“I had good grounds for thinking there was no real danger in publishing the cartoons,” writes Jytte Klausen, author of The Cartoons That Shook the World, in a commentary in the Yale Alumni Magazine. The magazine also asked people including Fareed Zakaria, of Newsweek, Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, and John Donatich, director of the Yale University Press, to share their thoughts about the press’s hotly debated decision not to publish a Danish newspaper’s cartoons and other images of the Prophet Muhammad in Ms. Klausen’s book.
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Pulling the cartoons was an act of moral cowardice by the YUP. It declares in no uncertain terms that, in New Haven at least, freedom of the press and academic freedom are officially dead, because they mean that you’re free to publish anything that doesn’t offend somebody. How can you publish a book about some artworks without any visual examples of the works you’re discussing? How can you proclaim freedom and then cave to a supposed or real threat from terrorists?
A problem so easy to solve. In the book, include a link to an unaffiliated site on the internet that already displays the cartoons.
A problem so easy to solve. In the book, include a link to an unaffiliated site on the internet that already displays the cartoons.