Georgia State University’s “The Signal” ran CODOH ad

By Bradley R. Smith ∙ September 10, 1998

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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 [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.)

  • Bradley R. Smith

    Bradley R. Smith was born in Los Angeles on February 18, 1930. At 18 he joined the army and in 1951 served with the infantry in Korea where he was twice wounded. After three decades of a variety of professional activities, it suddenly hit him: In 1979 he read a leaflet by Professor Robert Faurisson, "The Problem of the Gas Chambers." Then, Arthur Butz’s The Hoax of the Twentieth Century did it for him. He understood from the beginning that he would address the censorship, the suppression of independent thought, the taboo against publishing and debating revisionist arguments—not the arguments themselves. That has remained his position. In 1989, Smith founded Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) dedicated to defending free speech and free inquiry into the Holocaust question. He handed over CODOH's helm in late 2014. He passed away on his 86th birthday, February 18, 2016. Read a series of obituaries here.

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