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The Issue of Free Inquiry at Rhode Island College

By Bradley R. Smith ∙ March 21, 2012

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George Bissell, Editor-in-Chief
The Anchor
Rhode Island College
Providence, Rhode Island
[email protected]

21 March 2012

Mr. Bissel:

Earlier this month we submitted a print ad to run in The Anchor that read: "Inconvenient History: The Power of Taboo," along with a URL that leads to the Website of Inconvenient History: A Quarterly Journal for Free Historical Inquiry. The ad appeared one time in The Anchor, but was then suppressed because of a "reaction" from a professor or someone representing a special interest on your campus. We have no other information.

The Spring 2012 issue of Inconvenient History includes:

  • Editorial: Bookburning in the Style of 2011
  • Resistance Is Obligation
  • Ritual Defamation: A Contemporary Academic Example
  • Stephen F. Pinter, An Early Revisionist
  • A Postcard from Treblinka
  • Review: The Wandering Who
  • The Palestinians as an "Invented People"
  • Relegation–A Formula for Blowback

What special interest at RIC would be invested in suppressing access to such information by RIC students? Perhaps you should ask those who are presenting the Belfer First Step Workshop on the Holocaust at RIC this week. It is certain that The Workshop will represent the demonstrably problematic perspective on the history of that fragment of World War ll referred to as "Holocaust." It is a given that nothing presented at such an event can be questioned publicly.

Should it not be different with The Anchor? Is it not the ideal of journalism, of a free press, to allow and even to encourage a free exchange of ideas? You may not think so.

Still, I understand you are in a difficult situation. You would have to stand alone against the entire faculty and administration of Rhode Island College if you were to try to allow an ad from Inconvenient History to run in The Anchor.

Sincerely,

Bradley Smith

PS: If I am informed I am wrong about any of the above I will acknowledge my error publicly.

I can be reached at [email protected]
or
PO Box 439016
San Ysidro, CA 92143
Telephone: 209 682 5327
[This letter has been copied to students and faculty at RIC.]

  • 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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