We couldn’t make this up.
Not so long ago, Yale University Press, on direction from the university, pre-emptively self-censored images of Mohammed fromThe Cartoons that Shook the World by Jytte Klausen, a scholarly examination of the controversy that erupted over the publication of cartoon images of Mohammed by the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. Yale’s action was met by a torrent of criticism from left, right and center. NCAC coordinated a letter to the university signed by a number of free speech organizations and, with the American Association of University Professors, coordinated a Statement of Principle and Call to Actioncalling on institutions of higher education to do more to defend intellectual freedom.
As if it wasn’t absurd enough that an academic press would first agree to publish about a set of images and then would decide to remove the very images that are the subject of the book, the Index on Censorship has gone a step further. The Index conducted an interview with Klausen about Yale’s censorship of the images, and then itself censored the same images. If you think I’m making it up, it’s all posted here.
Several visitors to the Index website have called for resignation of board members who voted to censor the cartoons. That would be a first step in the direction of restoring the Index’s credibility. Next, they should publish the images.