Naivete or Fakery

As Senator Jenner prepares to swoop in on Boston for another hearing, the academic reign of terror he prompted the first time has not yet worn off. After the Law School's Record, Legal Aid Society and Forum cased controversial students and speakers off their rosters and programs, the U.N. Council now announces that it has relinquished its rights to show The Emperor Jones because, starring as it does Paul Robeson, it is "too controversial." This University has never, like some, banned a film. But it does not even have to consider the problem these days. Student exhibitors are banning them themselves.

If an NAACP group had refused the film, they could expect sympathies, since Robeson has proved himself a traitor to the good name of the American Negro. But the U.N. Council presents a particularly lame reason for chickening out of the Emperor. Its exhibition will make them a "partisan" organization, they say, and thus restrict their ability to get UN diplomats as speakers. Disregarding the patent observation that the film's content is as controversial as a baby chick, this argument assumes an incredibly naive view of the UN itself. There are, in fact, few institutions more controversial than the UN. Patriotic myopes throughout the country are attacking it. It, and the the groups that support it, will have to dirty their hands with politics and controversy if they expect to carry out their programs. It is extremely hard to believe that foreign diplomats from the many countries that presently value free exchange of ideas more highly than the U.S. will shy away from a pro-UN group because they showed a movie which stars Robeson.

Because of the invalidity of their reasoning, one of two things is evident: Either the U.N. Council is scared of men like Jenner and afraid to say so, or they have unburdened themselves of the Emperor for some mysterious reason for which "controversiality" is just a convenient cover-up.