Article: 15400 of alt.censorship From: aj498@yfn.ysu.edu (Jonathon D. Haskett) Newsgroups: alt.censorship Subject: Re: Northeastern Law to honor Censorship Advocate -- It's not our fault! Message-ID: <1pf52v$f6e@news.ysu.edu> Date: 1 Apr 93 16:26:07 GMT Organization: Youngstown State/Youngstown Free-Net Lines: 79 I am very much in favor of protesting MacKinnon's appearance however I do not think that the "Playboy Bunny" approach is the most effective. I think it has to much potential to become sidetracked into arguments about who does and does not like Playboy (which is irrelevant) and also allows Mackinnon the invalid position of saying "Look at all these oppressive porno reading men picking on me." This disguises her own censorship activities and further clouds the issue. As an alternative I propose large buttons or a banner with "Mackinnon Silences Women" on it with a picture of a woman wearing a gag. This is a much more powerful approach (IMHO) because it puts her on the defensive wrt her own gender and highlights her censorship activities, hipocracy, etc. without the gender obfuscation. The following article which appeared in NCAC's Censorship News should provide enough background information to make this charge stick. From: Censorship News, A Newsletter of the National Coalition Against Censorship. Issue 46, 11/5/92 U. of Michigan Law School Forum Suppresses Speech NCAC, together with many feminists and many groups concerned about the arts, the free exchange of ideas and the consequences of crusades for suppression, is protesting the censorship of an art exhibit at a forum sponsored by the University of Michigan Law School. The conference, on pornography and prostitution, was funded by the University of Michigan Law School and cosponsored by it and the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law. Featured speakers inculded U. of M. law professor Catharin Mackinnon, Andrea Dworkin, and others in the movement to ban sexually explicit expression. They had refused to attend if a viewpoint other than theirs was included, so the law students organizers invited Carol Jacobsen - whose work opposes a law and order approach to pornog- raphy and prostitution - to curate an art show. After discussion with MacKinnon, the law students banned the exhibit for its "wrong" ideas, calling it "threatening". In her letter to James Duderstadt, president of the University, NCAC executive director Leanne Katz said "A major university conference on prostetution and law represented as reflecting an active commitment to feminist legal theory without one speaker supporting decriminalization - a position supported by many feminists - may be widely seen as odd, if not improper . But a ban on an exhibit presenting multiple voices and ideas of actual women who are or have been sex workers because they may not conform to theories of a particular group of feminists is frightening... Feminists have struggled for many years around issues relating to women and sexuality. I cannot emphasize strongly enough how much more difficult this struggle has been made, in the past and in the present, by censorship... Principles of freedom of expression and academic freedom frequently do not have popular support. In application, they may challenge us to protect ideas and artistic expression which some people find offensive. But surely no great university can fail to protect these principles in its academic enterprise." Typos are mine. Reproduced with permission from National Coalition Against Censorship 275 Seventh Avenue New York, New York 10001 (212) 807-6222 All views other than the above article are my own and represent the ideas of nobody but myself. Specifically they are not the views of the National Coalition Against Censorship, or any other group, organization or institution. Jonathan Haskett