June 24, 2008
By Wendy Kaminer,
“(M)ost Americans have a non-dogmatic approach to faith,” the Pew Forum happily announced this week. Pew’s widely reported, 2008 “Religious Landscape Survey” found that Americans combine religiosity (92% profess belief in God or a “universal spirit”) with tolerance: “Most Americans agree with the statement that many religions – not just their own – can lead to eternal life.” This portrait of America as an open-minded, religiously diverse nation comports with the national self-image, perhaps not surprisingly, considering that Pew’s findings are based on a survey of 35,000 Americans, many of whom may profess beliefs that they haven’t quite internalized.
In South Carolina, at least, religious sectarianism prevails. There, state government has decreed production of special Christian license plates, picturing a cross against a stained glass window and emblazoned with the words, “I Believe.” The state does not sponsor license plates signifying belief in any other religion, or no religion; in fact, as Americans United has stressed, state regulations of vanity plates insure that “other religions will not be able to get similar license plates expressing different viewpoints, nor can a comparable ‘I Don’t Believe’ license plate be issued.”
Americans United is challenging this clearly unconstitutional practice in federal court, and, so far, proponents of the “I Believe” plate have reacted to the lawsuit with predictable, crowd pleasing stupidity: “I think this has less to do with the First Amendment and more to do with their disdain for religion generally,” the Republican House speaker opined. Never mind that plaintiffs in the AU case are four clergymen and the American Hindu Foundation. The Lieutenant Governor, who has offered to loan the state $4000 to facilitate production of the “I Believe” plate, defended state sponsorship of the plate as a “freedom of speech issue.” Never mind that it’s the people who have freedom of speech against the state, which has no freedom of speech against the people. The state has power; the people have rights, designed to check abuses of power, like state sponsorship of sectarian religious practices and beliefs, as Lieutenant Governor Bauer might learn from an elementary civics class. “Most Americans have a non-dogmatic approach to faith?” South Carolina didn’t get Pew’s memo, I guess.
June 24, 2008
By Harvey Silverglate
This is
partially a free speech blog, so we’d be remiss in failing to note the passing
of George Carlin. He failed to convince the Supreme Court of the absurdity of
the Federal Communications Commission’s “broadcast indecency” rules that
scrubbed the airwaves during the day and evening (when, presumably, the kiddies
are awake) of those naughty words that we all hear and (if the truth be told)
many of us use quite regularly. The real outrage of the high court’s idiocy in that case was that Carlin
had clearly used the “seven dirty words” in the context of a parody of
broadcast censorship. The FCC has no self-recognition, apparently, and the
Supreme Court justices have no sense of humor.
But, of
course, Carlin had the last laugh.
In addition to bringing his biting wit and jokes into his audiences’ lives, he
also was a hero to those who take
the First Amendment seriously, as well as to those who try hard to understand
some of the less proud legacies of Puritan America. As H. L. Mencken has noted,
a Puritan is someone who has the nagging feeling that somewhere, somehow,
someone is enjoying himself. Well, Carlin has proven Mencken correct, and
that’s no small service for him to have performed before dying, all too soon,
of heart failure.
Even in his
death, the ironies of his anti-censorship message continue to resonate. Today’s
Boston Globe’s Opinion Page, in the VoxOp feature, excerpts blogger Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast, lamenting Carlin’s passing: “I suppose one can’t have as finely honed a [garbage] detector as
he had, and use it so expertly for so many years, and have much of it left
after the last eight years of the Bush administration. But no one cut through …
modern life the way Carlin did…” Phoenix
readers may recall my gripes with the Boston
Globe’s censorship policy (which I wrote about here and here), so I was curious as to whether “[garbage]” was in Jill’s original text,
or whether it was the word Carlin would have used – bullshit. Turns out that
the Globe censored not one, but two
bits from the post: garbage replacing “shit,” and the “cut through … modern
life” replacing “cut through the bullshit of modern life.” Carlin was a lone
pop culture voice for free speech, but sadly he died before his work was
finished.
George
Carlin – Rest in Peace. What are we going to do without you??
June 11, 2008
By Harvey Silverglate
The
Massachusetts judiciary – and as a result, the people of the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts – are about to lose one of liberty’s most effective
and reliable friends. But just because state Superior Court Judge Isaac
Borenstein will retire from his life-tenured position on the state’s
trial court on September 12th doesn’t mean that he will
disappear altogether from the battle for freedom, decency, and fairness.
Instead, he plans to conclude his 22 years of service on the bench by
returning, at age 58, to a law practice emphasizing civil rights and
civil liberties cases.
Judge
Borenstein’s departure from the bench follows an increasingly typical
narrative; he isn’t leaving his judicial post because he’s tired
of it. He explained to David Yas of the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
that he likely would have continued his judicial career for a while
but for the fact that his son Simon is a student at Carnegie-Mellon
University. Private colleges like Carnegie-Mellon, which costs $52,000
a year, put public servants like Borenstein in the unfortunate and unenviable
position of having to decide between providing for their children’s
education – and facing financial hardship – and keeping their jobs.
This trend is playing out around the country as our courts – both
state and federal – continue to suffer judicial flight due to the
inadequate salaries given to even our most seasoned judges. (Judge Borenstein
and many others on the bench could easily earn in private practice a
salary worth several times the $129,694 that he currently earns.)
While
I’ll be sad to see him leave the bench, the realities he faces mean
that I can’t fault him for making the decision he did. I hold Borenstein
in high regard for his wise and prudent decisions and actions on the
bench – which happen to be his claim-to-fame among the local bar members.
However, my respect for him is partly rooted in, and was very much enhanced
by, his brave and principled decision to grant the defendants’ motion
for a new trial in the tortured Amirault
case.
That
case, which readers might be familiar with as the “Fells Acres Daycare
Case,” was one of the earliest instances of the nationwide sex panic
in the early 1980s, where prosecutors, social workers, jurors and many
judges believed the testimony of 3 and 4-year-old children who alleged,
after being tutored in their stories by cops and social workers, that
workers in pre-school day-care centers performed the most astonishing,
vile, unbelievable, and often literally physically impossible sexual
assaults on them. (The Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal
columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz ably documented that national panic in
her highly-regarded 2003 book, No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation,
False Witness, and Other Terrors of our Times.) The Amiraults had
already brought their case up to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
by that point, but the high court had issued a disgraceful decision
penned by then-Justice (now Harvard Law professor) Charles Fried denying
them relief on the ground that “finality” was a major judicial value
that sometimes had to trump truth and justice. Recognizing the enormity of the injustice
done to the three members of the Amirault family accused in that case,
and seeking perhaps to do an end-run around Justice Fried’s and the
SJC’s ill-considered “finality” ruling, Judge Borenstein later
granted the defendants’ third motion for a new trial, though his decision was subsequently
overturned -- the second such reversal in the case -- by an obdurate SJC.
Judge
Borenstein’s attempt to do justice for the Amirault family, even in
the face of hostility from the state’s highest court, was the right
thing to do. I suspect that in the long run – from the standpoint
of ethics – it will have longer and more influential impact than the
SJC’s misguided reversals of lower courts’ attempts to do justice.
Borenstein proved that sometimes there’s more wisdom on the trial
bench than at the appellate level of the judicial system. His wisdom
and courage will be missed, but I for one, recognizing that he could
not stay on the bench much longer, now look forward to his new career
as a trial lawyer promoting civil rights, civil liberties, and elementary
justice from the other side of the bench.
June 05, 2008
In a puritan streak, Harvard University has forced several student groups who were planning on hosting a "Barely Legal" party to change the name -- or they otherwise couldn't hold the party, according to the Harvard Crimson and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). (Disclosure: Free For All writer Harvey Silverglate is Chairman of the Board of Directors of FIRE.) One student involved in the party's planning explained that the name was meant to imply the party "is going to be so crazy it should be illegal," but other students complained about the allusions to pornography. It's unfortunate that students are so sensitive on college campuses that they force their classmates to apologize even though their party ideas aren't "intended to imply statutory rape," but it's even more unfortunate that Harvard has shamelessly capitulated to student complaints and prevented students from expressing themselves. In the words of FIRE President Greg Lukianoff, "If Harvard is willing to censor something as small as a party with a mild theme, how can we believe that it will defend the expression of truly controversial views on its campus?"
Updated (6/10/08 1:30pm): Readers who access The Free For All through the old site rather than the new site might see this post misattributed below to Wendy Kaminer because of software limitations with the old system. The post was penned by James Tierney, a research assistant for Harvey Silverglate.
June 03, 2008
Last September, Harvey wrote in The Free For All about Star Simpson -- the MIT student who was arrested at Logan Airport for wearing a (prank) sweatshirt displaying a working circuit board connected to a battery -- and predicted that "there is no way prosecutors can convince
twelve sane jurors that a student, wearing such a sweatshirt with the flashing
lights tacked onto the outside rather
than hidden underneath her clothing, was actually trying to perpetrate a hoax
that she was a suicide bomber." Well, this morning's Boston Herald confirmed Harvey's prediction, reporting that the DA's office decided not to pursue the hoax charges because they could not have proven her "intent to cause anxiety, unrest, fear or personal discomfort" -- a necessary element of the crime -- to a jury. Instead, she gets pre-trial probation for the disorderly conduct charge, and prosecutors plan to drop that charge in a year if she completes community service and doesn't get into any more trouble.
Updated (6/10/08 1:30pm): Readers who access The Free For All through the old site rather than the new site
might see this post misattributed below to Wendy Kaminer because of
software limitations with the old system. The post was penned by James
Tierney, a research assistant for Harvey Silverglate.
May 30, 2008
The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the owners of the Chicago Cubs are considering enacting a de facto "civility code" at Wrigley field, in response to some Cubs fans who have taken to booing the underperforming left fielder Alfonso Soriano. As Sports Law Blog notes, Wrigley and the Cubbies are privately-owned, so fans don't have First Amendment rights to express their disappointment at their team's defensive performance. At the same time, though, do the owners really think that by ejecting fans who boo the home team, or who make "profane or inappropriate comments" -- as objective a criterion as I've ever heard -- they will eliminate problems of fan disgruntlement? Thought reform through censorship doesn't work in educational contexts -- in fact, it even backfires -- so there's every reason to believe that if Cubs fans are muzzled, their booing will get even louder, and may even get directed toward the Cubbies' owners.
Updated (6/10/08 1:30pm): Readers who access The Free For All through the old site rather than the new site
might see this post misattributed below to Wendy Kaminer because of
software limitations with the old system. The post was penned by James
Tierney, a research assistant for Harvey Silverglate.
May 29, 2008
Following up on Harvey's post about the right to travel to Cuba, a few days ago Israeli security services detained American (ex-)academic Norman Finkelstein and refused to allow him entry to Israel for the next ten years. Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald quotes a Jerusalem Post article explaining that "the decision to deport Finkelstein was connected to
his anti-Zionist opinions and fierce public criticism of Israel around
the world." Even if you disagree with Finklestein's politics, there's something perverse in a country refusing admission to someone based on the content of their speech. It's one thing to keep a visiting scholar out because of real security interests, but it smacks of viewpoint censorship when scholars (like Tariq Ramadan, who writes about Islam and modernity and was denied a teaching visa by the U.S. state department back in 2004) aren't allowed to enter the marketplace of ideas. Finkelstein certainly doesn't toe the Likud party line, but it's also a stretch to call him a security threat, so it seems pretty clear why he was excluded. Ha'aretz had the right response: "It is not for the government to decide which views should be heard here and which ones should not."
Updated (6/10/08 1:30pm): Readers who access The Free For All through the old site rather than the new site
might see this post misattributed below to Wendy Kaminer because of
software limitations with the old system. The post was penned by James
Tierney, a research assistant for Harvey Silverglate.
May 29, 2008
By Harvey Silverglate
The American Civil Liberties Union
of Massachusetts, along with its counterparts in Florida
and Vermont and the Center for Constitutional
Rights, has filed an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief in Vilaseca v.
Paulson, a lawsuit pending in the federal district court in Vermont. The lawsuit challenges the travel
restrictions the U.S. Treasury Department places on American citizens with family
members in Cuba.
The ACLU argues that the U.S.
government's prohibition on American citizens visiting direct family members
living in Cuba
more than once every three years, even in emergency family situations, violates
“the due process right to preserve family relationships… deeply rooted in the
First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.” (The Boston Globe provides good background on the Cuban-American
plaintiffs in this suit.
The ACLU state affiliates’ brief
makes a compelling argument that American courts have, over the years,
established the sanctity of family as a sort of penumbral right within the
constitution. This hinges the legal argument on a series of Supreme Court
opinions in what we can call, I suppose, the “family values” and “familial
relationships” arena. Indeed, one of the most important decisions in this arena
in American history was the pivotal Griswold
v. Connecticut, in which the high court held that it was unconstitutional
for the state of Connecticut
to criminalize the distribution of birth control devices to, and their use by,
married couples for family planning purposes. And it
was only a short hop-skip-and-jump from there to the high court’s protection of
a woman’s right to plan to have, or not to have, children – the “right to
choose” an abortion, protected by Roe v.
Wade.
But it seems to me that these
travel restrictions are not only a civil rights “familial relations” violation,
but even more fundamentally an assault on a fundamental right of free people –
the right to leave the country to visit any damned place they wish, and to then
be able to return unmolested by the goons from the Immigration and Treasury and
other federal bureaucracies that have been enlisted in the tawdry task of
policing the nation’s counter-productive and anti-libertarian restrictions on
travel to, or sending money to relatives and friends living in, nations with
which the United States is unhappy (often for very good reason) at the time. It
seems to me to be a no-brainer that part of what it means to be a free citizen
of the United States, includes the right to travel somewhere in order to see
for oneself what’s going on. There’s no reason to have to satisfy oneself with
the bilge that we get from our government – as if the State Department actually
knows much about the world these days anyway.
I doubt that the federal courts
anytime soon are going to include the right to travel anywhere in the world, to
spend whatever money it takes for such travel (including food and lodging), and
to then return to the United States unmolested by government agents – among the
fundamental rights to which American citizenship entitles us. Doubtless the
“strict constructionists” would holler that it’s no business of the courts
whether we are treated as free citizens or as tools of what passes these days
for government diplomacy. But if the courts cannot see that this fundamental
right of free people surely should be deemed protected by the Bill of Rights,
then what hope is there?
In any event, if the ACLU chapters
and their allies win this lawsuit on a narrower “familial rights” ground, I’ll
be the first to cheer. But it’s too bad that the right to travel is not more
fully protected by the courts, thus necessitating the family-relations legal
hook.
(With thanks to my research
assistant Jan Wolfe for assisting on
this blog entry.)
May 19, 2008
This morning, the Supreme Court ruled that a law that outlaws promoting or advertising -- "pandering" -- child pornography is constitutional and does not interfere with First Amendment freedoms. In the case, United States v. Williams, decided 7-2, the justices declared that there is no free speech right that protects "offers to provide or requests to obtain child pornography," even if (in fact) there is no pornography to be provided. Free speech expert and blogger Eugene Volokh explains that the case is actually more interesting than a simple child pornography case, as the court has, in his reading, recognized that the First Amendment does not protect solicitations (or offers) to commit a crime. He writes: "[t]rying to buy illegal drugs, for instance, by soliciting someone to
sell them to you is generally a criminal attempt even if the solicited
seller was only going to deliver fake drugs rather than real ones."
Wendy Kaminer wrote about this case on The Free For All back in November.
Updated (6/10/08 1:30pm): Readers who access The Free For All through the old site rather than the new site
might see this post misattributed below to Wendy Kaminer because of
software limitations with the old system. The post was penned by James
Tierney, a research assistant for Harvey Silverglate.
May 19, 2008
By Wendy Kaminer
Reacting predictably to spate of noose hanging incidents in late 2007, New York
governor David Patterson has signed legislation criminalizing display of a noose with intent to harass or threaten because of bias against the usual categories, including race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability. The legislation amended existing law prohibiting cross burning or display of a swastika with similar intent. All three forms of hate speech are punishable by up to four years in prison. I have little to add to my earlier discussions about this issue, here and here, except to repeat that last fall the New York Civil Liberties Union promised to “study” the noose display amendment; anyone interested in the results of that study should call the NYCLU at 212.607.3300.
March 21, 2008
A report by Boston Globe federal courts reporter Shelley Murphy is as interesting for what it omits as for what it reports.
The story involves what appears to be an allegation that Boston FBI Supervisory Agent Robert Callen either bullied, or harassed, or otherwise acted inappropriately toward an un-named “female federal prosecutor” at a meeting in the federal courthouse in 2006. Callen allegedly came up behind the unnamed prosecutor – who was assigned at the time to the Organized Crime Strike Force – put his arm around her in a headlock, and gave what the Globe article describes as “a Three Stooges-style noogie.”
This office incident – as anyone with an older brother can attest, undoubtedly one of the worst things that can be done to you at a tender young age – led to a year-long investigation and ultimately a recommendation that Callen and two other unnamed agents (let’s call them Curly and Larry) be fired. Of course, the “noogie” itself might not be the grounds for the dismissal recommendation. Rather, investigators from the FBI inspector general’s office concluded that Callen and the two other agents were not truthful when questioned about the incident.
Murphy reveals that her decision not to publish the name of the offended prosecutor was based on a request from Acting U.S. Attorney Michael K. Loucks. However, Murphy apparently learned the victim’s name for the story, and in fact reached the prosecutor, who “now handles drug cases,” by phone.
This instance of the Globe’s skittishness when it comes to publishing “sensitive” information comes on the heels of my recent Boston Phoenix Freedom Watch column. There, I complained about the Globe’s policy of not spelling out the actual four-letter words and other expletives involved in FCC censorship stories, where the actual words are crucial to the legal issues. So yet again I am astounded to see the Globe self-censor and sacrifice truth for style or political correctness – the refusal to publish the name of an alleged victim of harassment while naming the alleged harasser – an especially egregious violation of the public’s right to know since the alleged victim is a public servant and not an ordinary private citizen.
And, while we’re at it, there’s another aspect to the story that is troubling: When regular citizens are caught lying to the feds, the penalty is usually a “false statement” indictment under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001, which makes it a felony, punishable by five years in prison, to make a “material” misstatement to a federal official. Instead of being indicted, the three FBI agents are heading for mere dismissal even though they didn’t tell the truth when talking to investigators. This is just another aspect of the double standards that more and more characterize our culture.
We’re living in a Three Stooges world.
Harvey Silverglate
March 19, 2008
By Wendy Kaminer
Silence, or relative silence, in the form of freedom from increasingly ubiquitous public tv's, is rapidly diminishing, along with our ability to think straight, I suspect. Some people can tune out the clatter and chatter of ads, celebrity gossip, and a little news more readily than others, but none of us are ever really alone with our thoughts with tv's glaring and blaring at us. Now, having invaded elevators, taxis, and, worst of all, airport lounges, (where it is virtually impossible to find a tv free space to read a newspaper while you’re suffering a flight delay,) tv's are about to invade gas stations.
“Gasoline stations from Worcester to Arlington, Leominster to Stoughton, will soon be glowing with televisions, according to Gas Station TV, the Michigan company responsible for the flat-screens on the Pike,” the Boston Globe reports. “David Leider, chief executive officer, said the company expects to open 50 locations in the Boston market in the next month. And Fuelcast Media Network, a gas station television provider based in Los Angeles, expects to enter the fray in Massachusetts by late summer …The screens, which were installed last week at Gulf gas stations on the Pike and are the first at Massachusetts gas stations, offer news bytes, sports highlights, and the latest Hollywood gossip.” But the “driving force,” is advertising.
You can’t turn the volume down or change channels while you’re stuck at the pump, the Globe report adds. “Here, advertisers hawking soda have potential customers right where they want them: a short walk away from a mini-mart selling their product. For these reasons, local drivers are about to see a lot more TV at the pump in the coming weeks and not just on the Pike.”
I realize, of course, that gas stations are not meditation spaces; still, we don’t enter them for the purpose of being barraged by ads. Yes, commercial speech is protected by the First Amendment, but like all speech, it may be subject to time, place and manner restrictions, which could arguably be applied to these gaseous tv's that we cannot control or even escape. The audience is literally captive, as the CEO of Gas Station TV bragged to the Globe: "We like to say the consumer is tied to the screen with an 8-foot rubber hose for five minutes." Exactly. Gas Station TV is an exercise in power, not First Amendment rights.
March 17, 2008
I have two articles in the March 13, 2008 issue of the Boston Phoenix. In the first, Jan Wolfe and I criticize the ill-advised arrest of performance artist Milan Kohout and follow up on his case, which was dismissed in Massachusetts court. In the second article, I report on newspapers' annoying tendency to censor swear words even when those words are at the core of the story being reported.
I also published an op-ed in the March 15, 2008 issue of the Boston Globe, in which I describe how vague and easily pliable federal statutes have created a situation in which the Department of Justice can concoct a novella-length federal indictment out of disgraced ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's meeting a prostitute in a Washington, D.C. hotel room. Spitzer's vulnerability to federal prosecution, I argue, is part of a larger trend in federal law enforcement that has surprised defendants who have landed in trouble for acts, unlike the act of prostitution in Spitzer’s case, that they reasonably did not believe were intuitively criminal.
March 17, 2008
By Wendy Kaminer
Late last year, when Fox News refused to run an ad by the Center for Constitutional Rights, criticizing president Bush for destroying the Constitution, liberals rightly protested, accusing the network of censorship. They should keep this case in mind when considering recent charges by a Wisconsin pro-life group that three university newspapers declined to run its ad cautioning students about the alleged dangers of emergency contraception. An editor at one of the papers (at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Racquet,) claims that the ad is “under consideration,” but a spokeswoman for the pro-life group claims the ad was rejected outright as inappropriate. Whatever.
Provocative, political ads regularly spark free speech controversies. In 2001, some 18 college newspapers did right wing provocateur David Horowitz the favor of refusing to accept his ad denouncing reparations for slavery.
Naturally the ad received a quite a lot of free publicity as a result, especially when a student mob at Brown University destroyed copies of the Brown Daily Herald in which the ad appeared.
"There's a fine line between free speech and being disrespectful and distasteful," one student protester explained absurdly, apparently assuming that the First Amendment has some purpose other than protecting speech that he and his cohort deem “distasteful.” But while this effort to justify censoring distasteful or disrespectful speech seemed too stupid to prevail, it triumphs today in the increasing demand for “civility codes” on campus and, off campus, in efforts even at the ACLU to deter dissent by labeling it “uncivil.”
Yes, private institutions have a constitutional right to ban dissent, although it may sometimes be unwise for them to do so (the ACLU board embarrassed itself two years ago by proposing to bar board members from criticizing the ACLU.) But the continuing erosion of our cultural commitment to free speech has already begun to erode its legal guarantees. As I wrote 7 years ago, it's a Bill of Rights, not a Code of Etiquette; let’s hope that’s still true seven years hence.
March 15, 2008
My column in this week’s Boston Phoenix criticized newspapers – and other media outlets that are not subject to the “broadcast indecency” rules of the Federal Communications Commission – for voluntarily “bleeping” out expletives in news stories where the controversial words are central to the story. Why, I asked, do newspapers shy away from full disclosure when the reader’s knowledge of the precise words at issue is essential to understanding what is at stake in the story? Fundamentally, my column attacked the politically-correct circumlocutions engaged in as part of our culture’s obsession with not offending – even at the risk of speaking inaccurately or incompletely.
The evening of the very day that my column appeared, I gave a lecture at Brandeis University about the importance of free speech in higher education. (Anyone wishing to hear the speech may access it here.) In my talk, I emphasized one of the very arguments that I had made in my column – that the use of racial and gender-related and other such epithets, in the context of a discussion where the words themselves are integral to the issue or problem being discussed, should not be evaded simply to avoid offending or shocking ‘polite’ readers. As a meta-discussion of the propriety of using ‘impolite’ words, my speech naturally did feature a few of them in a fully appropriate and relevant context.
But during the Q&A, a Brandeis undergraduate stood up and asked me to apologize for using, as he delicately put it, “the N-word” during my talk. I was taken aback, not because I was embarrassed for having used a disturbing word during my speech, but because an intelligent student – Brandeis is not an insignificant institution of higher learning – obviously was so brainwashed by politically correct diversity counselors, sensitivity trainers, and a small army of speech police in the administration, that he didn’t quite get the point of my speech. It was fine, of course, for him to disagree with my thesis, but for him to have actually expected me to apologize for following my own advice was quite startling. The academy today, so awash in censorship, will never cease to amaze and concern me.
--- Harvey Silverglate