Yale University, whose motto is Lux et Veritas (Light and Truth) has inflicted upon itself a disturbing piece of censorship of a publication by Yale Press. Any private publisher can pick and choose what it wants to publish, but to publish a scholarly work about art without including the art is shoddy scholarship.
The book is by Jytte Klausen, a Danish professor of political science at Brandeis University; The Cartoons that Shook the World is about the political cartoons depicting Mohammed in a Danish newspaper that led to riots and death threats and widespread self-censorship in many news rags around the world, including in the U.S. The censorship is Yale’s, not Klausen’s. You may see the cartoons online at Wiki.
Opinion is divided as to whether Yale is more afraid of threats or more persuaded by Saudi money, of which there seems to be quite a bit in the university. People are asking whether we can expect attacks, for instance, on the sculpture of Mohammed in the Supreme Court. If Lux et Veritas has given up on free speech, can we expect to see a domino effect in other venerable United States institutions?
