Today’s edition of the Providence (R.I.) Journal contains an op-ed by FIRE Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Will Creeley criticizing Yale University over the most recent Mohammed cartoon controversy. The Yale University Press decided to remove cartoons depicting Mohammed from author and professor Jytte Klausen’s forthcoming book, The Cartoons That Shook the World, which discusses the outcry and fallout resulting from the publication of 12 editorial cartoons depicting Mohammed in a Danish newspaper in 2005. This prompted FIRE to join a dynamic coalition of civil liberties organizations in writing an open letter to Yale University President Richard C. Levin and members of the Yale Corporation.
Will’s column rightly takes Yale to task for its cowardice:
He goes on to discuss the strange (to put it generously) way in which Yale handled the entire matter:
Specifically, the university provided copies of the images contained in the work — not the work itself; just the images — to a set of individual consultants, the identities of whom the university has steadfastly refused to release. (Even Klausen has been denied access to these names without first signing a nondisclosure agreement.) Relying on the opinions of these anonymous consultants, the university decided to yank the images from the book because of what Yale Vice President and Secretary Linda Lorimer acknowledged was an unspecified, general fear of violence.
Yale also argues that since the images can be described in words, publication is superfluous. This is even more foolish. Verbal descriptions of images necessarily contain their own interpretations of the image, but the power of images is their ability to convey different meanings to different audiences.
Indeed. It’s great to see
The Providence Journal provide a platform for FIRE to
expound on this truly important case , and I congratulate Will on his publication.