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Shofar FTP Archive File: orgs/american/codoh//university.response/ubuffalo.001


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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