Students For Academic Freedom

Carnegie Mellon paper Censores ad · 27 December 2004

PITTSBURGH The Carnegie Mellon University student newspaper defends its decision not to run a conservative group's ad focusing on the Israeli-Arab conflict.

The group that placed the ad is pushing for an academic bill of rights that would -- among other things -- protect the political and religious freedoms of professors.

David Horowitz runs the Los Angeles-based Center for the Study of Popular Culture. He says The Tartan at Carnegie Mellon banned the ad, along with papers at Purdue, Texas A-and-M, San Francisco State, University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago. Ninety-three other college papers ran the ad.

This ad focused on strife between Arabs and Jews. In general, Horowitz's group seeks to assure that political and religious beliefs don't affect decisions to give professors tenure, or what types of grades students receive.

Horowitz says he may sue some of the other schools to force them to run the ad. He says that won't happen in Pittsburgh, because C-M-U is a private university and the paper doesn't receive any tax money.

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