[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ALACOUN:8700] Fwd: [IFACTION:4491] Free Speech and Civil Rights Organizations Speak in Support of UC Berkeley Chancellor Berdahl

[Al Kagan]

Follow-up on previous list discussion.

>Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 15:28:55 -0800
>From: Michael Gorman <michaelg at csufresno.edu>
>Subject: [ALACOUN:8700] Fwd: [IFACTION:4491] Free Speech and Civil 
>Rights Organizations Speak
>  in Support of	UC Berkeley Chancellor Berdahl
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>Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 14:35:04 -0600
>From: Don Wood <dwood at ala.org>
>Subject: [IFACTION:4491] Free Speech and Civil Rights Organizations Speak in
>  Support of	UC Berkeley Chancellor Berdahl
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>
>PRESS RELEASE
>For Immediate Release
>January 17, 2003
>_______________________
>
>For further information contact Svetlana Mintcheva at 212-807-6222 ext.
>23
>
>Free Speech and Civil Rights Organizations Speak in Support of UC
>Berkeley Chancellor Berdahl
>
>
>Today the National Coalition Against Censorship and other free
>expression and civil rights organizations issued a statement commending
>University of California, Berkeley Chancellor Berdahl for affirming the
>University's commitment to academic freedom by overriding a previous
>decision to censor a fund-raising appeal for the Emma Goldman Papers
>Project.
>
>The groups emphasized the importance of academic freedom. David Greene,
>executive director of the First Amendment Project in Oakland, CA, said,
>"Censorship of political expression is not acceptable in any setting.
>Yet a University has a special obligation to ensure that its students
>and faculty are free to express and explore the whole spectrum of ideas
>and ideologies."
>
>Svetlana Mintcheva, arts advocacy project coordinator at the National
>Coalition Against Censorship, noted that the controversy over the
>censoring of the fund-raising appeal has additional resonance in the
>present political atmosphere. "The freedom to express dissenting
>political opinions needs to be protected with exceptional vigilance in
>times of political urgency when civil liberties begin to appear as a
>luxury we cannot afford."
>
>--endit--
>
>Statement:
>
>We commend University of California, Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl
>for affirming the University's commitment to academic freedom by
>overriding a previous decision to censor a mailing from the Emma Goldman
>Papers Project. University officials had ordered the Goldman Project to
>remove two Goldman quotations from a fund raising appeal, because they
>were apparently concerned that Goldman's pointed political statements
>might be taken to represent the position of the University.
>
>Last April Chancellor Berdahl called upon the university community to
>show that even in exceptionally troubling times - times when passions
>and emotions run deeply - the great value of a university is that it is
>a free and ordered space in which civil debate and reasoned discourse
>can prevail. If political speech is repressed, civil debate cannot
>exist.  A university must be a place where students and faculty are free
>to explore and debate dissident views.  And a university must let these
>views be expressed without concern that some may misperceive the
>university's respect for freedom of speech as an endorsement of the
>views themselves.
>
>Chancellor Berdahl's affirmation of the University's commitment to
>intellectual and academic freedom has set an example for other
>educational institutions. It is precisely in the present political
>context of terrorist threats and governmental preparation for a possible
>war that upholding freedom of speech is crucial. As the late Justice
>Thurgood Marshall said, ...[G]rave threats to liberty often come in
>times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to
>endure.
>
>It is sadly ironic that the words of Emma Goldman, who led a long and
>determined battle for freedom of expression, especially in war times,
>were censored. The University's initial action had given a portentous
>meaning to her warning that "We shall soon be obliged to meet in
>cellars, or in darkened rooms with closed doors, and speak in whispers
>lest our next door neighbors should hear that freeborn citizens dare not
>speak in the open."
>
>Svetlana Mintcheva
>Arts Advocacy Project, National Coalition Against Censorship
>
>Chris Finan
>American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
>
>David Greene
>First Amendment Project
>
>Larry Siems
>Freedom to Write and International Programs, PEN American Center
>
>Cindy Cohn
>Electronic Frontier Foundation
>
>Robin Gross
>IP Justice
>
>Jeff Perlstein
>Media Alliance
>
>Dorothy Ehrlich
>ACLU of Northern California
>
>Kent Pollock
>California First Amendment Coalition


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu