Archive/File: orgs/american/codoh/university.response ubuffalo.001 Last-Modified: 1994/06/22 Newsgroups: alt.revisionism From: v140pxgt@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) Subject: SUNY/Buffalo student paper rejects CODOH ad Message-ID:Date: Sat, 16 Apr 1994 02:35:00 GMT From today's (4/15) Buffalo News, p. B1: UB NEWSPAPER BARS AD CALLING HOLOCAUST A LIE 2 controversial revisionists denied access as being unfit by Karen Brady Advertisements questioning the veracity of the holocaust will not appear in the University at Buffalo's student newspaper, editors of the Spectrum decided this week. "This is not a decision to avoid controversy. "We have the right to reject anything we deem unfit for our paper, and these ads certainly fall into that category." The student editors decision came after the recent receipt of unsolicited ads claiming, among other things, that the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC displays no proof that the gas chambers existed in Nazi camps or that they were used to murder Jews during World War II. Such ads have been arriving on campuses across the country for about three years-and have caused protests at universities and colleges where they have run, including the University of Miami and Brandeis, Cornell, Duke, and Georgetown. Yale, Harvard, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania are among those who have refused to print the ads. In Florida this week, the student paper [at Miami) is under fire because of its decision to run the $288 paid ad placed by California writer Bradley R. Smith, 64, entitled "A Revisionist Challenge to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum." Eyewear tycoon Sanford L. Ziff, founder of Sunglass Hut, threatened to withdraw a planned $2 million gift to the university as a result. "This is the first time I have had to deal personally with something like this," said Eve DeForest, the Spectrum's business manager. She referred to her recent rejection of ads from Smith and Ernst Zundel in Canada, saying that the ads were rejected due to content. Her refusals came after one ad did run March 21 in the Spectrum-a small box promoting "Revisionist Radio" in Toronto, bearing Zundel's name. David A. Gerber, a UB professor of history, saw the box and contacted Spectrum editors. "He told us we may not want to run it again," said Ms. DeForest. "Until then, we didn't realize what it was, it was such a small, nondescript ad." "Then, once we had printed it, we were sent a larger ad with controversial content that I found offensive. Being a university publication and considering the groups we represent, I didn't feel it was worth any dollars." Holocaust deniers have been targeting colleges and universities with significant Jewish population with their ads, Gerber noted Wednesday. "I am not a lawyer-but it seems to me that what is involved here has much more to do with commerce and advertising than free speech," he said. "No one denies the holocaust deniers the right to publish their material and the right to disseminate what they publish. What we're talking about here is a commercial problem-whether they or anyone has the right to insist on being able to advertise in any particular organ of our culture, be it TV, radio, or a student newspaper." The ads, added Gerber, "are an insult to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and an insult to the intelligence of all of us who know what happened." Rabbi Shay E. Mintz, director of the Hillel Foundation for Jewish students in the Buffalo area, called the deniers' claims "the height of chutzpah." "We do not dignify the deniers' by refuting their claims," he said. "To us as a people, and as individuals, the evidence is just overwhelming." "To us, it is also very painful to open the wounds of hundreds of thousands of people who have tried throgh the last fifty years to put their lives together and rebuild their families and homes." "It is the utmost of chutzpah to stand there and ask them to explain why they have a tattoo on their arm. No one denies that black people were sold into slavery." Smith, who submitted an ad to the Spectrum challenging the operation and technique of the US Holocaust Museum, included a letter claiming use of his ad would "encourage not 'hatred' but a free exchange of ideas" -end article- The problem that inevitably comes up every time this happens is that either a) you run it and look like an idiot, or b) you don't, and Smith can say you're intimidated into practicing censorship. So, I propose two solutions. A) Don't even run an editorial congratulating yourselves for refusing it. Why give Smith the satisfaction? B) Run it in your April Fool's Day edition-that would be its proper context. But that might offend some people, so come to think of it maybe it's not such a good idea.
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