Penn State President Blocks Art Censorship

[cali]

The president of Pennsylvania State University has overturned a decision by its School of Visual Arts to call off a student art exhibit that criticizes Palestinian terrorist groups.

The director of the school, Charles Garoian, called off the show days before it was to have started, saying that it did not promote diversity and that it might violate Penn State’s regulations against harassment and discrimination. After several days of campus debate, during which Hillel reported receiving anti-Semitic phone calls, President Graham Spanier told the Faculty Senate this week that the exhibit would take place.

In an e-mail interview, Spanier said: “Penn State does not and will not censor artwork. I wanted to make this perfectly clear to everyone. Crossing that line would compromise so many of the fundamental values of academe.”

<snip>

http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/27/pennstate

[itzamirakul]

1. But if the shoe was on the other foot!...

If the art program was to show work criticizing Israel it would be cancelled with no possible option of a reversal of opinion. That is what strikes so many Americans as being unfair. Any discussion (not to even mention criticism) of Israel brings instant accusations and charges of antisemitism.

On edit:
For an example of another piece of art being censored, please check this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x123172

It is in regards to the play "My Name is Rachel Corrie" which will not be performed in NYC "because it might upset the Jewish community."

[pelsar]

2. yes your right...

there is never an art show, movie, play, demonstration etc criticizing israel.....seems the mossad, working with with the CIA manages to make all those people who would criticize israel..disappear

[cali]

3. Please. Art criticizing Israel is

not at all uncommon on college campuses. I've seen exhibits in that vein myself. Your claim is utter nonsense. And yes i'm aware of the threads on the play about Rachel Corrie. The pressure put to bear in that case is disgraceful as well. I posted this largely because of the Rachel Corrie play being chased out of NY.

The sentiment on many college campuses is largely pro Palestinian. I'm surprised you're unaware of this.

In any case, censorship is wrong. It was wrong re the Rachel Corrie play. It was wrong on the part of the Dean of the Art School. The President of the college did the right thing.

[itzamirakul]

5. Art on college campuses is one thing...Art in professional or non-profit

theatres is another. Many people do not hear about nor attend college productions unless they are fortunate enough to know students who can keep them abreast of current happenings.

I am interested in fairness (or at least something close to fairness) when it comes to discussing the I/P problems. I just don't feel right taking the side of the only group allowed to criticize.

[cali]

7. It's nice to see you state

your interest in fairness. Alas, your posts don't reflect it. And the post I responded to, absolutely referred to college art shows:

"But if the shoe was on the other foot!...
Edited on Thu Apr-27-06 03:58 PM by itzamirakul
If the art program was to show work criticizing Israel it would be cancelled with no possible option of a reversal of opinion."

Your statement that "Many people do not hear about nor attend college productions unless they are fortunate enough to know students who can keep them abreast of current happenings. " is also factually incorrect. Many, many more people attend college productions than professional productions, or college art shows rather than gallery art shows. In my state, you wouldn't see much in the way of art or theatre if you didn't attend college exhibits or theatrical productions.

Finally, your statement that: "I am interested in fairness (or at least something close to fairness) when it comes to discussing the I/P problems. I just don't feel right taking the side of the only group allowed to criticize."

Your belief that only one side is allowed to discuss this matter precludes any rational discussion.
It's simply not true. Between people who throw out the charge of anti-semitism and those who throw out the charge that they're silenced because they might be charged with anti-semitsm, they're enough complainers to fill a stadium.
 

[cali]

4. Because facts matter

here is evidence directly refuting your assertion that art critical of Israel wouldn't stand a chance of being seen on college campuses- which by the way is as absurd a claim as any I've seen here.

"The Berkeley Art Center in collaboration with the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) presents "Justice Matters: Artists Consider Palestine." The exhibition presents a bold and controversial show of works created by fourteen Palestinian and American Artists. The artists address current contemporary issues of occupation and colonization within Palestine."

http://www.berkeleyartcenter.org/pages/exhibits_old.html#palestine

And at Princeton:

"Three presentations this spring – an art exhibition, a poetry reading, and a display of historical books – have prompted campus debate about whether, and how, material that may be offensive to some should be displayed.

The concerns centered around a reading by poet Amiri Baraka, whose work has been viewed as anti-Semitic; a Woodrow Wilson School exhibition of artwork by Hunter College professor Juan Sanchez that was seen by some as disrespectful to Catholicism; and the inclusion of material considered racist in an exhibition of children’s books in Firestone Library. Professor Stanley Katz, director of Princeton’s Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, noted that the three cases are very different: While Baraka’s work was known widely to spark protests, Katz said, the disputed materials in the art and library exhibitions were part of larger educational displays, which the organizers did not expect would be controversial or offensive."

<snip>

http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/paw070203.html


And one which I saw myself and was very powerful and very critical of Israel in my own dinky state of Vermont at the T.J. Wood Gallery at Vermont College: The link has photos of some of the art.

http://www.vtjp.org/exhibit/made_in_palestine.htm

These are just a tiny smattering of the art exhibits that contained art critical of Israel that took place on recently on U.S college campuses. Care to revise your statement?

[itzamirakul]

6. You will really have to show me where I said that "Art critical of Israel

wouldn't stand a chance of being seen on college campuses."

In my first post to which you are responding, I did not mention college campuses at all because I am involved in professional Off and Off-Off Broadway theatre in NYC.

While I do attend some college campus performances, I must admit that it is not too frequent. So your argument re college campuses in regard to my post is a moot point. I think that your misreading of my post is absurd also.

[cali]

8. I'm getting embarassed for you.

I posted an article about an art exhibit at a college that was critical of Palestinian terrorism being cancelled and subsequently reinstated. You responded with

" But if the shoe was on the other foot!...
If the art program was to show work criticizing Israel it would be cancelled with no possible option of a reversal of opinion."

The shoe on the other foot reference means; if the situation was reversed. You also used the phrase "art program" which in itself is indicative of an academic program, or at the very least refers to a learning enviroment.

So it isn't moot at all. It isn't the least bit absurd, and your argument that I misread your post, in the light of your own words, is, well, interesting.

[itzamirakul]

9. If you want to waste your time feeling "embarrassed for " me, then please

do luxuriate.

I won't try to discuss this with you any further and I give you the win in this discussion. I expressed my opinion and it has not changed.

[pelsar]

10. because your simply wrong....

the above posts makes it clear that critizising israel is "alive and well" in the US.......you have no intention of being "fair"...you've made it very clear that the "protocols of zion" lives on for the next generation....how does that work? jews/israels controlling the media....as well as education....

why not just say it or is there some fear that the IP address might be sent out to some agency and then perhaps a helicopter might just appear overhead?

[pelsar]

12. interesting comment....

your opinion is based on wrong information....its shown to be 100% wrong...and yet you refuse not just to acknowledge that your wrong but that it has no affect on your opinion.

i dunnno what does one call that?

[Spinoza]

13. Damn right.. Don't change your opinion no matter what.

Why change an opinion just the facts contradict it? That might feel uncomfortable.

[Igel]

11. UCLA in the mid-90s had a Palestinian-American

art student do an exhibition in Kerkhoff Hall that was very pro-Palestinian and very critical of the 'genocide' that's been waged against Palestinians by the 'Zionists'. One or two worked seemed supportive of targeting civilians.

It created a flap, which was, presumably, at least part of the intent. The show went on.

It's far easier to criticize Israel than the Palestinians on most of the campuses I've been on; Israel's defended by the Jewish groups, the Palestinians by Arab/Muslim and by groups on the left "solidarity" in solidarity with the brown-skinned poor victim against the racist apartheid oppressor.

[Scurrilous]

14. Brandeis University pulls Palestinian art from exhibit

<snip>

"Brandeis University officials have removed from a school exhibit artwork that depicts injured and bloodied Palestinian children, according to a media report.

The images were painted by Palestinian teenagers at the request of an Israeli Jewish student at at the Jewish-sponsored college who wanted to bring the Palestinian viewpoint to campus. But school officials said the paintings were too one-sided.

The paintings were removed Saturday, four days into a two-week exhibit at a school library, The Boston Globe reported on Wednesday.

Lior Halperin, the student who organized the exhibit, called the school's action "outrageous."

"This (is) an educational institution that is supposed to promote debate and dialogue," Halperin told The Globe. "Let's talk about what it is: 12-year-olds from a Palestinian refugee camp. Obviously it's not going to be about flowers and balloons."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/712115.html