Free Speech Not Present at Some Universities

by Walter Brasch

        Like most Jews, Benjamin Aaron Shapiro, a respected journalist, is an advocate for social justice, following the Jewish concept of Tikun Olam, literally translated as “repair of the world.” Unlike most American Jews, Shapiro is a conservative whose views of the nation are closer to those of Ted Cruz than of Bernie Sanders.

        Shapiro is a summa cum laude graduate of UCLA, and an honors graduate from the Harvard University school of law. He backs up his views and political philosophy with facts, historical allusions, and a strong interpretation of the Constitution. His conclusions and opinions, however, often go far outside what even the far-right believe.

        He says “Sesame Street” and “M*A*S*H” are left-wing propaganda, and “Happy Days” has a theme of pacifism. He is a strong proponent of gun rights legislation and an opponent of the “Black Lives Matter” social movement. His speeches, syndicated newspaper column, and his radio commentaries sometimes lead to civil disorder, often begun by those who don’t share his ultra-conservative views.

        One of Shapiro’s six books is Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth (2004), published shortly after he graduated from UCLA. What happened at a few universities affirms some of the argument in that book.

        In February, the president of Cal State/Los Angeles cancelled a forthcoming speech by Shapiro after students claimed what he had to say would be “hate speech.” President William Covina said Shapiro could speak at a time when a suitable opponent was found; however, Shapiro pointed out that Cal State allowed liberal speakers without having a conservative respondent. Covino reversed his position three days before the speech.

        On the day of the speech, several hundred students blocked the entrances of the Student Union Building, intimidating those who wanted to hear what Shapiro had to say, and blocking those inside the building from leaving. The Daily Caller, a conservative newspaper, reported there were several fights outside the building. Following the speech, students moved to the president’s office, held a sit-in, and demanded his resignation for allowing the speech. Cal State later charged Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), the sponsoring organization, $621.50 for additional security; it did not charge other organizations that brought speakers to the campus.

        In April, Shapiro spoke at Penn State; several dozen protestors shouted, banged on the doors to Sparks Hall, and played pre-recorded music at a high volume, trying to disrupt Shapiro’s speech, according to The Daily Collegian. The title of his speech was “When Diversity Becomes a Problem: The Fascist Nature of Liberalism.”

        Last week, DePaul University blocked an invitation by the YAF chapter to host Shapiro. Citing the Cal State and Penn State episodes, the 24,000 student Catholic university in Chicago, according to an official statement, “determined, after observing events which took place when Mr. Shapiro spoke elsewhere, that it was not in a position to provide the type of security that would be required to properly host this event at this time.” DePaul’s argument—one of safety—was a lame way to deflect criticism that it was blocking free speech. Certainly, a university with a large on-campus police force and a Campus Violence Prevention Plan and the ability to ask local community police for additional protection should not have been able to hide beneath the cloak that the words of one person threatened campus security.

        In 1644, before the English parliament, poet John Milton boldly spoke out against censorship, arguing that mankind is best served when there is a “free and open encounter” of all ideas. It was a revolutionary concept in an empire that required printers to get a license and be subjected to the whims not only of a monarch but the government as well. “Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” Milton rhetorically asked.

        In the 18th century, Lord Blackstone, one of the kingdom’s most distinguished jurists, spoke against prior restraint of free speech and of the press. The views of Milton and Blackstone became a basis of The First Amendment, one of the most liberal parts of the U.S. Constitution. It was this amendment that assured freedom of the press, speech, and religion; that amendment allows people to peacefully assemble and, if they wish, to protest government actions; it gives the people the right to petition the government for a “redress of grievances.”

        During the next two centuries, others cemented this belief into American law. In the mid-19th century, philosopher John Stuart Mill stated, “We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion, and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.” At the beginning of the 20th century, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that democracy is best served in “a marketplace of ideas.”

        The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, developed by the United Nations after World War II, declares “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion . . . [and] the right to freedom of opinion and expression, which implies the right . . . to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information regardless of frontiers, information and ideas through any media whatsoever.”

        America’s First Amendment applies only to government interference, and not to the suppression of free speech in the private sector. But, every university should be a place where all views are heard, analyzed, and debated. Professors in several departments—including history, political science, criminal justice, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and journalism—could have had discussions about Shapiro’s speech and made it a “teachable moment” within the confines of their own discipline.

        Instead of blocking opposing views, students should be aware that the solution to shutting down opposition beliefs is not by censorship or prior restraint, but in applying Milton’s belief that facts and civil discourse will allow truth to emerge.

        [Dr. Brasch, an award-winning journalist and professor emeritus of mass communications/journalism from Bloomsburg University, is a liberal Jew and an ACLU member and officer. For more than four decades, he has been an outspoken advocate in defending the First Amendment rights of all people, no matter what their political, religious, or philosophical views are. His current book is FrackingAmerica: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit. The book includes numerous examples of how local and state governments, working with the oil/gas exploration industry, have breached First Amendment rights.]

Today’s Media: Often Pandering to Bias and Ignorance

by Walter Brasch

      The Texas board of education didn’t find anything wrong with a world geography textbook that said slaves from Africa were workers, but that immigrants from northern Europe were indentured servants.

      This is the same school board that five years ago demanded that textbooks emphasize that slavery was only a side issue to the cause of the civil war, and that Republican achievements be emphasized in political science and civics textbooks.

      For good measure, the officials also wanted a “fair and balanced” look at evolution versus intelligent design or creationism, and that global warming is only a theory, overlooking substantial and significant scientific evidence.

      Because Texas adopts textbooks for the entire state, and there is minimal local choice, publishers tend to publish what Texas wants. The geography book had a 100,000 sale in Texas alone. However, McGraw-Hill, under a firestorm of protest from educators and parents, is modifying the text—African slaves will no longer be “workers” but slaves in the next printing.

      Publishers in America, trying to reap the widest possible financial benefit by not offending anyone, especially school boards, often force authors to overlook significant historical and social trends. For more than a century, books which targeted buyers in the North consistently overlooked or minimized Southern views about the Civil War; other books, which targeted a Southern readership, discussed the War of Northern Aggression or the War Between the States.

      Almost all media overlooked significant issues about slavery, the genocide against Native Americans, the real reasons for the Mexican-American War, the seizure of personal property and subsequent incarceration of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, the reasons why the United States went to war in Vietnam, the first Gulf War and, more recent, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

      Textbook publishers, choosing profits over truth, often glossed over, or completely ignored until years or decades later, the major social movements, including the civil rights, anti-war and peace movements of the 1960s and the emerging environmental movement of the 1970s. It was the underground and alternative press that presented the truth that the establishment press under-reported or refused to acknowledge, timidly accepting the “official sources.”

      Textbook publishers aren’t the only problem. The news media have ignored or downplayed mass protests against the wars, whether Vietnam or Iraq. They have ignored or downplayed mass protests against fracking. And, during this election year, all media have decided which candidates should get the most news coverage. There are several excellent Republican presidential candidates, but the media like the pompous and boisterous Donald Trump; he gives a good show. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton gets the most coverage of the three major candidates. Analysis of network air time by the Tyndall Reports shows that ABC-TV’s “World News Tonight” during the past year gave Donald Trump 81 minutes of air; it gave Sen. Bernie Sanders less than a minute, although Sanders is drawing even larger crowds than Trump. It’s no different with CBS and NBC television coverage. Total broadcast network time for Trump, according to Tyndall’s data, is 234 minutes; for Sanders, it’s about 10 minutes. The problem, of course, is editorializing by omission.

      At one time, the media led the nation in unveiling social injustice and other major problems. Although they had their defects and biases, the nation’s media understood they were the system that helped assure a free and unencumbered forum for debate about major issues. More important, they also understood that their role wasn’t to perpetuate fraud and lies, but to seek out and present the truth. Seemingly in conflict—present all views vs. present the facts and the truth—the media also understood that newsprint and airtime should not be wasted upon being a megaphone for ignorance.

      Now, their role is to follow, while pandering to the entertainment value of social and political issues and giving cursory glances at the news value. It’s not what the Founding Fathers believed and, certainly, not what they wanted. But it is, in the 21st century, the media’s vain attempt to restore profits.

      [Dr. Brasch has been a journalist more than four decades, reporting and editing on newspapers, magazines, and television. He is also professor emeritus of mass communications from Bloomsburg University.]

Iran Boycotts World’s Largest Book Fair

By Walter Brasch

      Iran is boycotting the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest trade convention for publishers and vendors.

      The six-day convention, which ends Sunday, brought more than 7,400 exhibitors from 100 countries. Attendance is more than 300,000.

      The reason for the boycott?

      Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, was the keynote speaker.

      In 1989, a year after its publication, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s religious and political leader, banned the book and issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death because the Ayatollah and millions of Muslims believe no one should insult Muslims, the religion Islam, or write against the prophet Mohammed. Although a new government a decade later cancelled the death threat, the fatwa still exists.

      Militant Muslims aren’t the only ones who believe in suppressing literature and thought.

      Nazi Germany banned books by Jews, and created fires where the people could throw their books. At the same time the Nazis were burning books, Hollywood was bowing to the self-imposed “film standards” of the Hays Commission, which was vigorously keeping American film “pure” of evil thoughts and sexual depictions.

      A decade after World War II ended, and with Hollywood censorship still restricting script content, Americans threw rock and roll records, which they called the Devil’s Tool, into bonfires.

      Two weeks before the Frankfurt Book Fair was Banned Book Week in the United States. The annual information campaign is sponsored by the American Library Association to highlight the problem with censorship. Most of the reasons why school boards and others want to ban books is because they challenge authority or present social and political issues that certain people don’t want to hear—and don’t want others to hear.

      Among classics that Americans have banned have been The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Catch-22, Gone With the Wind, and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

      Most book bans are led by conservatives who know—absolutely know—that they are the custodians of some kind of moral code, and that their own religion is the one true religion. But, conservatives aren’t the only ones who want to ban books.

      A base of the liberal philosophy is that all views should be heard, but some liberals have tried to ban Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, considered by literature scholars as the best novel in American literature. These misguided liberals wrongly believe that Twain, a fierce abolitionist, was a racist because his novel used words, common at that time, that no one should hear or read. Some liberals, like some conservatives, have often led campaigns to ban speakers who don’t agree with their views from college campuses. But, holocaust deniers, those who claim 9/11 was a Jewish plot, or that Afro-Americans are mentally inferior also deserve to have their views be heard, even if those views are odious and those who believe it are obnoxious.

      In 1644, before the English parliament, John Milton boldly spoke out against censorship, arguing that those who destroy books destroy reason itself, and that mankind is best served when there is a “free and open encounter” of all ideas. It was a revolutionary concept in an empire that required printers to get a license and be subjected to the whims not only of a monarch but the government as well. In the 18th century, Lord Blackstone, one of the kingdom’s most distinguished jurists, spoke out against prior restraint of free speech and of the press. The views of Milton and Blackstone became a basis of The First Amendment in the United States, one of the most liberal parts of the Constitution. It was this amendment that assured freedom of the press, speech, and religion; that amendment allows people to peacefully assemble and, if they wish, to protest government actions; it gives the people the right to petition the government for a “redress of grievances.” During the next two centuries, others cemented this belief into American law and culture. In the mid-19th century, philosopher John Stuart Mill stated, “We can never be sure that the opinion new are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion, and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.” At the beginning of the 20th century, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that democracy is best served in “a marketplace of ideas.”

      The theme of this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair was Tolerance Through Literature. Let’s hope that all people, no matter their religion, culture, or political views, will embrace that belief.

      [Dr. Brasch, an award-winning journalist and author of 20 books, is a strong First Amendment advocate who frequently speaks out against government abuse of free speech and due process. His book, America’s Unpatriotic Acts (2002), was a major call to eliminate the unconstitutional parts of the PATRIOT Act. His latest book is Fracking Pennsylvania: Flirting With Disaster.]

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A Textbook Case of Willful Distortion

by Walter Brasch

      HarperCollins says it’s sorry. It says it regrets not including Israel on a map of the Middle East in an atlas it published and distributed in the Middle East. It says all remaining copies of the atlas will be pulped.

      The Collins Primary Geography Atlas for the Middle East with a map that omitted Israel was described by the publisher in sales information as “an ideal school atlas for primary school geographers.” A fact checker, says a security officer for HarperCollins—the company refused to allow anyone from its Editorial, Marketing, or Media Relations offices talk to reporters—was “disciplined.” But, this was not a case of a bumbling fact checker who didn’t check the facts. This was a willful and deliberate decision by executives of the HarperCollins subsidiary, Collins Bartholomew, which concentrates on maps, to wipe Israel off the map—literally.

      The reason, said the company, was because of “local preferences.” In this case, “local preferences” means, said a representative for Collins Bartholomew, to include Israel on a Middle East map would be “unacceptable” to certain Middle East countries. “Unacceptable” translates solely as a loss of sales.

      The omission was discovered by Bishop Declan Lang and reported in The Tablet, a Catholic news weekly published in England. Lang told the Tablet that the publication of the atlas with Jordan and Syria covering the space of Israel “will confirm Israel’s belief that there exists a hostility towards their country from parts of the Arab world [and] will not help to build up a spirit of trust leading to peaceful coexistence.” Dr. Jane Clements, director of the Council of Christians and Jews, told the Tablet, “Maps can be a very powerful tool in terms of de-legitimising ‘the other’ and can lead to confusion rather than clarity.”

      Only after the Tablet’s news story was published—and HarperCollins subsequently received extensive condemnation from throughout the world—did the company issue a one-paragraph apology, which it posted on Facebook, and remove the atlas from sale.

      In 2001, HarperCollins stopped distribution of a book by Michael Moore, although there were 50,000 copies in its warehouse about to be released to bookstores. The company demanded that Moore kill three chapters of the book and pay the company $100,000 for print costs of the revised book. The chapters attacked President George W. Bush and raised questions about corporations and the government. HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which also owns Fox News.

      These aren’t isolated instances of a publisher using the power of the press to change facts and suppress truth. Ever since 1948, when Israel was declared a country, publishers in countries hostile to Israel have not only refused to acknowledge Israel but have excluded it from maps and travel routes.

      Majority cultures write the histories, and their texts often reflect their biases and political agenda. During the twentieth century, Japanese texts overlooked the slaughter of thousands of Chinese civilians; Soviet texts under the Stalin regime failed to include the work of Leon Trotsky or mention America’s massive economic and humanitarian assistance to that country; and the texts of all countries reported little about the Holocaust.

      Publishers in America, trying to reap the widest possible financial benefit by not offending anyone, especially school boards, often force authors to overlook significant historical and social trends. For more than a century, books which targeted buyers in the North consistently overlooked or minimized Southern views about the Civil War; other books, which targeted a Southern readership, discussed the War of Northern Aggression or the War Between the States.

      Almost all media overlooked significant issues about slavery, the genocide against Native Americans, the real reasons for the Mexican-American War, the seizure of personal property and subsequent incarceration of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, the reasons why the United States went to war in Vietnam, the first Gulf War and, more recent, the war in Iraq.

      Textbook publishers, choosing profits over truth, often glossed over, or completely ignored until years or decades later, the major social movements, including the civil rights, anti-war and peace movements of the 1960s and the emerging environmental movement of the 1970s. It was the underground and alternative press that presented the truth that the establishment press under-reported or refused to acknowledge, timidly accepting the “official sources.”

      To establish standards for the study of history in the public schools and to correct some of the nation’s textbook wrongs, the National Endowment for the Humanities, under Congressional mandate, gave $1.75 million to UCLA’s National Center for History in the Schools to bring together a wide range of academics to study the problems and to recommend a model text that would present history as it was, rather than what we hoped it was. The concept was good; the execution was abysmal.

      The Center rightly determined that texts were “sugar-coating” and distorting American history, that there was an over emphasis upon a recitation of facts and in recounting the deeds of a few people, mostly white males, but far too little discussion about major trends and social issues that defined the American republic.

      But, the Center did exactly what it condemned. In a 271-page document at the end of 1994, it presented a distorted overview that the formation of the United States was a convergence of Islamic, African, and European influence, and discounted western European influence. It claimed the nation’s history is little more than struggle, conflict, and the abuse of the rights of people. It barely discussed the historic role of a free press and of free speech, mentioned the Gettysburg Address only briefly, and relegated the complexities of the “cold war” as merely a “quarrel” among imperialistic nations.

      The Committee’s proposed guidelines, although rightly adding many civil rights leaders, left out Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, and the Wright Brothers among many other scientists; it overlooked Daniel Webster and other major diplomats and politicians; and it gave few lines to innumerable creative artists. However, the emperor of an ancient African civilization was praised, as were numerous individuals, often female or of minority cultures, who were merely footnotes in America’s 300-year history.

      Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels correctly argued that if someone tells a lie long enough and with enough intensity, it becomes the truth. But, poet John Milton gave a greater truth three centuries earlier. “Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” he rhetorically asked.

      Publishers may whitewash certain facts or movements. They may even eliminate certain truths in order to increase sales. But, eventually, truth will emerge.

      [Dr. Brasch is the author of 20 books, all of which were fact-checked. His latest book is Fracking Pennsylvania, an in-depth look at the economic, health, and environmental effects of horizontal fracking throughout the country. He is an award-winning journalist and professor emeritus of mass communications.]

Banning the First Amendment

by Walter Brasch

            Parents demanded it be banned.

            School superintendents placed it in restricted sections of their libraries.

            It is the most challenged book four of the past five years, according to the American Library Association (ALA).

            “It” is a 32-page illustrated children’s book, And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, with illustrations by Henry Cole. The book is based upon the real story of Roy and Silo, two male penguins, who had formed a six-year bond at New York City’s Central Park Zoo, and who “adopted” a fertilized egg and raised the chick until she could be on her own.

            Gays saw the story as a positive reinforcement of their lifestyle. Riding to rescue America from homosexuality were the biddies against perversion. Gay love is against the Bible, they wailed; the book isn’t suitable for the delicate minds of children, they cried as they pushed libraries and schools to remove it from their shelves or at the very least make it restricted.

            The penguins may have been gay—or maybe they weren’t. It’s not unusual for animals to form close bonds with others of their same sex. But the issue is far greater than whether or not the penguins were gay or if the book promoted homosexuality as a valid lifestyle. People have an inherent need to defend their own values, lifestyles, and worldviews by attacking others who have a different set of beliefs. Banning or destroying free speech and the freedom to publish is one of the ways people believe they can protect their own lifestyles.

            During the first decade of the 21st century, the most challenged books, according to the ALA, were J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, apparently because some people believe fictionalized witchcraft is a dagger into the soul of organized religion. Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series was the 10th most challenged in 2010. Perhaps some parents weren’t comfortable with their adolescents having to make a choice between werewolves and vampires.

            Among the most challenged books is Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the vicious satire about firemen burning books to save humanity. Other books that are consistently among the ALA’s list of most challenged are Brave New World (Aldous Huxley), Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut), The Chocolate War (Robert Cormier), Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou), Forever (Judy Blume), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain), regarded by most major literary scholars as the finest American novel.

            Name a classic, and it’s probably on the list of the most challenged books. Conservatives, especially fundamental religious conservatives, tend to challenge more books. But, challenges aren’t confined to any one political ideology. Liberals are frequently at the forefront of challenging books that may not agree with their own social philosophies. The feminist movement, while giving the nation a better awareness of the rights of women, wanted to ban Playboy and all works that depicted what they believed were unflattering images if women. Liberals have also attacked the works of Joel Chandler Harris (the Br’er Rabbit series), without understanding history, folklore, or the intent of the journalist-author, who was well-regarded as liberal for his era.

            Although there are dozens of reasons why people say they want to restrict or ban a book, the one reason that threads its way through all of them is that the book challenges conventional authority or features a character who is perceived to be “different,” who may give readers ideas that many see as “dangerous.”

            The belief there are works that are “dangerous” is why governments create and enforce laws that restrict publication. In colonial America, as in almost all countries and territories at that time, the monarchy required every book to be licensed, to be read by a government official or committee to determine if the book was suitable for the people. If so, it received a royal license. If not, it could not be printed.

            In 1644, two decades before his epic poem Paradise Lost was published, John Milton wrote a pamphlet, to be distributed to members of Parliament, against a recently-enacted licensing law. In defiance of the law, the pamphlet was published without license. Using Biblical references and pointing out that the Greek and Roman civilizations didn’t license books, Milton argued, “As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable create [in] God’s image,” he told Parliament, “but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God.” He concluded his pamphlet with a plea, “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

            A century later, Sir William Blackstone, one of England’s foremost jurists and legal scholars, argued against prior restraint, the right of governments to block publication of any work they found offensive for any reason.

            The arguments of Milton and Blackstone became the basis of the foundation of a new country, to be known as the United States of America, and the establishment of the First Amendment.

            Every year, at the end of September, the American Library Association sponsors Banned Book Week, and publishes a summary of book challenges. And every year, it is made more obvious that those who want to ban books, sometimes building bonfires and throwing books upon them as did Nazi Germany, fail to understand the principles of why this nation was created.