in curricula, and so forth.
However, the current crop of administrators is cautious in another way. They fear controversy, upset, bad press, and liability. I think it is the latter kind of ‘caution’ and sort-term thinking that is the cause of decisions like this one at Yale.
I am probably being less than fully articulate. Forgive me.
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October 27, 2009, 12:04 amChrisTS says:
SuperSkeptic:
Thanks, Dear.
As a professor, I find this kind of discussion very difficult. I truly believe that academics should embrace risks (as we would like our students to do). And, I am inclined to think that administrators are unacceptably risk-averse. On the other hand, I realize that I do not face the problems that administrators face.
I do not have to deal with bad press from all over the political spectrum; in particular, I do not have to respond to grandstanding politicians, talking heads, or pundits whenever they find something of which to make hay.
I do not have to deal with parents who think their children are not being kept safe. (I do have to deal with parents who think their children should receive better grades, but that is far less serious in my mind.) If something terrible does happen, no one follows me around with a camera crew. And, it is highly unlikely that anything that happens in my classes will result in the killing of any number of persons.
I do not like what Yale did in this case. But, I do not know what I would have decided, had the decision been mine, about the publication of the cartoons.
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October 27, 2009, 12:20 amPerseus says:
Pat: I fear, and am sorry to say, that this is not longer entirely true. Higher ed has been — if not invaded — influenced by the cautious, short term thinking so common in contemporary business. It is to be much regretted, but I think at this point we can only hold the line.
Administrators may be gutless wonders as a species, but faculty are no better, and institutions of higher learning already succumbed several decades ago. The late Allan Bloom detailed the sorry spectacle at Cornell during the 1960’s:
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October 27, 2009, 2:49 amUser says:
Ok.
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October 27, 2009, 4:43 amRichard Aubrey says:
The presumed violence was not the issue. The issue was a Saudi benefactor with deep pockets.
The presumed violence was presumed to be the most plausible excuse. After all, people had been killed in substantial numbers the last time the motoons went around.
IMO, this is a terrible slander of Muslims; to use their supposed propensity for mindless violence to cover up craven greed.
But I don’t see any Muslims complaining of the slander.
Quietly satisfied, perhaps?
This is, in Mark Steyn’s words, contemptible.
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October 27, 2009, 8:02 amInstapundit » Blog Archive » YALE UNIVERSITY: “So we are clear: A prominent University censored content from a book based on the… says:
[...] YALE UNIVERSITY: “So we are clear: A prominent University censored content from a book based on the opinions of... [...]
Sotiredofitall says:
Another example of an elitist ivy-league school that lectures the plebs on open debate but are unwilling to take a stand that involves any risk to themselves.
I welcome our islamic overlords.
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October 27, 2009, 8:14 amRoy E says:
It’s pretty clear that Yale Press was either bought off or intimidated.
Why all the beating around the bush about ‘concern about violence’? What nonsense!
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October 27, 2009, 8:19 amSome Law Talking Guy says:
First Amendment? Heck, this was product disparagement and a conspiracy in restraint of trade. If I tried this in my industry, I’d be in court by the end of the week.
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October 27, 2009, 8:23 amjt says:
This is a book specifically *about* the cartoons, so it’s nutty that the decision to include the cartoons took place after YUP had signed a publishing contract and the author delivered a final manuscript. Apparently, Yale’s administration reserves the right to overrule publishing decisions that might offend large potential donors and/or random Muslim lunatics. Is the next step to make sure faculty members never say anything politically incorrect in their lectures?
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October 27, 2009, 8:33 amPeterM says:
Do we know who, in addition to John Negroponte, supported suppression of the cartoons? We should know who was on the committee of 20 that made this decision.
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October 27, 2009, 8:35 amLeto says:
Would someone, anyone please tell me when it became mandatory that the world must sensitive to Islam? Can anyone pinpoint it?
This is what happens when you don’t assimilate into a culture.
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October 27, 2009, 8:51 amDiggs says:
Cowards do what cowards do. Book reading is hardly a prerequisite for cowardice. Not even intellectually honest cowardice.
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October 27, 2009, 8:52 amLockestep says:
Why would one undertake the publishing of a book about a controversial event, and not consider that the publication of the book would itself invoke controversy?
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October 27, 2009, 9:11 amrichard mcenroe says:
No, no, no, they’re just poor misunderstood victims.... who scare Yale’s frilly knickers yellow.
Not a lawyer, but a former agent, editor and soon to be publisher... I’d say the author has a pretty good case for at least breach of fiduciary obligation...
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October 27, 2009, 10:15 amCan't find a good name says:
In response to David Schwartz’s question about why the experts were consulted in the first place, given that the possibility of violence arising from republication of the cartoons was already known, my guess would be that perhaps the experts were consulted to judge the degree of risk Yale would be facing.
If the book was expected to have a low press run and not be distributed in certain countries, it might have been possible that most of the people who would be angriest about publication of the cartoons might not have heard about the book, or might not have found anyone in their country to target for violence with regard to the book. Even though it was known that some people might want to react with violence, the experts might have deemed the possibility of such violence occurring low enough to justify republication of the cartoons. That isn’t what they actually did decide, but they could have decided that.
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October 27, 2009, 10:30 amplutosdad says:
Probably the point of not reading it was the book was about how the only cases of violence happened with images that were NOT part of the original 12 images, but extra ones Imams in southern Asia spread around to rile people up. Or maybe the book was about the importance of standing up, and most of the threats of violence never materialized.
In that sense, if they read it, maybe they would have been convinced to keep the pictures. That is what she thinks. Indeed, maybe that is the very reason Yale asked them not to read it.
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October 27, 2009, 11:16 amYale’s shame « Internet Scofflaw says:
[...] (Via Volokh.) [...]
JM says:
Why can’t you just leave the cartoon in the book and put it in the adult section of the library?
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October 27, 2009, 1:42 pmDennis N says:
If this was the standard of academic courage in the 1960s, Rosa Parks would still be riding at the back of the bus and drinking from the dirty water fountain. People died in that struggle. And for the most part, the people organizing and promoting were not the people dying. Their deaths were not in vain.
The value of publishing the mo-toons is that, if the muslims riot and murder, it demonstrates to civilized people what kind of culture we are dealing with. Exposing the Truth has value, even if it has a cost in blood. Doing nothing has a cost in blood also, it’s just that the blood happens somewhere else, where you’re not looking.
Yale has taken the easy stance to dodge the truth. How can they be credible on in any other instance?
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October 27, 2009, 1:57 pmHarryEagar says:
Leto asks: ‘Would someone, anyone please tell me when it became mandatory that the world must sensitive to Islam?’
During the heyday of the British Empire, it was if not mandatory, at least politic for the imperial government to undertake/not undertake policies it wished to have because to do so would have resulted (they believed) in disorders in India.
No cites at hand, but everything the British did in the Middle East was done while looking over their shoulders at the Muslims in India.
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October 27, 2009, 1:58 pmDennis N says:
JM wins the thread!
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October 27, 2009, 1:59 pmFFIGHTER says:
If it were up to Prof S. The Declaration of Independence would not have been published, along with the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other works, that “offend” a certain class. Censorship and marginalization has been a fundamental tool, and is the foundation, the core principles of the left. That is, unless if fulfils their own agenda.
It is not the cartoons that cause violence, it is those that cause the violence who are ultimately responsible for any violence. But, that would involve responsibility, reason and restraint. It is this appeasement that strengthens their resolve, and boosters their demands, and escalates their rhetoric and violence. Peace through appeasement is a false promise, that never bears fruit.
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October 27, 2009, 2:46 pmTweets that mention No Bulldog Here: [Yale's experts] Judged the Cartoons, but Did Not Read the Book (Adler, Volokh via feedly, -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Edward Wiest, Desiree N. Williams. Desiree N. Williams said: “[Yale] censored [the Danish cartoons] based on the opinions of experts who had not read the book in question.” http://ow.ly/wVhZ [...]
sportutegirl says:
Many years ago my mother, along with the then DA and a group of concerned parents managed to get the Monty Python movie, Life of Brian, banned in my hometown, because it was, ‘sacreligious’. They did this without ever having seen the movie, just going on word-of-mouth. I was a child at the time, but years later I saw the movie at a video store and remembered the controversy. Feeling guilty, I rented it and watched one of the funniest movies ever. I found in it nothing evil or controversial. Since then, I have vowed never to protest or complain about any book, movie, cartoon, etc., unless I have personally experienced it. I think we should all do the same or shut up.
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October 27, 2009, 6:33 pmRichard Aubrey says:
Sportute.
Who is the “we” doing the complaining?
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October 27, 2009, 6:48 pmToday’s Lynch List « The Lynch Mob says:
[...] written application; good advice from Robin Anderson; balancing rights; cartoon judgement; dead attendee; new windmills to tilt at; and suicidal ducks. Possibly related posts: [...]
ChrisTS says:
I think the Admin was not aware of the Press’s intention to publish the book at the start. Something/someone alerted them.
Big U. administrations do not usually micromanage their presses until they sniff something that upsets them. Then, they micromanage.
And to the person who asked: yes, an administration can exert control over a university press. It holds the purse strings and usually has final say on hiring/appointments.
I’m interested in the suggestion that some donor was involved. Does anyone know about this, or are we speculating?
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October 28, 2009, 6:12 pmRichard Aubrey says:
ChrisTS.
Mark Steyn has a good piece on it.
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October 28, 2009, 7:26 pmDorothy says:
Great advice, i like it. I have just got interested in blogging and hopefully i am able to do so
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November 29, 2009, 3:12 pm