Duke University Professor Gary Hull has just published Muhammad: The "Banned" Images, which dares to publish images that Yale University and Yale University Press censored from Jytte Klausen's The Cartoons that Shook the World earlier this year. Hull calls the book "a statement of defiance against censors, terror-mongers, and their Western appeasers." FIRE joined with the National Coalition Against Censorship, the American Association of University Professors, and nine other signatories on a Statement of Principle stating that "The failure to stand up for free expression emboldens those who would attack and undermine it."

Duke University professor Gary Hull (editor of The Abolition of Anti-Trust and co-editor of The Ayn Rand Reader) has founded Voltaire Press (which is not affiliated with Duke) and has published Muhammad: The “Banned” Images, which includes the following statement signed by Nadine Strossen, Cary Nelson, Eugene Volokh, and others:

I wrote the other day about the thought police. I wrote earlier about the craven and dishonest (literally, intellectually, and morally) decision by Yale University Press to publish Jytte Klausen’s The Cartoons That Shook the World about the depictions of the Prophet Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper in 2005 and the responses to them - but to leave out the cartoons. That last continues to rankle. If we cannot look to the academy and its press to be forthright in defense of the open discussion of ideas, where can we look?

The answer, it seems (and thanks to Eugene Volokh for pointing it out), is to another university. What Yale will not do, Duke will. The aptly named Voltaire Press has now published Muhammad: The "Banned" Images. It's a picture book containing those 12 cartoons and apparently (I haven't got my copy yet) another 19 images of Muhammad, with commentary, and a Statement of Principle advocating not the content of the book but it's idea and signed by a dozen individuals and organizations. (I'm bitter that they didn't ask me to sign.)

To add your virtual signature to the Statement of Principle, go to MuhammadImages.com and send us an email.

Duke University's Voltaire Press has agreed to publish a book examining the Danish cartoon controversy. Unlike Yale University, Duke has not demanded its press censor the resulting book.

The Yale administration had interceded with the press to force the censorship. To support its censorship, Yale consulted with such luminaries as former Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and columnist Fareed Zakaria, both of whom supported adherence to perceived Islamist demands. Yale president Richard Levin has sent a letter that said the Yale Corporation, the university's governing body, supported the decision to censor. PBS's Margaret Warner serves on the Corporation, and has not spoken up to defend free speech and academic inquiry. Levin's letter implies Warner endorses Yale's censorship.

Yale University's lack of committment to serious academic study is a pity. It indicates a university in decline. It is as disappointing to see the number of luminaries, statesmen. and journalists serving Yale who refuse to realize what a slippery slope their acquiescence to censorship is.

This article is filled with statements that are inaccurate, misleading, and false.

“Yale University Press made a decision this August not to include the images, which incited riots . . .” This is dangerously misleading. The “images” did not do the inciting. Fundamentalist Muslims acting on blind rage incited the riots.

“Hull’s new book, Muhammad: The “Banned” Images, contains the visual content excluded from Klausen’s book . . .” This, too, is misleading. From the actual book: “It includes 31 full-color, high-quality reproductions [spanning 900 years] that range from the earliest known manuscript paintings to the Danish cartoons.” Captions set the historical and artistic context of those images.

"The October 27 arrests of two Chicago men for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks against targets associated with these cartoons is evidence that this threat is far from speculative . . " The fundamental question is not whether such barbaric acts have taken place (see “Murder & Mayhem” at www.muhammadimages.com) – but rather what one does in response to them. One can either roll over and play dead or one can stand tall.

“Klausen went on to say she is concerned that Hull has represented her as collaborator on his project . . .” I challenge anyone to provide a single piece of evidence to support that claim.

“The forward to Muhammad: The “Banned” Images is a preliminary draft of a statement written by Hull . . .” There is no “forward” in the book. Perhaps the author is referring to the Editor’s Introduction – a completed essay, not a “preliminary draft,” on the terrorist threats to free speech and the West’s appeasement of them.

Or perhaps by “forward” the author is referring to the Statement of Principle in the back of the book – but then one does not usually place a “forward” in the back. (Neither, though, is that document a “preliminary draft.)

In the future, Caplan-Bricker might be better served if she actually read the book (or at least had a physical copy of it) that she intends to review.

Note: The author contacted me for an interview. I left her phone and email messages, by the deadline she provided, that I was available for an interview. She never returned my messages.

The controversy surrounding images of the prophet Muhammad by Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard continued this week when Duke University professor Gary Hull published a book reprinting the images.
Yale University Press made a decision this August not to include the images, which incited riots when they were first printed in a Danish newspaper in 2005, in the book The Cartoons That Shook the World by Brandeis professor Jytte Klausen, which was published in October. Hull’s new book, Muhammad: The “Banned” Images, contains the visual content excluded from Klausen’s book, and a statement emphasizing the importance of free speech and deploring Yale’s decision to censor the images.

For much of our 30-minute interview, Gary Hull, a Duke lecturing fellow in sociology, and I discussed academic freedom, the challenges of self-publishing and the Enlightenment….

A Duke professor is making a bold statement about free speech with a new book likely to touch a nerve among many Muslims. Gary Hull, director of the Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace and a lecturing fellow in sociology, released a book Monday … “My primary motive here is to defend reason, Western civilization and individual rights,” Hull said. “It’s just a very public statement in defense of free speech.” …

More fodder for the Ideology of the Eternally Outraged (IEO) to seethe over! In order for the dhimmi appeasers at Yale University and the followers of the IEO to clearly get the message that, religion and religious sensibilities do not trump secular law and free speech rights, a new picture book of Mohamed is now being made available to defy the censors and Mohammedans who wish to impose their world view on the West.

The Voltaire Press is issuing a book titledMuhammad: The “Banned” Images.
Last August, as you may recall, the weenie prestigious Yale University Press pulled the prayer rug out from under author Jytte Klausen, a Brandeis professor who’d written her own book on the subject of the Motoons. Dr. Klausen’s book is called The Cartoons That Shook the World. The Craven Press was okay with the book, but it decided to nix the pix.

(Reprinted 11/10/2009 on the International Free Press Society blog)