In what has developed into a disturbing trend of anti-Semitic marketing, the website of a University of Wisconsin-Madison newspaper, the Badger Herald, knowingly ran an ad reading “The Holocaust Question: The Power of Taboo.”
Newspaper editor Jason Smathers defended the newspaper’s decision to accept the $75 ad, clarifying that while he rejects the position of the ad, he believes its sponsor should be free to express himself under the First Amendment.
But the First Amendment merely protects free speech from the constraints of government, not from the constraints of a private newspaper. At no point does the First Amendment, or any perversion of its intentions, require newspapers to print misleading or factually incorrect opinions. The job of a newspaper editor is to filter what is and what is not appropriate for its readership. Without that power, what is an editor after all? Deciding not to run a Holocaust denial ad should not be a difficult decision.
The ad did not appear out of the blue. Earlier this month, a series of anti-Semitic comments appeared on a Badger Herald article that caught the eye of Mexico-based Holocaust denier Bradley Smith, the same man responsible for the printed Holocaust denial ad in the Harvard Crimson last year. In an effort to assist the anti-Semites who had left the comments, Smith purchased the ad on the paper’s website.
Responding to an outcry from the university’s Jewish community, UW-Madison Dean of Students Lori Berquam said, “The university stands by the principals of free expression, but also wants to give voice to members of the Jewish community, who have found the Herald’s actions divisive and hurtful.”
“This newspaper has made a principle of accepting any individual or group advertisement submitted,” Smathers wrote in last week’s Badger Herald. “The only cases in which we would reject an advertisement are if it exhibits threats toward any person or group or is of a libelous nature. This advertisement, while certainly fueled by veiled anti-Semitism, does not rise to the level of threats and therefore does not merit rejection.”
FightHatred.com rejects Smathers’ defense. Featuring a link to a Holocaust-denial website does exhibit a threat. In this planet, Holocaust deniers threaten the safety of Jews.
