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Deal List, Tom Nagy should not be surprised for being a victim of censorship. The same censorship is applied in New Zealand too... HZ -------------------------- http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/0,2106,2576265a6009,00.html University split over decision to suppress article 22 July 2003 By TARA ROSS, By MATT CONWAY A "book burning" scandal has erupted at Canterbury University over an article on controversial Holocaust scholar Joel Hayward. A decision to recall and destroy copies of the history department's journal History Now – and dump editor Ian Campbell – is dividing the academic community. Canterbury lecturer Thomas Fudge, who wrote the offending article, has resigned in disgust and said he planned to leave at the end of the year. Dr Fudge told The Press he could not remain at a university that suppressed academic freedom. "It made me a hypocrite trying to teach my students to think critically and ask the tough questions, all of the academic values that universities are about, and here my department was saying effectively we're going to `burn books'." The article revisits the firestorm that surrounded the 1993 Masters thesis of former Canterbury student Joel Hayward, which questioned the validity of Holocaust history. The thesis: Questioned whether Hitler personally ordered the physical extermination of the Jews. Questioned whether gas chambers were used systematically to murder Jews in European concentration camps. Suggested while millions of Jews had died at the hands of the Nazis, it was impossible to know how many. Dr Fudge, who lectures on medieval religious dissent and witchhunting, explored what for Hayward became a career-ending controversy. He revealed in the article that Dr Hayward has been harassed and received death threats against his children. Dr Hayward suffered an emotional breakdown, and in June last year left his teaching post at Massey University. He now cannot get a job. Late last year, Dr Fudge says, a publishing firm canned a book on New Zealand airmen that Dr Hayward had co-edited "on account of the negative publicity surrounding him". A subsequent job ended the day it started, because employing Dr Hayward was considered to be "a very risky proposition", the article claimed. Dr Fudge's article, The Fate of Joel Hayward in New Zealand Hands: From Holocaust Historian to Holocaust?, played on the title of the thesis, The Fate of Jews in German Hands. The article appeared on May 6. Next morning, Professor Campbell was asked to appear before his editorial committee and history department head Peter Hempenstall. Professor Campbell said he was effectively pushed. "The fact is that board disapproved of my editorial decision and, as a result, I couldn't continue as editor." An embargo was slapped on the journal and 500 copies recalled. Staff were later advised that copies of the offending journal had been destroyed on the authority of Professor Hempenstall. Another May edition of History Now was printed without the Fudge article and an editorial discussing truth and martyrdom. Professor Campbell said the university's reaction to the History Now piece raised a central question: "Why does someone think that this story is worth suppressing? "I think the publicity for everybody involved is going to be costly. It's bad for everybody concerned and I didn't want to see this happen." On May 14, Dr Fudge defended his article and academic freedom at a special meeting of history department academics, calling the censorship "unconscionable". Last week, he confirmed to his students that he had resigned. He told them that suppressing the article contravened the Education Act, which upholds the academic freedom of university staff "to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions". Professor Hempenstall declined to speak to The Press, saying the matter had now become an employment issue between the university and Dr Fudge. The university's human relations director, Bruce Jamieson, said he was now investigating Dr Fudge's references to the controversy in lectures. He confirmed Vice-Chancellor Roy Sharp had investigated the journal's withdrawal and upheld Professor Hempenstall's decision. Professor Sharp was unavailable for comment last night. So too was Dr Hayward, who now lives in Palmerston North. Many Canterbury students were "very agitated" by the censorship move, Professor Campbell said. One student told The Press that teachers should be able to research and write about any issue – "even if the subject is controversial, even if the truth may be offensive to those who do not want to hear it". Staff outside the history department were also becoming aware of what had gone on. "I would think that people will fall into two categories; some will think it's a storm in a teacup and others will say it's a matter of principle," Professor Campbell said. A third group might say the department had no business commenting on the Hayward issue. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. 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