Right-wing colleges reject "God is an abortionist" ads

First to respond was Cassandra Lopez, advertising manager for the Optimist at Abilene Christian University. I eagerly opened her e-mail, but alas, what was this? "I'm sorry," she wrote, "but we are not allowed to publish any advertisements dealing with this nature."

Not allowed? Not allowed by whom? You can imagine my disappointment upon realizing that, despite Horowitz's assurance that campus censors were now on the run, those censors had not quite been run completely off the campus of Abilene Christian.

But wait! Soon there arrived an e-mail from Jacob Forrest, editor of the Bob Jones University Collegian. But again, alas, Forrest told me politely that at Bob Jones University there exist "certain stipulations that would disallow such an ad to be run at all in 'The Collegian.'"

Certain stipulations. Had Horowitz not convinced me of the depth and sincerity of the conservative aversion to censorship, I might have sensed something evasive, even Orwellian, in those words.

A subsequent message, this one from Bob Jones University campus advertising director John Cofer, translated Forrest's doublespeak into something rather closer to English. "Please understand," Cofer wrote, "that we reserve the right to deny any advertisements that promote issues with which the university would disagree."

But what of the free and open debate about matters of national importance that is the price of freedom?

Next came a phone message from Elaine Pecore of the Champion, the student paper at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. She breathlessly informed me that my ad was "not really something that we can run in our paper so thanks for your interest and if you have any other ads you can send them to me, but we can't run something like that that doesn't go with our beliefs for the school."

The campus censors may have been on the run, but there I was: a dismal 0-for-4 in my attempts to stir the thick molasses of agitprop and counter the forces engaged in a never-ending ideological vendetta against American society and all that it stands for.

And it wasn't looking to get better any time soon. After a bit of hounding, I got this response from Candy Jones at the Tropolitan of Troy State University in Alabama: "We regret that your ad is not suitable for publication in the Tropolitan." Not suitable! Then came a letter from Melinda Lintinger at the University of Alabama Crimson White, which read as follows: "I did receive your e-mail the other day, however the attached ad copy will not open under our programs, if you could please send it as a jpeg so we can open and all the managers can approve for the ad to run."

It struck me as odd that a college newspaper at a major university would have trouble opening an MS Word file. Nowadays, opening MS Word files would seem to be a fundamental duty of our university system, if only to help us be exposed to the discomforting ideas that are the price of freedom.

The thought crossed my mind that I was being stalled. But who could say for sure? I promptly gave Lintinger the URL of a Web page featuring the ad text, but as the days slipped by without a response I despaired of ever hearing from her again. Just when I had about given up hope -- nearly two weeks later -- she finally wrote to tell me that the Crimson White managers had "decided to reject this ad at this present time." (Perhaps I'll have better luck at some other present time.)

I was now 0-for-6. Where is David Horowitz when you need him?

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