BCFE Names 1993/1994
Heroes and Villains

The Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression, in commemoration of the fourth anniversary of the August 1, 1990 Boston opening of Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, has compiled its fourth annual list of heroes and villains.

The list includes those individuals, organizations, businesses and institutions that had the strongest positive and negative effects on First Amendment rights in New England in the past year. Entries are presented in no particular order.

Lifetime achievement awards are also accorded one individual and one institution in each category. Previous lifetime citations for heroism have gone to Alan Dershowitz and the American Civil Liberties Union (1990-'91); Peggy Charren and the American Library Association (1991-'92); and Harvey Silverglate and People for the American Way (1992-'93). Lifetime villains include Senator Jesse Helms and the Heritage Foundation (1990-'91); Catharine MacKinnon and the American Family Association (1991-'92); and Oliver North and the Christian Coalition (1992-'93).

The BCFE, an affiliate of the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, is an alliance of artists, arts administrators, writers, teachers, and citizens concerned about censorship and the arts. We are a project of Mobius, an artist-run center for experimental art in all media. The opinions of the BCFE, however, do not necessarily reflect those of Mobius's staff, board, or member artists.

Table of Contents

Heroes

Lifetime Achievement Awards

  1. Congressman Don Edwards
  2. National Coalition Against Censorship

The Top 10 for 1993-1994

  1. Jane Alexander
  2. James Montford
  3. Nan Levinson
  4. Brookline, Massachuesetts
  5. Holly Gunner
  6. Milena Kalinovska
  7. Kathleen Bitetti
  8. Edward Strickland
  9. Marcia Pally
  10. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino
Honorable Mentions

Villains

Lifetime Achievement Awards

  1. Beverly LaHaye
  2. Focus on the Family

The Top 10 for 1993-1994

  1. The Clinton Administration
  2. The Massachusetts Cultural Council
  3. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
  4. Senator Robert Byrd
  5. Martin Mawyer
  6. Canada
  7. MIT, Hampshire College, and Boston University
  8. The Dudley-Charlton School District
  9. U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Boston
  10. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino
Dishonorable Mentions

Heroes and Villains 1994

Heroes

Lifetime Achievement Awards

  1. Congressman Don Edwards, retiring after 32 years as the Representative of California's Tenth District. Contradicting the current progressive dogma that one cannot support both civil rights and civil liberties, Democrat Edwards has been the House's leading legislator on civil rights as well as its most courageous defender of First Amendment protections for unpopular groups and individuals. As Chair of the Civil and Constitutional Rights Subcommittee, Edwards has blocked legislation to enforce school prayer and opposed the flag-burning amendment. This year, he led the House fight against the unfortunately successful and unprecedented resolution to have the U.S. Congress officially condemn a speech made by a private citizen, Khalid Abdul Muhammad. Edwards was also one of three members of the entire Congress courageous enough to vote against a hysterical resolution that in essence stated that possession of pictures of clothed children should be prosecutable under child-pornography laws. The chairmanship of his Subcommittee, unfortunately, now passes to Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), aptly described by Nat Hentoff as "a summer soldier of the First Amendment." The whole sorry crew who make up the Massachusetts Congressional delegation could profit from Edwards's example.

  2. National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). Recently, when the BCFE was trying to enlist support for a small Cincinnati bookstore faced with prosecution for carrying a rental copy of Pasolini's 1975 film Salo, the NCAC was one of two nationally prominent anti-censorship organizations (the other being Feminists for Free Expression) that acted promptly and decisively, with a well-researched and firmly principled response directed at Cincinnati authorities. This was in no way surprising. As the struggle continues over what constitutes protected speech, it has become increasingly clear that the National Coalition Against Censorship is the moral conscience of the anti-censorship movement, with fewer identifiable blind spots than almost any other organization nominally dedicated to free expression. A New York-based network of national groups whose concerns range from religion to labor issues, the NCAC has a broader outlook than most of its counterparts. Its publications include the steadily improving ; frequent updates on book-bannings across the country; reprints of noteworthy articles on freedom of speech, thought, and inquiry; and an array of pamphlets, educational handouts, and position papers. In 1993 the NCAC Working Group on Women, Censorship, and "Pornography" sponsored "The Sex Panic," an essential conference on sexually-related material. Much credit for the quality of the NCAC's work is due to Cochairs Jo List Levinson and Jeremiah Gutman, and especially to Executive Director Leanne Katz, whose drive, determination, integrity of purpose and clarity of vision make her one of the finest role models free expression activists could hope for.

The Top Ten for 1993-1994
(in no particular order)

  1. NEA Chairman Jane Alexander. For behaving with grace, honesty and valor in one of the most thankless positions in America: the Chairmanship of The National Endowment for the Arts. From the beginning of her tenure last September, the BCFE's position on Ms. Alexander has shifted from wary optimism to unreserved respect.

  2. Connecticut artist James Montford. For raising difficult questions about racism and standing up to the repressive forces of political correctness, and for challenging us all with his art.

  3. Nan Levinson, U.S. Correspondent for the British-based Index on Censorship. For maintaining consistently high standards as a journalist, lecturer, and educator, and for persevering tirelessly as a resource for fellow free-expression activists.

  4. The Town of Brookline. For steadfastness under fire during the silliest free-expression battle of the year, the media blitz surrounding the debut of "Crossings" a temporary art piece installed in Brookline Village by Denise Marika under the aegis of the Brookline Arts Council's annual open-studio event for local artists. Members of the Board of Selectmen and other town officials supported the art and the artist while listening courteously to bizarre attempts to characterize Marika's discreet nudes on pedestrian walk lights as "pornography." Their example should be exported everywhere.

  5. Activist Holly Gunner. For her unrelenting dedication to exposing the activities of the religious right in Massachusetts, especially in its school systems, and for cofounding the indispensable Lighthouse Institute, a first-rate resource for anyone seeking to counter the right at the grassroots level.

  6. ICA Director Milena Kalinovska. For breathing new life into the Institute of Contemporary Art, connecting the museum to the community, and running it like a European institution founded on the premise that art and everyday life are intertwined. Passionately dedicated to the welfare of artists and to freedom of expression, Ms. Kalinovska has a keen curatorial intelligence that is increasingly evident in shows like the recent Public Interventions. Placed in charge of the ICA at a shaky time in its history, she has proved to be exactly the right person for the job.

  7. Kathleen Bitetti, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. For working miracles with the beleaguered Artists Foundation despite attempts by the Massachusetts Cultural Council to destroy the agency, and despite its ultimate eviction from the Transportation Building by Boylston Properties. Her management of the Artists Foundation Gallery, her groundbreaking work on artists' health care issues, and her work with children, the homeless, People with AIDS, and racial minorities add up to the most committed and genuine attempt to give all artists a voice that Massachusetts has seen in years. The BCFE is happy to break its tradition of excluding its own members from this list by proudly citing Ms. Bitetti, one of our former Cochairs.

  8. Edward Strickland, Director of Northeastern's African-American Master Artist in Residence Program (AAMARP). For his peerless eloquence in defending free expression and the worth of artists, and for helping to prevent the destruction of AAMARP by its proprietors at Northeastern University. A superb artist in his own right, Mr. Strickland is also a gifted critic whose writings are inspiring acts of advocacy for his fellow workers in the arts.

  9. Author and film critic Marcia Pally. For her outstanding work as President of Feminists for Free Expression, and especially for writing Sex and Sensibility: Reflections on Forbidden Mirrors and the Will to Censor. A clear, well-documented, eminently readable consideration of image-blaming across the political spectrum, Sex and Sensibility instantly upon publication became required reading for everyone who cares about censorship issues. If the BCFE had to pick one book to hawk on the streets, it would most likely be this one.

  10. Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston. For bringing to the Mayor's Office an awareness of the arts that was absent throughout the long dark reign of his predecessor Ray Flynn, for recognizing artists as working, struggling, taxpaying constituents, and for making Boston a more hospitable place for the artists who choose to reside there.

Honorable Mentions

Harvard-based scholars Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Anthony Appiah, whose intelligent opinions help keep us sane; Boston Herald reporter Mary Jo Palumbo, for reporting artists' issues accurately and fairly; Bruce Rossley, Ralph Dart, Nancy Mehegan, and the staff of the Mayor's Office on the Arts and Humanities, for maintaining a high standard on little support; Vera Gold of 96 Inc., for her commitment to developing poets and fiction writers; Beverly Creasy of Playwrights Platform, for staunch advocacy on behalf of artists in all disciplines; Kurt Reynolds, for using his considerable gifts as an artist to raise awareness of AIDS issues; Susan Hartnett, for her principled handling of free-expression issues at the Boston Center for the Arts; the editors and staff of Fort Point's much-needed arts journal Art Point; Christina Hoff Sommers, for her defense of academic freedom in Who Stole Feminism?; the Boston-based Stonewall 25 march contingent Spirit of Stonewall, for challenging the exclusionary policies of the organizers of the historic June 26 New York gay pride parade.

Villains

Lifetime Achievement Awards

  1. Beverly LaHaye. The wife of San Diego televangelist Tim LaHaye, former head of the Moral Majority, Mrs. LaHaye long ago eclipsed her husband in power, fame, and influence. The movement she created in 1979, Concerned Women for America (CWA), a network of "kitchen table lobbyists," claims to be the largest "non-political" women's organization in the country, with over 600,000 members. Despite its 501(c)(3) status, CWA is in fact politically active nationwide and internationally, with a notable habit of dabbling in Central American affairs. CWA is elaborately structured, with "prayer chains" operating within chapters, but as Susan Faludi points out in her book Backlash, the organization is a "one-woman fiefdom" ruled autocratically by its founder. An enthusiastic book-banner, LaHaye has used CWA to terrorize school systems across the country into steering clear of whatever incurs her wrath. (CWA's blacklist includes The Wizard of Oz and The Diary of Anne Frank.) At 64, LaHaye shows no sign of slowing down. She is a popular lecturer, the author of several Christian bestsellers, and host of a weekday radio show that reaches half a million listeners. Her messages include assertions that feminists are "destroying the family and threatening the survival of our nation," and that gay men and lesbians "want to be granted special rights to carry out their illicit practices," which include child molestation. Anyone who has monitored Mrs. LaHaye's campaigns against family-planning information, AIDS awareness, multiculturalism, school curricula, textbooks, libraries, "liberal media," or the arts will confirm her status as Mother of All Censors.

  2. Focus on the Family (FOTF). Christian therapist James Dobson's many-tentacled profit-making non-profit organization, now based in Colorado Springs, is correctly listed in Dave Marsh's 50 Ways to Fight Censorship as "perhaps the largest and most dangerous censorship group today." The $80 million FOTF empire includes a staff of 1,200, an expanding number of widely syndicated radio shows, eight magazines, and affiliates (such as the Danvers-based Massachusetts Family Institute) in at least 35 states. This juggernaut of piety operates in the service of curtailing sex education, suppressing information about AIDS, driving evolution out of biology classes, smashing feminism, opposing gay civil rights and banning gay expression, prohibiting sexually explicit material, censoring movies and records, and stamping out MTV. An admirer of Andrea Dworkin, James Dobson has injected attitudes and terms of left-wing anti-porn crusaders into the matrix of right-wing ideology that sustains FOTF. The resulting fascistic message is blandly packaged to appeal to the mainstream. As its influence proliferates, Focus on the Family is becoming North America's foremost hatchery of pod people.

Top Ten for 1993-1994
(in no particular order)

  1. The Clinton Administration. The Reagan-Bush administrations labored to advance the censorship agenda of the theocratic right. The Clinton administration not only continues this campaign, it also pushes the censorship agendas of Catharine MacKinnon-style feminists and the PC crowd as well. Chief offender is the Justice Department under the direction of anti-civil libertarian Janet Reno. Reno has told Congress that government censorship of television poses no constitutional problem. She's fighting to stop the NEA from funding "indecent" art and also to prevent government employees from being paid for their writing. Moreover, her Justice Department wastes money fighting pornography in cyberspace and in continuing lurid entrapment schemes and sting operations, mostly targeting gay men. After a radio attack by theocratic ideologue James Dobson, Clinton himself publicly chastised Reno for being too lax on pornography. In addition to this hypocritical anti-smut campaign, the Clinton administration is trying to control cyberspace by enforcing use of the "clipper chip," a little electronic snoop it hopes to make standard equipment in every telephone and computer, safeguarding Big Brother's "right" to eavesdrop on anyone it perceives as a threat to its power.

  2. The Massachusetts Cultural Council. For making the creative work of Massachusetts artists immeasurably more difficult, stifling expression across the state, and damaging the infrastructure of the arts in Massachusetts. There has never been a "Golden Age" of support for the arts in this state, and during peak funding levels under Governor Dukakis, the Council was subject to bias and mainly served as support for major institutions. But never in any of the Mass. Council's incarnations has there been a regime as callous and insulting to individual artists and artist-run organizations, or as deceptive to the public, as this tawdry specimen headed by Chairman Josiah A. Spaulding, Jr. and Executive Director Rose Austin. Josiah Spaulding has demonstrated time and again that there are two things he ardently cares about: (a) Josiah Spaulding, and (b) money. As CEO of the non-profit Wang Center for the Performing Arts, Spaulding presides over a kitsch monstrosity that seems twice as large as Mammoth Cave and half as hospitable, and that presently houses - for the second time - that money machine known as Phantom of the Opera. As for Austin, her disorganized, strategically substandard, ethically dysfunctional, vision-free leadership has succeeded in driving artists out of Massachusetts, in driving artists' support organizations out of existence, and in driving informed arts advocates to distraction. MCC records confirm the extent to which she has made a mockery of the peer-panel process in awarding grants. She is particularly to be held accountable for the virtual demise of the Artists Foundation. For these depredations, the MCC was rewarded with a substantial increase in funding for the next fiscal year. The archenemies of the arts in the Massachusetts Legislature, especially Tom Finneran of the House Ways and Means Committee, felt that Austin had proved to their satisfaction that MCC funds would never fall into the hands of all those grubby artists.

  3. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. For denying tenants their First Amendment right to disagree with the religious beliefs of their landlords and, by implication, employers and others we do business with (the Desilets case), and for denying organizers of public events their First Amendment right to control the content of those events (the St. Patrick's Day Parade decision). The sexual-minority members of the BCFE feel that being allowed to march in parades where we are not welcome is scant compensation for being denied secure access to housing and employment.

  4. Senator Robert Byrd. Because of his seniority (in the Senate since 1958) and his power (Chair of the Appropriations Committee), this West Virginia Democrat, former Klansman, and pompous ass is far more dangerous than his Republican alter ego, Jesse Helms. In the past, Byrd has blocked legislation that would permit government employees, such as mail carriers, to be paid for their writing. This year, he bullied the Senate into approving 40% punitive cuts in the budgets of three important NEA programs: Theater, Visual Arts, and Presenting and Commissioning. Byrd's intent is to punish the NEA because $150 had been used by Minneapolis's Walker Art Center to support a performance by Ron Athey, an HIV-positive gay man. Byrd has thus not only effectively blacklisted Athey nationwide but diminished the prospects of every other openly queer artist and performer as well.

  5. Martin Mawyer and the Christian Action Network. For lobotomizing Congress with a new low in anti-arts campaigns exploiting the controversial Minneapolis appearance by Ron Athey that consumed about one ten-thousandth of a cent of your hard-earned tax dollars. Mawyer's "Taxpayer Declaration of War to Defund and Abolish the NEA," full of wild claims that Athey dripped AIDS-infected blood on audience members and that Jane Alexander is demanding a $50 billion budget for the Endowment, was circulated for laughs among arts supporters who should have known enough to take even the looniest manifesto seriously. Now that its effectiveness has been made clear by renewed Congressional hostility to the arts and punitive funding cuts, nobody is laughing. Mawyer's dauntlessly homophobic organization claims 75,000 members, but its activities are principally the work of Mawyer himself, who draws heavily on his background as a loyal Moral Majoritarian and Jerry Falwell associate.

  6. Canada. For serving as a lab for the agenda of anti-porn crackpot Catharine MacKinnon and her colleagues on the political correctness patrol, and for limiting what can be produced in the U.S. because American publishers and film-makers can't write off the Canadian market. Canada's 1992 Butler decision, which was substantially influenced by a supporting brief filed by MacKinnon, set the tone for an accelerating crackdown on expression. Book-banning has now become a national pastime, and the works most often targeted have gay, lesbian or feminist content. Books impounded in customs have included titles by bell hooks, Marguerite Duras, John Preston, and even MacKinnon's associate Andrea Dworkin. Not wishing to neglect the visual arts, Canadian authorities moved late last year against artist Eli Langer and gallery director Sharon Brooks for exhibiting paintings and sketches, not drawn from models, depicting sexual abuse of children. (Child pornography charges against Langer and Brooks have been dropped, but the art itself is to be put on trial, and will be destroyed if found "guilty.") Current Canadian attitudes toward free speech are perhaps typified by legislation recently considered in Ontario, which would impose heavy fines on "anyone who makes a public statement or produces, sells or displays any written material or visual representation that ridicules or demeans any person or class of persons because of race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, family status or handicap."

  7. (a) MIT, for its stunning no-brainer of a harassment code, based on the chilling premise that free speech is not a right but "an interest"; (b) Hampshire College, where, after controversy erupted over the work of African-American artist James Montford, the faculty rejected a resolution affirming "the right of all members of the College community to the free expression of views in speech or in art"; (c) Boston University, for continuing its tradition of censoring art and trashing artists by pulling photographs by Dana Muchnik and Betsy Gallagher out of a student art exhibit, claiming that the exhibition space was "too publicly accessible."

  8. Dudley-Charlton School District. For removing Go Ask Alice from ninth-grade English classes at Shepherd Hill Regional High School. The book, first published in 1971, has been widely used in schools and drug rehabilitation programs for more than 20 years. It was initially challenged by Police Chief William Prout, and then by an organized group of "concerned parents." "It's 187 pages of saying how great drugs are," Prout told the Worcester Telegram and Gazette. Since Go Ask Alice is the downbeat anonymous diary of an unhappy young drug user who killed herself at 15, we can only wonder what hallucinogenic influences contributed to Prout's assessment.

  9. U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Boston. For censoring a lobby exhibition of work by Watertown artist Matt Chinian, claiming that a sculpted head on a round flat surface was an image of decapitation that might upset litigants in bankruptcy cases. "A lot of debtors feel they have their heads on platters!" insisted Robert Bingham, Clerk of Court, who ordered the piece removed without consulting the artist, and who refused to discuss any compromise that would have changed the position of the piece or added some explanatory text. As one arts advocate put it, "In federal facilities, where the First Amendment should reign supreme, it's amazing how many public officials have never heard of the First Amendment."

  10. Mayor Thomas Menino. For abridging the constitutional right of the white-supremacist Nationalist Movement to march in South Boston. Pronouncing the First Amendment void in Boston, Menino proclaimed "they can express themselves where they came from, not in our city." As if this gaffe weren't enough, Menino permitted Leonard Zakim of the Anti-Defamation League to run away with the city's counter-demonstration, a disunified "Unity Rally" from which the voices of gay men and lesbians, the group the National Movement came to Boston to oppose, were in effect excluded.

Dishonorable Mentions

The Massachusetts Congressional Delegation, especially Peter Blute, Ed Markey, and the indomitable Joe Kennedy; the ACLU, a once-courageous institution that seems to be losing its nerve; the Public Broadcasting System, for dropping plans for a sequel to the highly successful Tales of the City following a barrage of propaganda from the religious right; Boston College, for forcing feminist dancer Dawn Kramer to provide a tamer substitute for a scheduled performance; Nancy Sutton and Family First, for working diligently to keep lifesaving information on AIDS and sexuality out of Massachusetts public schools; Sandi Martinez, the Massachusetts Area Representative of Concerned Women for America, for similar reasons; the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), which was the Pilgrim Family Institute when it appeared among last year's Villains, for being just as reprehensible under its new name; the Christian Coalition, for degrading the word Christian; Morality in Media, for relentlessly trying to censor local access cable tv in Stoneham and elsewhere; Newton Citizens for Public Education, which should rename itself Newton Citizens Against Public Education; the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based right-wing "think tank" and incubator of fundamentalist lawyers, for providing legal aid to would-be censors in New England communities; Patti Hartigan, whose overrated coverage of the NEA has degenerated to the point where Massachusetts arts supporters are faced with a crippling lack of information; Congressmen Phil Crane (R.-IL), Robert Dornan (R.-CA), and Cliff Stearns (R.-FL) and Senator Don Nickles (R.-OK), for leading the Congressional yahoo brigade in attacks on the NEA; the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, for excluding the Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group from the St. Patrick's Day Parade; the Stonewall 25 Committee, for trying to commemorate an historic riot by New York drag queens with a self-consciously decorous march that excluded some and mainly welcomed members of the gay community who choose to look and act like Republican stockbrokers.