Controversies

Was money the reason Yale University Press didn’t publish Danish cartoons?

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Aaron Taylor September 3, 2009 1 minute 2 comments

One scholar suggests that perhaps money, not fear, was the reason Yale University Press decided not to publish the Danish cartoons in the book The Cartoons That Shook the World.

Can you imagine a better way to set the stage for a major Alwaleed gift? Hosting for a semester the very person who structured the Harvard and Georgetown gifts, and who now directs Alwaleedâ??s charitable foundation? A stroke of genius.

Imagine, thenâ??and weâ??re just imaginingâ??that someone in the Yale administration, perhaps in President Levinâ??s office, gets wind of the fact that Yale University Press is about to publish a book on the Danish cartoonsâ??The Cartoons That Shook the World. The book is going to include the Danish cartoons, plus earlier depictions of the Prophet Muhammad tormented in Danteâ??s Inferno, and who-knows-what-else. Whooah! Good luck explaining to people like Prince Alwaleed that Yale University and Yale University Press are two different shops. The university canâ??t interfere in editorial matters, so whatâ??s to be done? Summon some â??experts,â? whoâ??ll be smart enough to know just what to say. Yale will be accused of surrendering to an imagined threat by extremists. So be it: self-censorship to spare bloodshed in Nigeria or Indonesia still sounds a lot nobler than self-censorship to keep a Saudi prince on the line for $20 million.