Ads placed during the academic year 1998-1999

Editor's Note: This is an older version of a page which replaced it. It has been maintained solely for the historical record. It shows the evolution of Smith's thinking in this campus blog from the pre-blog age.

This is going to be, I hope, an ongoing record of what I am doing with the Campus Project this academic year. I had good intentions with regard to this in past years, as can be seen from the aborted entries I made in 1997 and 1996, but I couldn't find time to keep up with it. Nevertheless, here I am, ready to take another run at it.

The purpose of the Campus Project is to promote open debate on the Jewish holocaust controversy on campus and elsewhere. The Project has no other purpose.

The primary tool of the Campus Project this year is our ad headed: “There Is No Liberty Without Free Speech And Open Debate“. The ad offers $250K to one individual who is able to convince a national television network to facilitate a debate between the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) and Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH). The text of the ad lists a number of holocaust stories that have entered our cultural history but have not been examined publicly.

The Anti-Defamation League has a special “campus desk” in its New York offices, its mission to suppress open debate on the holocaust controversy on college campuses. This desk is handled by Jeffrey Ross. Mr. Ross is the one who most often responds on behalf of the ADL to inquiries from media concerning CODOH's Campus Project and this writer. Mr. Ross routinely misrepresents revisionist theory, misinforms media and the public as to the purpose of CODOH, and slanders this writer.

Campus Hillel, usually but not always led by a Rabbi, represents the interests of B'nai B'rith directly on campus. Campus Hillel is typically the first to protest the printing of any materials that express a revisionist viewpoint on the Jewish holocaust controversy, the first to pressure campus journalists to suppress CODOH ads and opinion pieces, the first to organize “protests” against student papers and student editors who follow the dictate's of their conscience with regard to the ideals of a free press the spirit of the First Amendment. Campus Hillel, an ostensibly religious association, follows the line laid down by the Holocaust “lobby” and lets it go at that—as if there were no ethical or even spiritual issues involved in not wanting to allow others to express how they feel and what they think.

While ADL and campus Hillel are the “shock” troops representing the Holocaust Lobby on campus, and while it is true these two groups are oftentimes guilty of a transparent Jewish chauvinism, that is very far from the whole story, as you will be reminded of again and again in the briefs that follow. The great majority of colleges and universities in America are not, after all, run by Jews. Most campus newspapers do not have Jews for editors, do not have Jews for advertising managers, and do not have Jews as media advisors. To the contrary. The problem of censorship on campus with regard to the Jewish holocaust controversy, then, is not a Jewish problem. It's a problem of American culture.

Those of you who read this page may be interested in participating in the Project as volunteer “stringers”—part-time reporters. Your participation could add significantly to what we know about how journalists and special-interest organizations operate on and off-campus with respect to the holocaust controversy. There are a few rules to follow: you must inform those you speak with who you represent; you must inform them that you are taking notes or recording the interview; you must inform the interviewee that he or she is speaking on the record. You must be honest, fair, and as objective as possible. The materials you send me that I find relevant and interesting will be posted here with or without credit, as you wish.

Your identity as a stringer or a source will remain confidential if you wish. For my records, however, I will need to know your name and telephone number so I can verify, to one degree or another, who I am dealing with.

With these few remarks then, let the story begin.

September 20th

During the summer session I submitted an undated version of the 250K ad to a handful of college newspapers.

It ran in The Advocate at Boise State 26 August, and in The Signal at Georgia State on 10 September.

The ad rep I worked with at The Advocate is Shawn Murphy (I don't have the editor's name to hand). The editor at The Signal is Jennifer J. Smith.

The ad has since run in The Titan at Cal State Fullerton (15 Sept.) and was scheduled to run in The Collegian at U of Toledo (17 Sept.), and The South End at Wayne State U.—Detroit (17 Sept.), and in several others over the coming ten days.

Lexi Baugher, ad manager for The California Tech at California Institute of Technology, called to say The Tech would run the ad. On the 14th we discussed the layout of the ad by telephone and it was set to go on the 18th. I then received an e-mail message from their business manager:

The $250K ad is a new ad which The Tech has not run before. The Tech ran one of my ads before (a “similar” one, I suppose) and had “trouble,” so they will not run another like it. So—those who made “trouble” over the previous ad have won at The Tech . These “problems” are created wherever open debate is suggested regarding the Jewish holocaust controversy—and I am not diminishing the fact that real problems are created, including but not limited to destruction of property, threats of physical violence against editors, threats of economic retaliation, and other forms of harassment. So, on the one hand I understand what Ms. Koo is up against. On the other, The Tech (I don't know if its editors were involved in the decision) caved in to the fear of a handful of petty totalitarians on her campus.

On the plus side, Ms. Koo assures me The Tech will consider running other CODOH ads. I'll have to find out which kind of CODOH ad The Tech might be interested in. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an article (15 Sept.) headlined: “Ad sparks annual controversy.” The story reports on the first reactions to the ad having run at GSU. Written by Ernie Suggs, it reports that the ad challenges the ADL to a national televised debate “on such issues as whether gas chambers were used to exterminate Jews and if The Diary of Anne Frank is fiction, not fact” The language of the debate challenge is not presented quite accurately in either case, though it's close. Heidi Berger, the Metro Campus Program director for Atlanta YAD, the Jewish Young Adult Agency, is quoted saying

“… this [to promote open debate on an historical controversy] is ethically wrong. For a university that talks about diversity this [that is, ethnic diversity, but not diversity of opinion], allowing an ad to run like this doesn't reflect well on them.”

Signal editor Jennifer J. Smith told Suggs:

“It is a noble thing not to offend anyone, but the implication of picking and choosing what you are going to run based on what you like and identify with scares me very much.”

Mark Budnitz, a law professor and faculty adviser told Suggs “This was not a freedom of speech or debate issue [Suggs doesn't ask and Budnitz does not say why it is not]. This is just a bunch of scurrilous charges that are creating bad feelings among the student body.” Suggs doesn't ask and Budnitz doesn't say which “scurrilous” charges are being referred to and why they are scurrilous or why a challenge for “open debate” should cause bad feelings among university students. By not making it clear what Budnitz is talking about, the Journal-Constitution readers can not understand what is being argued. This is inadequate.

Jim Scott, vice president for student services at GSU, told Suggs

“the paper is partially funded by the university through student activity fees but we can't tell the paper what they can print and what they can't print. We sort of leave it to their judgment….”

In all, this is a fair story but too slight to give readers a real sense of what the “argument” is about. Using e-mail, I've submitted a letter to the editor of the Journal-Constitution in response to the Suggs article. (Thanks to David Irving's Online Newsletter for first bringing this story to our attention.)

October 8th

This is an accumulative list of the campuses where it has been confirmed that our ad, “There Is No Liberty Without Free Speech And Open Debate” has run. If this list is in error or incomplete, I would appreciate being brought up to date.

1. Boise State University – The Arbiter (26 August) Editor: Kelly Millington-Teal
2. Cal State-Fullerton – The Titan (15 Sept). Editor: Denise Carson.
3. California Institute Technology – California Tech (18 Sept). Editor: Erik Dill
4. Georgia State University – The Signal (10 Sept). Editor: Jennifer J. Smith
5. Indiana University-South Bend – The Preface (23 Sept). Editor Colleen Hahn
6. Loyola University of the South – The Loyola Maroon (18 Sept). Editor: Elizabeth Keenan
7. Marysville CA – The Democrat-Appeal , (16,17, and 18 Sept) Editor: Julia Shirley
8. Marquette University – The Marquette Tribune (29 Sept).
9. New Jersey Institute of Technology – The Vector (29 Sept). Editors: Phil Chan & Smita Misra
10. Southwest Louisiana University – The Vermilion (25 Sept).
11. Stanford University – The Stanford Daily (1 Oct). Editor: Adam Kemezis
12. SUNY-Oswego – The Oswegonian (13 Sept). Editor: Scott Stratton
13. SUNY-Plattsburgh – Cardinal Points (23 Sept). Editor: Nicole N. De Domenico
14. University of Maine – The Daily Maine Campus (5 Oct). Editor: Misty Edgecomby
15. University of Vermont – The Cynic (17 Sept). Editor: Amanda Dupris
16. University of Wisconsin-Green Bay – The Fourth Estate (1 Oct). Editor: Althea Reetz
17. University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh – The Advanced Titan at (16 Sept). Editor: Stephanie Scott
18. Wayne State University – The South End (15 Sept). Editor: James Chesna
19. California Institute of Technology – The California Tech

UPDATE — On 20 September I reported here that I had arranged with The Tech's business manager, Lexi Baugher, to run “There In No Liberty Without…” and sent off a check. The next day I received an email message from Jennifer Koo, advertising manager, saying that the ad had been rejected because an earlier ad of mine had caused “problems” for the paper. I wrote off The Tech . A couple weeks later I received a tear sheet from the 18 September issue with my ad printed on the inside of the back cover. There was a note from The Tech's business manager, Lexi Baugher, saying in part: “If you would like to advertise in The Tech again in the future, don't hesitate to contact us.”

What's the lesson here? First, its not over until its over. Second: this suggests how important a single voice can be on a newspaper staff. If one person on the staff will take responsibility for encouraging a free press, others will go along. its when there are mixed views among staff, with no individual willing to take responsibility for making “trouble,” that is, allowing controversy, that those special interests that argue against intellectual freedom will win the day.

University of Toledo – The Collegian

UPDATE — Advertising agreed to run the ad, I sent them the check, I received it back in the mail with my ad. No explanation. This sort of behavior is not worth following up on.

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh – The Advance Titan

The ad ran on 16 September and was followed by an uproar that took its staff rather by surprise. On the 23rd the AT printed ten (10!) letters written by professors, each one more complaining, craven and evasive than the next. Reading them brought to mind the old Maoism about “running dog intellectuals.” Not a single letter written by any one of these UW-Oshkosh professors addresses one issue raised by the text of the ad, and not one says anything interesting or unique about anything else. I am only treating with them here because they represent 99 percent of everything written by university professors in response to revisionist theory, and illustrate everything they evade when they write about it. If you want to see the original ten letters I'll send them to you in return for a sase. If I had someone to scan them in for me I'd post them all here for the record, empty and useless as they are.

• Philosophy professor Marshall Missner writes :”These kinds of ads are just aimed at spreading hate and misinformaton….”. He's a philosopher so he doesn't believe he need inform the editor of what “misinformation” is in the ad. At the same time, he claims to know what my motivation is for running the ad. Cheap psychologizing. You would think a man who spends his time, I suppose, teaching students how to use language carefully would take a run at it himself.
• Two psychology professors wrote to the AT . One is so representative of her profession on matters relating to the Holocaust controversy that I will print her entire letter.

  “I regret that I did not see the latest edition of the Advance-Titan . However, I have been informed about the advertisement for an organization that argues that the Holocaust never happened. Let me add my voice to the others you'll certainly hear from to express my dismay that you have not critically examined the advertisements you carry.

  Sincerely, Susan McFadden.”

  Here is a woman who writes that she is “dismayed” that the AT staff did not critically examine the ad but notes that she has not even read it. What kind of bubble-headed double standard is this? This sort of thing is why late night stand-ups ridicule “psycho-babble.”

• The other psychology professor represented here is Baron Perlman. “As a Jewish faculty member on campus, I take deep offense to any question of whether the Holocaust occurred.” This is an issue on which Jewish psychologists at Oshkosh are in about the same league with the Scots-Irish. The ad does not question whether the “Holocaust occurred.” If the text must be addressed from that general perspective, then the ad asks “What was the Holocaust?” Professor Perlman is defeated intellectually by the mental barriers he has erected against intellectual freedom with regard to a subject upon which he appears to have a subjective dependence. The ad suggests a series of issues to be debated! They're set up as questions. Perlman's desire for an apology from the AT staff makes him look ridiculous. Maybe he needs a few sessions with Miss Bubblehead above.
• Alan Lareau, German professor, writes, “I was disturbed by the advertisement in the Sept 16 issue of the Advanced Titan (sic), in which the Holocaust was denied. In Germany, assertions that the Holocaust was a lie are banned and punished as federal offenses.” Here we see a wonderful mixture of an inability to read (the Holocaust was not “denied” in the ad) and a craven desire to return to the standards of Hitlerian Germany where intellectual freedom could easily be the crime that had you interned in a concentration camp and forced to work for the State. Here, I suppose, our German professors—and do not think that Lareau is alone in his specialty on this one—would be content to see revisionists simply rotting in jail. At this very moment revisionist scholars are incarcerated in jails all over Germany for expressing doubt about what UW-Oshkosh professors want everyone to believe. In Canada, The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) is pushing for similar laws right now. If the ADL supports the concept of prison for revisionists in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, France and Canada, do you think they and their sycophantic German professors do not want such laws here?
• Dana K. Vaughn is a biology professor at UW-Oshkosh. She wants to register her “profound dismay” about the ad. When she was in college she “saw the tattooed arms of surviving Jews and heard their horrendous childhood stories….It is important to protect their history accurately rather than let it be rewritten….” Professor Vaughn believes her memories of seeing “tattooed arms” and listening to “horrendous childhood stories….” somehow answer revisionist research with regard to the so-called gassing chambers and gassing vans, the false “eyewitness” stories about Germans cooking Jews to make soap of them and skinning Jews to make riding breeches and so on. No individual should be “tattooed” against her will, or interned against her will, or forced to work against her will. And no individual should be denied the right to look into these stories and report on what she finds and talk about it publicly and to say she believes what she believes and does not believe what she does not believe. The false, self-serving sentiment of the professor Vaughns should play no role in limiting the intellectual freedom of students or the freedom of the press.
• Ton Rindo, associate English professor, has the longest letter in this issue of the Advance Titan and arguably the most childish. His prose is livid but empty. He is clear on one point: “It you take a minute to peruse its Web page, CODOH's anti-Semitism will immediately become clear to you.” He gives no example of antisemitism he found on the site, but dribbles on like an old man with a bad prostate. Go through the revisionist documents we have on this site, particularly those on the so-called gassing chambers, and decide for yourself if revisionist theory has got its finger on something or not. Expressing skepticism about what many Jews and others believe about gassing chambers does not need to be an expression of dislike for Jews. I regularly express my skepticism over the claim that Jesus was the Son of God (my wife is an evangelical Christian) but it does not follow that I hate my wife and dislike all Christians. Again, its childish to protest that it is anti-Jewish to no longer believe in the gas chamber tales. It is exactly that accusation, however, that is used so successfully by the Holocaust Lobby, and those who serve it willy-nilly like our professor Rindos and the rest of this herd of intellectuals at UW-Oshkosh.
• Let me go to the bother of posting the entire letter from UW-Oshkosh history professor Kimberly Rivers:

  I have heard from the Dean of the College of Letters and Science and from other faculty that the Advance-Titan published an advertisement from a group denying the Holocaust

  If this is true, you should know that you are supporting the efforts of a group that seeks to deny the historical truth of the Holocaust.

  As a member of the history department here at UW-Oshkosh, I can tell you that this group is composed of people who know nothing whatsoever about history or historical evidence.

  When you publish their advertisements, you are aiding them in their efforts to spread misinformation.

  The First Amendment gives you and this groups (sic) the right to free speech, but it also gives every other member of our community the right to tell you how offended we are by this advertisement.

  Sincerely, Kimberly Rivers, history professor.

  Those awful people who are expressing doubt about what the Dean of the College of Letters and Science believes all others should believe have surfaced at UW-Oshkosh! Better get on the telephone to her little androids and have them try to overwhelm the AT staff who, after all, are only students and are vulnerable socially, politically and with respect to their careers if they persist in running a newspaper that encourages free inquiry and open debate. When history professor Rivers “heard from the Dean of the College of Letters and Science” she leapt to her desk to pen her robotic little note that says in so many words what all the other professorial androids represented in this issue of the Advance-Titan have said. The ad denies the Holocaust (it doesn't), that I represent a group that seeks to deny the historical truth of the H. (I do not—to the contrary—I am insisting that what is false and fraudulent in the story be gotten rid of so that what remains is, in fact, the truth), that no one in my “group” knows anything about history or historical evidence (professor Rivers is ignorant of what we have on our Website—see, for example, Foundations of Contemporary History, edited by Germar Rudolf, German scholar condemned to prison in Germany for publishing work such as this—I challenge this silly broad to respond professionally to Germar Rudolf's paper on the “gas chambers” of Auschwitz and Majdanek); we are trying to spread misinformation (we are trying to promote an open debate to get rid of misinformation—that's what open debate does, lady, it helps get rid of misinformation—its called a free exchange of ideas); and she is terribly offended by the appearance of my ad, which she has not yet read.

  Reading these letters from these UW-Oshkosh professors is like spending time at the city dump on a hot afternoon. its trashy, it smells bad, its a vast pile of waste material without any redeeming qualities. I shouldn't go on like this, I have given in to some of the worst sides of my character. What has happened to my natural easy-going nature? As a matter of fact, professorial response to the appearance of any revisionist materials at all about the Jewish holocaust story are universally ignorant, evasive, and I suppose I might as well say it, contemptible. I suppose the professors themselves are perfectly decent folk, I know they are, who are simply unable to stand up like adults and professionals and enter into a little back and forth on this one particular subject. Taboos are no respecter of class. It's as difficult for a professor to challenge a taboo as it is for a factory worker. Students are not so deeply wired as professors when it comes to taboos. This is why students are often able to print materials in student newspapers that adults find shocking, including ads that reflect a skeptical view or a current historical orthodoxy.

There are still two more letters I have not addressed, both by economics professors, and as you might suspect they are no better informed or more open minded than their colleagues. Same old stuff. I'll spare you going over them here.

What are we to make, then, of the UW-Oshkosh faculty? They appear to be represented by spokespersons who are regressively orthodox, timid, censorious, juvenile, and on this controversy lacking in intellectual standards and personal generosity. If these professors had been in teaching in Germany in 1938 and I had submitted an advertisement to student papers demanding that Jews be returned their civil rights and be allowed to join in public debate over the value of Nazi theory, these professors, as a class, would have behaved then as they behave now. They would have argued on the side of the current orthodoxies, against intellectual freedom, for censorship, and would have denounced me as a “Jew-lover.” Looking back, we would have held their behavior in contempt, as we should hold their behavior today.

• The one mature, open-minded letter run in this issue of the Advance-Titan is by a student. I suppose he may have already paid a price for it, and will pay a price for it.

  An ad in last week's Advance-Titan seems to have caused some controversy on campus. The ad is funded by the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust and seems to imply that the Holocaust either never happened or that its details have been greatly exaggerated [Bravo! “…or greatly exaggerated.” Dear professors: it's so easy if you simply read the text rather than always try to please your deans.]

  It is my belief that this ad has as much right to run as any other ad.

  The ad is not prejudiced in its nature, its merely requesting a deeper look at a dark side of world history. If all of what's currently believed about historical events is accepted as the absolute truth, we are only hurting ourselves.

  Even topics as unsettling as the Holocaust should be open for review and debate. [Oshkosh philosophers, historians, English teachers, biologists, German professors, economists and psychologists would all disagree with this, so one sees what a student with an open mind is up against at UW-Oshkosh—he has to buck the entire faculty!] People have the right to do this in our free country.

  Opinions have the right to be aired, even if we disagree with them. The people who seem to be most critical in this instance are self-proclaimed intellectuals. An intellectual is supposed to think and ponder history, not discourage such thoughts, especially at a university where leaders pride themselves on their openness to new ideas.

  Groups like CODOH deserve the chance to air their views, no matter how disagreeable they might be. Without this freedom, we have censorship, a kind of censorship similar to which was practiced by he Nazis. [Oh!—this is just too good!]

  The intent of these groups is to raise eyebrows and upset many people. CODOH's opinions are least effective when they are allowed to air freely and fall on deaf ears. Let's allow that to happen from now on.

  Sincerely, Brad Zibung, UW-Oshkosh student.

  Well, Brad, I'm interested in more than raising eyebrows and upsetting people. When someone tries to tell the truth, there are always upset feelings, no matter what professors with immature inner lives tell you. Look at Germar Rudolf's paper on The Gas Chambers at Auschwitz and Majdanek and ask yourself why a professor, any professor, would not want you to know that such material exists.

• And then we have the responses of the Advance-Titan editor Stefanie Scott and ad manager Laura Denissen in the issue of September 23, 1998:

  Censorship Is Not An Answer

  by Stefanie Scott. Editor in Chief

  The Advance-Titan , in its role as a college newspaper, serves UW-Oshkosh as a forum for debate.

  Recently some university employees questioned why an ad from the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, which questions the authenticity of the Holocaust, was allowed to run in the Sept. 16 issue of the Advance-Titan .

  First, let me say that ads are not editorials and are not necessarily the opinion of the staff members.

  However, the First Amendment makes it clear that everyone has the right to be heard. I would not have printed the ad if it were seditious or libelous.

  The ad is stated in the form of a question, leaving readers to ponder the issue and make up their own minds as to what is fact or what is fiction.

  Our readership is primarily students and university employees who I believe are intelligent enough o weigh the ad against other thins they have read or viewed including movies, documentaries and text books. It is not the Advance-Titan's job to shelter its readers from other peoples' thoughts and ideas.

  If you disagree with an ad or our policies, I encourage you to write a letter to the editor. And of course the same paid ad space is valuable to print your thoughts and ideas on events and issues.

  Censorship is not the answer. Where do you draw the line?

  The people that don't believe the ad should have been run are the same people that protest book banning and other infringements regarding freedom of speech.

  Not to be outdone, Laura Denissen, who I suspect took a lot of punishment for having sold me the ad in the first place, wrote the following piece for the same issue.

  ---

  The Constitution Backs Us Up

  by Laura Denissen, Ad Sales Manager

  There has been a lot of controversy concerning an advertisement that ran in the Advance-Titan . By this time most people know the issue, page and what the ad concerned.

  Before I begin to argue my points, let me say that I am writing this response as a student, although I also am the ad sales manager for the Advance-Titan .

  When I first received phone calls from concerned parties airing their opinions, I was open to comments. Being a student I felt almost obligated to listen to these people, mostly because they were professors and others status-oriented people.

  As I listened, I heard remarks such as “I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but I think you should have done…” and “I know from talking to you that you're intelligent enough to rethink your decision if this happens again” and “It seems that yet another student newspaper staff has been successfully manipulated.”

  Now, if anything, I feel manipulated by my own educators, and I see something wrong with that. Please do not patronize me and think so low of me that I would be willing to believe something just because it appears in the newspaper, or that because we received money, we would print anything.

  After reading the letters that have been sent in, its obvious that most of these people jumped on a bandwagon and wrote a letter just to support a seemingly popular opinion.

  One person said she hadn't even read or seen the advertisement yet she wrote a letter. What does that say for a reputable complaint? If anything, it makes me feel more comfortable in my decision to run the ad.

  Secondly, many letters voiced opinions reflecting the idea that constitutionally, it might have been all right for the Advance-Titan to publish the ad, but we also had the right o refuse it.

  Yes, we do have the right to refuse advertisements (again, thanks to the Constitution), but according to our policy,. (and several other student and community publications that I have called and interviewed concerning this issue) the ad met the requirements to run; it was not seditious, libelous or sexually blatant.

  This leads us back to the Constitution. I'm not sure if people really do not fully understand what privileges and rights this piece of writing does for us, but without it most of us would not be here today to speak our minds at all.

  The job of a newspaper is to reflect society and its opinions. This includes all people.

  Would you not teach those individuals who felt differently about religion or sex or anything for that matter? Of course not.

  It's against the law, just as it would have been if we refused to print the advertisement because we didn't like it.

  They were mere words, and people are entitled to their opinions. Who am I, or who is anyone else to say otherwise?

  We are not about censorship and protected opinions. The ad may have warranted some heated feelings, but I'm sure that was the intention of those who placed it.

  If you feel so strongly about the questions asked, then take it up with them, or go to their Web site which has links to the Jewish Defense League's site (the opposite side of the issue). After all, that is what they requested. You can even get paid for it.

  Additionally, if your opinions are so strong, let these people talk and feel good knowing you are right. Who are we to s Top higher thinking and questioning? Is that the intention of higher education altogether?

  I surely hope not, because if so, then I missed that when I came to this university and started paying tuition.

  The students, on the other hand, appear to be independent, mature, open minded, fair, and willing to talk, intellectually stable and emotionally healthy.