Obstructionists Shout-Down Talk and Hold Book-Burning of AIA's 'Cop Killer'
by Dan Flynn
Book-burning and the shouting-down of speakers are often dismissed as a caricature of what occurs on the campuses. My visit to the University of California-Berkeley last Wednesday demonstrated that such occurrences are all too real.
"On campus, intellectual weaklings resort to speech codes, newspaper thefts, and other forms of censorship to silence critics," I told a packed audience of 150 at UC-Berkeley on September 27. "At speaking events like this, intellectual cowardice often manifests itself in audience members attempting to shout down ideas they disagree with or administrators preventing such a lecture from taking place at all." The prepared remarks included in my speech on the guilt of convicted murderer and campus cult-hero Mumia Abu-Jamal were appropriate. An example of the pervasive censorship that I was referring to was at that very moment taking place.
"Racist!" "Nazi!" "Murderer!" and "White Mother-f---er!" were among the epithets hurled my way as I attempted to speak. One man, innocent of such modern devices as toilet paper, dropped his pants and bared his unclean rear-end. Civility increased only slightly when another student screamed, "You're f---ing David Duke, mother-f---er!" When spectators became bored with drowning me out in a sea of obscenities, they utilized poetic chants: "FOP, FBI/We don't buy your racist lies." The dirty man who flashed me later attempted to pull the microphone's cord from the wall. A web site, www.danielfaulkner.com, that had been written on the chalkboard so that audience members could come to their own conclusions by reading the trial transcripts, was erased. In its place was written www.kkk.com.
Despite the professed abhorrence of censorship by the 'mumiacs' at Berkeley, they had no qualms in censoring those who oppose their viewpoint.
As the disruptions persisted, I was asked to tell the audience that the police were on their way and that they would be clearing people out who continued to yell and scream. "They've been here the whole time," an audience member shouted. "We f---ing invited the police." Indeed, it became clear very quickly that the police were already there and that their presence was not to ensure our right to free speech, but to reinforce the obstructionists right to silence speech. The only time that I observed an officer speak to an audience member was when a man gently asked one of the disrupters to be quiet. It was his benign request, rather than the anarchic yelling and screaming, that sparked a UC-Berkeley officer to tell the man who had come to listen to sit down. After the event was unable to continue because of the constant shouting, the mob confiscated the remaining copies of the monograph I had authored, Cop Killer: How Mumia Abu-Jamal Conned Millions Into Believing He Was Framed, and held a book-burning outside.
Several of those participating in the fascist-style torching of literature had the audacity to hold anti-censorship placards reading "Stop Racist Censorship." Campus police, perhaps wisely, blocked me from leaving through the main exit and gave me an escort to my car.
Mindless chants, name-calling, flashing moons, and book-burning substituted for rational discourse. The home of the free speech movement a generation ago had degenerated into the home of intellectual fascism.
Return to chronology 27 Sep 1999
NEW YORK -- A judge has rejected convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal's effort to stop distribution of a book written by his attorney, saying it has First Amendment protection and is unlikely to have any effect on his case.
Labeling "Executing Justice" a rehash of information already in the public domain, U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska said April 10 that the death-row inmate had not demonstrated a likelihood the lawsuit would be successful.
Besides, she added, "the cat's out of the bag."
Advance copies of the book, written by Daniel R. Williams, had already been sent to 51 news outlets and at least one had published an article based on the book, she noted.
The March 22 lawsuit, which was ordered moved from Pittsburgh by a federal judge earlier this month, alleged that the book violates attorney-client privilege and hurts Abu-Jamal's ongoing appeals for a new trial in the 1981 shooting death of Philadelphia police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
In particular, Abu-Jamal attorney Jere Krakoff told Preska during his arguments, his client objected to sections of the book that portray one of his chief witnesses as unreliable and sometimes untruthful and portions that show his lawyers argued over whether to prepare his case with ideological arguments or strictly legal ones.
Preska, though, said the questions about the witness had arisen in the past and that it was unlikely that Abu-Jamal, a former radio reporter, could prove that his lawyer divulged anything that was not already in the public domain.
Preska also said she had reviewed the sections the lawsuit complains about and found them to be a "rehash of material already in the public record."
John Lankenau, who argued the case for St. Martin's Press, said packaging of boxes of the book would begin April 10 and shipping would start today.
He told Preska during his arguments that St. Martin's Press obtained the information for the book legally and that questions about its author's ethics could not cause the publication to be blocked.
Krakoff said it was probably too late to appeal Preska's ruling to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
He had told Preska that Williams was still Abu-Jamal's lawyer but it was unlikely he would remain so. Williams has said the book will help his client's case.
Preska's ruling came one day after a federal judge in Philadelphia said Abu-Jamal could fire his longtime legal team.
Because Abu-Jamal had hired his own lawyers, "he may change counsel at any time for any reason subject to court approval," U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr. wrote in a brief opinion filed April 9.
Abu-Jamal is on death row at the State Correctional Institution-Greene, about 45 miles southwest of Philadelphia.
(For more on issues concerning Mumia Abu-Jamal, see 27 Sep 1999)
Return to chronology 22 Mar 2001
04.21.01
ATLANTA -- A federal judge yesterday blocked the publication of a novel that he says borrows too liberally from Gone With the Wind and infringes on the copyright of Margaret Mitchell's classic novel.
U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell ruled that Alice Randall's novel, The Wind Done Gone, is essentially a retelling of Gone With the Wind from a different point of view using the same fictional characters and places.
Randall's story, Pannell wrote, "constitutes unabated piracy of 'Gone With the Wind."'
Randall, whose book was scheduled for publication by Houghton Mifflin in June, had argued that her story, told from the point of view of Scarlett O'Hara's mulatto half-sister on the plantation Tata, was a political parody and had a right to be published.
Pannell disagreed, writing that Randall's "recitation of so much of the earlier work is overwhelming" and constitutes an unauthorized sequel.
"When the reader of 'Gone With the Wind' turns over the last page, he may well wonder what becomes of Ms. Mitchell's beloved characters and their romantic, but tragic, world," Pannell wrote. "Ms. Randall has offered her vision of how to answer those unanswered questions. ... The right to answer those questions and to write a sequel or other derivative work, however, legally belongs to Ms. Mitchell's heirs, not Ms. Randall."
Attorneys for Mitchell's estate had sued for an injunction to stop publication of Randall's book. The attorneys argued in a hearing on April 18 that the issue was not free speech as Randall has claimed, but about providing protection to authors and other creative artists.
Other writers, including Pat Conroy, Harper Lee and Toni Morrison, have publicly supported Randall in the dispute.
"I can't believe the book will be suppressed," said historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, one of 20 artists and intellectuals who signed a petition in support of Randall's novel. "The Mitchell estate is doing a wonderful job of advertising for Houghton Mifflin."
Houghton Mifflin later said it would appeal the decision.
Return to chronology 21 Apr 2001
By The Associated Press
05.25.01
Editor's note: Lawyers for the Stephens Mitchell Trust asked a federal appeals court on May 31 to overturn the ruling.
ATLANTA -- A federal appeals court today lifted a lower court's injunction against publication of The Wind Done Gone, a parody of the classic Gone With the Wind.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard less than an hour of arguments on an appeal by Boston-based publisher Houghton Mifflin before issuing its ruling from the bench.
In a brief order, the judges said the injunction was an "extraordinary and drastic remedy" that "amounts to an unlawful prior restraint in violation of the First Amendment." They promised a more comprehensive opinion later in the day.
Author Alice Randall and her publisher said they would get the book out within the next few weeks.
The Nashville, Tenn., writer said she wrote the book so that black and white Americans could have a "belly laugh" together about the painful period of slavery and the Civil War.
"I'm so glad that the court will allow that message to get heard," Randall said.
Martin Garbus, one of the lawyers for the estate of Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell, said he would seek another hearing before the 11th Circuit.
"I think the racial issues ... had obscured the copyright issues," he said.
Paul Anderson, a trustee of Mitchell's estate, attended the hearing and said he was surprised at the quick ruling. He declined further comment.
U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell issued the injunction against The Wind Done Gone last month, ruling that it violated the copyright of Mitchell's original and was "precisely the kind of work that copyright laws prohibit."
Randall's novel is an account of life at a plantation named "Tata" narrated by the daughter of a black slave woman and the white plantation owner, the half-sister of a character that mirrors Scarlett O'Hara.
Mitchell lawyers argued during today's hearing that Randall's characters, scenes, setting and plot were taken directly from Gone With the Wind and that quotes were lifted directly from the original.
"It appeals to the market when the readers are hungry to read about these characters. The people who are infatuated with Rhett and Scarlett will gobble any story about them," said Richard Kurnit.
"This injunction has to be held up," he told the judges. "It is shocking to me that they would want this court to usurp the decision."
Joseph Beck, arguing for Randall and Houghton Mifflin, said Randall did not copy Mitchell's writing but merely gave a new perspective on Mitchell's story.
"The Wind Done Gone has told me for the first time how African-Americans read Gone With the Wind," he said.
Beck also argued that authors would be inhibited from writing parodies if the injunction were not lifted.
The literary community and several news organizations supported the book's publication, calling it a matter of free speech.
"I'm glad to hear that the injunction was lifted," said historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., one of many artists and intellectuals who supported the book's publication. "I thought it (The Wind Done Gone) was a legitimate effort to try and give a different perspective on the story."
Randall noted that the ruling came on May 25, the birthdate of her fictional character. "And today is the day she will be free."
Wendy Strothman, executive vice president of Houghton Mifflin, said the publisher would print an initial run of 25,000 copies.
Return to chronology 25 May 2001
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A retired Los Alamos nuclear security official filed a lawsuit yesterday to try to force the government to allow the release of his book on the Chinese nuclear weapons program.
For the last 18 months the government has blocked the publication of Danny Stillman's book while various agencies scrutinize each line to decide if it divulges national security secrets, according to his attorney, Mark Zaid.
"We're not threatening to release classified information," Zaid said. "We're challenging the government to prove their case, and we don't think they're going to be able to do it."
The suit against the Defense Department, Energy Department, Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. It alleges the agencies have violated their own rules for classifying material and Stillman's constitutional right to publish the book.
Defense Department spokesman Glenn Flood said the review of the manuscript is continuing.
"We plan to do a thorough job. We're not going to rush it," he said.
Stillman worked for 28 years at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, 14 as the head of the intelligence division. He retired in 1993.
Between 1990 and 1999, Stillman made nine trips to China, visiting a nuclear test site and a nuclear lab, meeting with scientists and attending lectures.
None of the trips was taken at the request of the U.S. government, although he was voluntarily debriefed by government officials when he returned.
Stillman took notes of his trips and compiled them into a 500-page manuscript entitled Inside China's Nuclear Weapons Program. In January 2000, Stillman turned over the manuscript to the government for a security review — a prepublication condition imposed on any government worker granted security clearance.
Since then, Stillman and his attorneys have pressed the Energy Department and Defense Department to finish the review.
A Defense Department memo from last September said the Pentagon objects to publication of any portion of the manuscript because of security concerns. The memo also said publication could "damage American foreign relations with China," according to the lawsuit.
Zaid said that argument is absurd, since the Chinese scientists and other officials in the program gave Stillman all of the information for the book.
"This can't embarrass China, because the Chinese expected this information to get (out)," Zaid said.
Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy specialist with the Federation of American Scientists, said national security is not a blanket excuse to limit free-speech rights.
"It would be one thing that if they said there is this or that detail that needs to be modified in the interest of national security, but it is completely implausible to claim the entire manuscript needs to be suppressed," he said.
In his book, Stillman argues that the Chinese weapons advances were made without the benefit of espionage.
About the time Stillman finished his manuscript, Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-born Los Alamos scientist, was arrested amid fears of Chinese espionage.
Lee was charged with 59 counts of illegally downloading nuclear secrets, not espionage, and eventually pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling information. A judge apologized for the nine months Lee spent in solitary confinement, saying he had been misled by prosecutors.
Return to chronology 19 Jun 2001