Faced with a tough question, Yale responds with timidity

Faced with a tough question, Yale responds with timidity

Columbus Dispatch: People look to America’s elite universities to uphold free intellectual inquiry.

So it’s good that Yale University Press plans to publish a book about the worldwide furor that erupted in 2005 when a Danish newspaper published a dozen cartoons about the Prophet Muhammed.

But it’s not so good that the Yale University Press has decided not to include the disputed cartoons in the book.

The bully wins

The move is a vote of no confidence in free discussion of ideas. It is a de facto statement that, when a bully is offended by an idea, the idea should be stifled.

The cartoons at issue have been reprinted many times since 2005 without triggering any repeat of the violent protests that occurred at the time.

Yet, when The Cartoons that Shook the World was on the way to printing, Yale decided to raise the issue explicitly by asking several more “experts in the intelligence, national security, law enforcement and diplomatic fields” if publishing the cartoons might spark new violence.

Yale’s timidity is especially unfortunate because the reason the cartoons were created was to defend the right of free expression against religious extremists’ demands that no one be allowed to write or draw things that offend them.