AAUP and Holocaust Denial

I had written the following e-mail to Roger Bowen but he has not responded. It is ironic that one of the arguments that Roger Bowen and the jackboots at the AAUP have used against the Academic Bill of Rights has been the spurious claim that ABR would open the door to holocaust denial on campus. Now, there have been revelations that the AAUP has invited holocaust deniers to a conference and even distributed (although through a tactical error) holocaust denial material.

Roger--the New York Sun reported that the conference was cancelled, but the American Thinker says that you aim for the conference to go forward. Care to comment?

Also, I thought that one of your arguments agains the Academic Bill of Rights is that it would admit holocaust deniers onto campus, but now the American Thinker claims that you argue that holocaust denial is a free speech issue and that you are including holocaust deniers in your conference and even giving out holocaust denial literature. Which is your view, that holocaust denial shouldn't be allowed or that it is a matter of academic freedom?

Also, do you see a distinction between Islamic holocaust denial and Christian holocaust denial? How about left wing holocaust denial (for example Noam Chomsky's scholarly ruminations about the Pol Pot massacre being overblown) versus right wing holocaust denial a la Butz?

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles_print.php?article_id=5234


Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

In other words, I am trying to grasp the underlying patterns and criteria of the AAUP's alternating support for and opposition to holocaust deniers. What are the criteria by which it welcomes holocaust deniers to conferences?