Campus Project

“No subject enrages the Thought Police on campus more than Holocaust revisionism. Students are encouraged to debate every other great historical question as a matter of course, but influential pressure groups with private agendas have made the Jewish Holocaust story and exception. I believe students should be encouraged to investigate the Holocaust controversy the same way they are encouraged to investigate every other historical controversy. This isn't a radical point of view. The premises for it were worked out a while back during a little something called the Enlightenment.”

Bradley R. Smith, Break His Bones: The Private Life of a Holocaust Revisionist, p. 99


Starting in the late 1980's, Bradley Smith began a campaign to publish advertisements in college newspapers. The intention was to foster open debate on the Holocaust story throughout the country. What follows is a partial list of those advertisements, reactions to them by students, professors, pressure groups and the media, as well as additional information which has been collected over the years. A few of the ads offered financial compensation for promoting the controversy in a national forum. The terms of these ads have expired and are presented here for historical and research purposes only.

What became known as the “Campus Campaign” was discussed in some detail, albeit a very biased account, in a chapter entitled “The Battle for the Campus” in Deborah Lipstadt's highly subjective book Denying the Holocaust. While Smith argued directly for intellectual freedom and open debate on campus, Lipstadt, a professor, took the opposing view — that ideas, especially dissident ideas regarding the Holocaust story, were not worthy of discussion in America's colleges and universities.

I'm Willing to be Convinced I'm Wrong

I run ads in college newspapers encouraging students and professors alike to take seriously the great ideal of Western culture, intellectual freedom—even with regard to the Holocaust controversy. Because I argue for an open debate on the Holocaust you are told that I’m anti-Semitic; yet I invite Jews everywhere to join with me, in a…

Don't Tread on Me

Don't tread on me!” “Give me Liberty or give me Death!” “Live Free or Die!” Platitudes? Lip service to a cause? NO! These were the convictions of people who knew what was just and right and who were willing to die to ensure such justice and rights — who were willing to die for freedom…

Open Letter to John Silber, Chancellor of Boston University

Bradley R. SmithPO Box 439016San Diego CA 92143T & F [now invalid., ed.]E-mail: [now invalid, ed.]On the Web: (www.codoh.com) 20 September 2000 Chancellor John SilberOffice of the ChancellorBoston University147 Bay State Road Boston, Massachusetts 02215 Dear John: I have your Open Letter to Colleges and Universities in which you address some of the issues raised…

Some plain talk about the Holocaust and Revisionism

When this newspaper printed Bradley Smith's advertisment last Thursday (“The Holocaust Story,” April 4, page 11), it fanned not one, but two, gathering controversies on campus. The first concerns our knowledge about the Nazi massacre of the Jews of Europe. The second centers on the policies of The Daily itself. Surprisingly perhaps, the first issue…

The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith: Trapped in a Nazi Fantasyland

Marvin Stern, director for the Northwest Regional Branch of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), can't conceal his bewilderment over what he calls “the growing Holocaust revisionist movement.” Mr. Stern expressed his dismay in a column published in The Oregonian, the largest-circulation daily in the Northwest. His alarm was triggered by the appearance in that newspaper of…

Butz fireside canceled after students’ protest

A fireside featuring controversial electrical engineering Assoc. Prof. Arthur Butz scheduled for last night was canceled because of student outrage and conflicts with the Jewish holiday of Purim. Butz, a “Holocaust revisionist,” denies that the Nazis had a policy of mass killings of Jews during World War II. He was scheduled to speak on “A…

Warning: Column may be offensive

A lot of complaints to The Daily in the past week have not been about misquotes, errors or bad headlines, amazingly enough. Most regarded a full-page advertisement from Bradley R Smith that ran April 4, advocating open debate and free speech on the Holocaust. Others were about Bill Colwell's perspective Monday, which insisted that importing…

Smith to “sissy” Hayes: Let’s share a beer

In his “Plain Talk” perspective Thursday about the Holocaust and Revisionism, Professor Peter Hayes charges me with manipulation, deception, distortion, ignorance, intimidation, nastiness, dishonesty, duplicity, maliciousness, tastelessness, the browbeating of academics like himself, conspiracy mongering, promoting implausibilities and spreading disinformation. Hayes evaded the challenge of addressing content, however, so I suppose you could say he…

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