Film shows examples of censorship after 9/11

After 9/11, Richard Berthold, a University of New Mexico tenured professor, told his class "anyone who can blow up the Pentagon has my vote." Although not fired, Berthold faced a hostile work environment and retired two years later.

This is one example from "Watch What You Say: Free Speech in Times of National Crisis," a film discussing instances of censorship in the media after the events of 9/11. The film was shown on Jan. 23 at the University of Northern Iowa as part of the series Reaching for Higher Ground: Community after 9/11.

Michael Blackwell, the director of the Center for Multicultural Education, opened the night by recounting a personal story from less than a year after 9/11. While waiting for a plane to take off, Blackwell saw a Middle Eastern man who had difficulty with security and, after being passed through security, said "It's not as if I have a bomb in my carry-on luggage."

According to Blackwell, shortly after he said this, the man was escorted off the plane by security while various people in the aisles of the plane either cried foul or encouraged the security team.

Blackwell then asked the audience whether the men were right to remove this man from the plane. The audience reached the conclusion that while the man should not have said the word "bomb" on a plane, it was wrong of the security team to remove him.

Michael Dominguez, a senior majoring in history, told a story about a group of his friends whose band was on tour in Russia. Dominquez said the Russian police arrested the group after performing songs about liberty and freedom.

Numerous other examples followed in the film, such as Jerry Fallwell declaring the attacks were divine retribution for America's moral shortcomings, and Bill Maher, a talk show host who called the American armed forces "cowards" and praised the bravery of the extremists who flew the planes on 9/11. Both Fallwell and Maher received a strong backlash from their statements.

The film was followed by a discussion on the limits of First Amendment rights between audience members and a panel of UNI professors, including Xavier Escandell, an associate professor of sociology, and John Johnson, a history professor.

Audience members asked Escandell and Johnson to give their perspective on the subject. Escandell voiced his concern over laws that limit freedom of expression and speech because they make us paranoid. He questioned people's ability to accurately report suspicious activity in this state of mind.

"A suspicious activity could be anything," Escandell said.

Escandell said he has also experience firsthand what kind of mindset laws like this put people in. Escandell, who is Spanish, said that while he was applying for a driver's license in Illinois, he was turned away because of the suspicions of the Department of Motor Vehicle employees.  

"(One of the DMV employees) embodied, at the street level, everything wrong with these laws," Escandell said.

Johnson said he thinks the Supreme Court gets things right most of the time, but "toleration of an idea you hate is difficult." Johnson also said if the government censors an idea or point of view, it gets people curious about why that idea is being suppressed. Johnson said, in the end, it is better for conspiracies and dissenting opinions to be openly debated.  

The next Reaching for Higher Ground event, a showing of the film "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" followed by a discussion on torture, will be held on Feb. 20.