Update on Censorship at Pace and Other Campuses

The outcome of our press release distributed to the New York media regarding the Pace administrator’s “film police” has been uplifting and exemplary. Michael Abdurakhmanov, the president of Pace Hillel has been inundated all week with calls from media and organizations nationwide asking for interviews and offering to support his cause. Standwithus, a pro-Isreal advocacy organization has been speaking up about the Pace incident at New York conservative venues and has featured a Statement from Michael Abdurakhmanov on their website. The New York Times is planning to do a wider story on Pace and other campuses that have likewise censored the film Obsession and suppressed student’s free speech and conscience.

The other day I received a call from Robert Rosenblatt, a New York attorney who has been undertaking a voluntarily effort to host public screenings of Obsession at the Harvard Club and other New York City venues. He was outraged by the stories of censorship at Pace and Brown University where Nonie Darwish’s speaking engagement was cancelled due to protests from the MSA (Muslim Students Association).

National Hillel has stepped in to handle the public relations and help Pace Hillel with the load of media contacts. According to Michael, Pace President Caputo has also contacted National Hillel seeking a resolution. The upshot of events at Pace has borne out my assertion that “student action to go public is a good way to expose the corruption of higher education and the fastest path to reform.” Due to the blitz of negative press the Pace administration seems to have been shamed into an acknowledgment of some of their wrongdoing. In an email from Michael:

Just to update you, this week the National Hillel VP, the Pace administration and I will be holding a meeting to try and resolve the issue. We are asking for the school to take real responsibility. We want them to fess up to at least some of the things that we accused them of doing. As well as making a public statement to the school with those acknowledgments. Currently they seem like they are willing to work things out, though they have sent out e-mails singling me out as falsely accusing the school. The JCRC has stepped in and is helping out as well. They are looking for ways to connect the Local Hillels together and put on bigger events. Things are looking very good.

Stonybrook University is another campus that claims to defend academic freedom but has shown their true colors by pressuring a student organization to cancel a recent screening of Obsession. Academia apparently exhibits wholesale bias when confronted with a message so powerful as the truth contained in this film about the threat of radical Islam to our civilization and way of life. Instead of seriously studying and investigating such a vital issue they avoid it like the plague and quash any attempt to consider it.

According to Karyn Leffel, the coordinator for campus Obsession screenings, Stonybrook Chabad, the campus Jewish organization, had planned a screening of Obsession long in advance with the amicable participation of MSA. However shortly after, the Muslim chaplain, upset about the screening, convinced MSA to renege on their co-sponsorship and to protest the event. MSA then pressured the Chabad Rabbi to cancel the event with a campaign of harassing emails and phone calls to the rabbi, Jewish students and the administration. One Muslim student reportedly threatened the rabbi saying, given that Muslims are going to take over the world and everyone else is going to die, there is no point to Obsession. The administration put pressure on the rabbi to cancel the screening and he did so at the last moment. The College Republicans want to show the film and the administration feels that might be a better bet.

There is an upcoming screening of Obsession at NYU scheduled for January 27th sponsored by the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life and Arab Students United. So far I haven’t heard of any disruptions of this event, but I will look into it further. Those who would like to attend, as I plan to do, can get more information here and register.