University paper publishes Holocaust denial ad
LENN ZONDER
Connecticut Jewish Ledger
WEST HARTFORD, Conn. - A controversy has erupted at the University of New Haven after the student newspaper ran an ad from a Holocaust denial group. The ad, which ran Nov. 11 in the Charger Bulletin, was an offer of $50,000 to anyone able to arrange for a major television network to air a Holocaust revisionist film.
The Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, a San Diego-based organization directed by well-known Holocaust denier Bradley Smith, paid for the ad.
The editor of the Charger Bulletin, Allyson Barrett, a junior from Milford, Conn., said nobody on her staff checked the ad before publication. "We do not have enough resources to check every ad that comes into the paper," said Barrett. "To be honest, I wasn't sure what the ad was about."
Robert Leikind, Connecticut regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, called Barrett "naive." Leikind said he sent a warning letter to all campus newspapers in Connecticut after learning that other student university publications including those at Colgate, Cleveland State and Nebraska printed the ad.
Barrett claims the Charger Bulletin never received Leikind's letter.
The ad did not elicit much response on the campus. In one letter to the editor that was printed, Professor Steven Ross called the ad an "insidious attempt at dragging unsuspecting college students into an area of revisionist history that would be laughable if it were not such a serious matter."
Ross wrote that the university's policy should bar "ads that are directly connected with groups like the KKK, Aryan Brotherhood, White Resistance or organizations that front for them. Free speech is not an issue when it comes to offensive 'paid for' advertising."
In a published response to that letter, Barrett said, "There was no proof that the CODOH is a front for any type of white supremacist group. Even if this ad blatantly promoted such social distortion, the Bulletin would still take the First Amendment into consideration when deciding whether or not to print it."
She went on to say that the advertisement "only opens students' eyes to the fact that some people believe that there is room for debate when discussing Holocaust history. The paper is an advocate of First Amendment rights and newspapers are public forums for open debate in any form.
"This advertisement, by these standards, is a perfect example of how this belief can be applied," she added.
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