More than 100 UW-Madison students rallied at Library Mall Wednesday afternoon in response to a recent controversy surrounding a Holocaust-denying advertisement placed on The Badger Herald's website.
""We're here today because of remembrance, and remembrance of the Holocaust in particular,"" Chancellor Biddy Martin said at the rally. ""Memory is a way of honoring the victims, the innocent victims of this criminal murder. A murder about which there can be absolutely no doubt.""
UW graduate Abram Shanedling said that, as a former journalism and political science student, he was upset by the Herald's decision to run the ad in the name of free speech.
""Providing a platform for the denial of such a genocide gives legitimacy to a mangled view of our past that we all know is false and is deeply hurtful to our university family,"" Shanedling said. ""Denying the Holocaust, and thus implying some sort of Jewish mass conspiracy, is a dishonor to academic principles, to history, and most importantly, to the memory of millions of innocent lost souls.""
A response article last week from Herald Editor-in-Chief Jason Smathers defended allowing the ad on First Amendment grounds and said the revenue it generated would be donated to countering the Holocaust-denial movement.
""The basis of these decisions does not rest on a desire to collect money for these advertisements, but on the editorial principle that no opinions or assertions can be so offensive that we cannot bring ourselves to hear them. If we run from manifestly vitriolic, destructive and false arguments when they present themselves, they will continue to roam and perhaps proliferate,"" Smathers wrote.
Simone Schweber, a UW professor of Education and Jewish Studies, said the Badger Herald staff ""made a mistake"" in running the ad, regardless of their intentions.
""It's a mistake to let that advertisement remain on the Badger Herald's website for the rest of its run,"" she said. ""It's a mistake to allow its seemingly academic call for open debate on the Holocaust stand unchallenged, to seem legitimate or go undenied.""
Andrea Steinberger, a rabbi at UW's Hillel Foundation, said the campus must also challenge its more implicit cultural stereotypes, such as using the term ""coastie"" as an attack on Jewish students.
""Is that what we, here at our beloved University of Wisconsin, want to be known for? For how we refer to our fellow Jewish students?""
Hillel Director Greg Steinberger concluded the rally by asking students ""to participate in a constructive conversation … so that we can take a bitter pill and turn it into precious nectar.""
Hillel and the Office of the Dean of Students will cosponsor a discussion on journalism sensitivity and ethics Thursday from 4-6 p.m. in Bascom Hall Room 272.
