University presses, free speech, and academic freedom

As some of you might know, I'm keenly interested in university press publishing, for various reasons. In my opinion, university presses in North America are publishing some of the most vibrant, relevant scholarship and thought in the English-language world, often while finding themselves caught in the vice of shrinking institutional support and declining readerships. In general, university press employees are, in my humble opinion, dedicated to books, business-savvy, and quick to embrace new technologies, such as open content and digital publishing, than other groups of publishers (such as, ahem, The Association of American Publishers).

Given that, it's altogether frustrating when you see the missteps of one university press steal all the headlines.

The University of Michigan Press, like a lot of university publishers, distributes books for another press. This is a common arrangement that benefits both presses involved. In this case, Michigan distributes books for Pluto Press, a small, independent British publisher known for smart, left-leaning works. Pluto Press doesn't have the capacity to house its books in North America, so Michigan stores them in their warehouse, I assume Michigan announces them in their catalog, and shares in some of the overseas sales.

Recently, the University of Michigan Press made a number of mistakes regarding one particular book, by Joel Kovel, a professor at Bard College. Kovel's book, Overcoming Zionism, argues for a one-state solution to Israel, a solution that results in a country not bound by a Jewish identity, shared by both Palestinians and Israelis.

You can read about the controversy in this great Chronicle of Higher Education story. Simply put, a pro-Israel group, Stand/With/Us, in Michigan began protesting the book's distribution by the University of Michigan Press, prompting the press's director, Phil Pochoda, to halt distribution.

But beyond this act of servile compliance, Pochoda apparently emailed the author to first underline the press's support for free speech, then to admit that no one at the press had read the book until just now, and then to denounce the work as hate speech that had apparently thrown the press' entire relationship with Pluto in jeopardy. It's truly remarkable. According to pro-Kovel blog Dissident Veteran for Peace, here's the full text of Pochoda's email:

Joel,

Because it is a distributed title for Pluto Press, no one at UMP had read Overcoming Zionism prior to the Stand/With/Us diatribe. I and others read it after that assault, and had fully expected to gear up for, at least, a free speech defense. Though I had no trouble with the one-state solution your book proposes nor with a Zionist critique, per se-- we had, after all, proudly and successfully published Virginia Tilley -- I (and faculty members I asked to read the book, as well) were apalled [sic] by your reckless, viscious [sic], and unmodulated attack on Zionism and all Zionists. For us, the issue raised by the book is not free speech but hate speech. Perhaps such vituperative and aggressive rhetoric works for the barricades, but it cannot be countenanced or underwritten by the university or the university press, even in this peripheral, distributed capacity.

Even worse for me, as a result of your book, the university is in the process of reassessing our relation as a whole to Pluto (and that has been a four year relationship that I have cherished, both personally and professionally). While that review goes on (and I am only marginally involved), we have ceased shipping Overcoming Zionism.

Phil Pochoda
Director
University of Michigan Press

The whole thing reminds me of Beyond Chutzpah, by Norman Finkelstein, published by the University of California Press. The book is highly critical of Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, Whose letters of complaint to the book's original publisher, New Press, caused it to get cold feet. Not wanting to wait out an uncertain time with a press questioning its commitment to publishing the book, Finkelstein went to California, which ended up publishing the book.

University presses, and publishers in general, must stand their ground when issues of free speech and academic freedom are raised. To overreact, as Pochoda did, about a book which didn't even originate at Michigan, is entirely the wrong signal to send.

If you disagree with a book, don't clamor and yell and email your representatives and ask that funding be cut and basically replace sound rebuttals with braying and bullying. The best way to counter what you think is 'hate speech' is with better speech. There's probably a university press out there that would publish it.