Several college campuses grapple with Holocaust ad

Emotional protests and heated debate have met the publication of an ad in several college newspapers which calls for debate of the historical validity of the Holocaust. The Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust has sent the text-filled ad to more than a dozen college newspapers around the country. The ad says that Nazi Germany never had a formal policy of systematically exterminating Jews during World War II. The ad has been published by newspapers, including The Cornell Daily Sun, The Chronicle at Duke University and The Michigan Daily. Other papers, including The Brown Daily Herald, The Harvard Crimson and The Yale Daily News have not run the ad. At least one college newspaper has still not decided if it will run the ad yet. The University of Texas Student Publications' Board of Trustees, which makes policy decisions for The Daily Texan, decided last week to run the ad, but is now reconsidering the decision. Editor Matthew Connally said the board -- which is comprised of two professional journalists, three at-large students, three students from the School of Communication and three professors -- is reviewing the advertising policy to make it address material such as the Holocaust ad. The ad is not being run now because of the Jewish holiday of Hannukah, Connally said. He added that there was dispute among the members of the board, saying some members felt the current policy very clearly prohibits ads such as this one, but others thought it clearly allows offensive advertisements that are editorial, not commercial, in nature. The policy's first paragraph prohibits racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory advertising, but the final paragraph makes a distinction between editorial advertising and commercial advertising. Connally predicted that the ad will never run, because a revised policy may include a clause which prohibits editorial advertising which is untrue or discriminatory. The issue is being considered as a policy issue rather than as a moral or ethical issue because the newspaper could receive similar advertising in the future. "Revisionism is becoming more of an issue," Connally said. "Offensiveness was not a good enough reason [not to run ads]." The Chronicle at Duke University ran the ad on November 5, after two weeks of discussions between the student advertising manager, general manager, professional advertising manager, managing editor and the editor-in-chief. Only the managing editor and the professional advertising manager voted not to run the ad. Editor-in-Chief Ann Heimberger said yesterday that response to the ad was immediate. The day after it ran, the newspaper received 24 letters in response. The first night after the ad ran, Heimberger said, a group of 15 Jewish students came to the newspaper office and asked for an apology and an explanation. The staff members explained the reason for the decision, saying that it is important to educate people about the Holocaust and a university environment is the perfect place to do so. Heimberger said no apology was forthcoming. "The best way to deal with a lie is to expose it and scrutinize it publicly," Heimberger said. "If a college campus is not the right environment to discuss it in, I don't know what is." On the Sunday following publication of the ad, 350 students protested, condemning both The Chronicle and the ad. Heimberger said some protesters also called for the resignation of editors and managers involved in the decision. The newspaper also ran an additional two opinion pages filled with letters and columns commenting on the ad and the newspaper's decision.

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