Dearborn Underground has learned the University of Michigan Press Board sent a letter to Pluto Press last week informing them that the University Press will not be renewing its distribution contract with Pluto. Pluto Press is a British-based publisher of many anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel books. After the contractually obligated six months notice period, UM Press will no longer be distributing Pluto Press books. The official announcement should be made this week at the U of M Board of Regents meeting.
This is a welcome outcome to efforts, led by the Michigan chapter of the pro-Israel group StandWithUs, to get the UM Press to re-think its contract to be exclusive American distributor of Pluto Press.
Last year, StandWithUs challenged UM Press’s decision to distribute John Kovel’s Overcoming Zionism. Kovel is a professor of social studies at Bard College, and, in Overcoming Zionism, he “advocates abolishing the State of Israel and replacing it with a single secular state with no ties to the Jewish people.” (“University of Michigan Distributes Anti-Zionist
Book”).
Last August, UM Press director Phil Pochoda sent Kovel a private email blasting Overcoming Zionism as a “reckless, vicious, and unmodulated attack on Zionism and all Zionists.” But Pochoda was overruled by UM Press’s executive board.
This is a welcome outcome to efforts, led by the Michigan chapter of the pro-Israel group StandWithUs, to get the UM Press to re-think its contract to be exclusive American distributor of Pluto Press.
Last year, StandWithUs challenged UM Press’s decision to distribute John Kovel’s Overcoming Zionism. Kovel is a professor of social studies at Bard College, and, in Overcoming Zionism, he “advocates abolishing the State of Israel and replacing it with a single secular state with no ties to the Jewish people.” (“University of Michigan Distributes Anti-Zionist
Book”).Last August, UM Press director Phil Pochoda sent Kovel a private email blasting Overcoming Zionism as a “reckless, vicious, and unmodulated attack on Zionism and all Zionists.” But Pochoda was overruled by UM Press’s executive board.
According to StandWithUs's Jonathan Harris, “[f]ollowing the executive board’s review of the book on Sept. 7, the University released a statement expressing reservations about Kovel and Pluto, but reinstated the book for two reasons: ‘contract obligations’ and concern about violating ‘free speech.’”
This is not a freedom of the press issue, but an issue of whether or not the book-buying public, seeing the UM Press imprint on a book binding, can safely assume that the volume has gone through the customary peer review, and can rely on the factual allegations contained inside to meet a scholarly standard. As Jonathan Harris of StandWithUs-Michigan made clear last year in an article in The Detroit Jewish News,
StandWithUs unqualifiedly supports freedom of the press, and the ideologically driven Pluto Press certainly has the right to publish whatever it wishes, however reprehensible the works may seem to others. The question is not Pluto’s right to publish these views, but rather, whether it is right for UMP to distribute and, in effect, promote them. Whenever a publisher distributes books produced by other publishing houses, the inescapable conclusion is that they meet certain standards. When the publisher is a university press, readers are led to believe that an academic review has taken place, and that a high standard has been met. ("Overcoming Oversight").
Instead, the UM Press acknowledges that titles by Pluto Press are not peer reviewed. As reported last October by Campus Watch: “The university confirmed that Pluto Press distributes several hundred titles via UMP, none of which are reviewed, and this has been standard in their ‘four-year relationship.’” ("University of Michigan Distributes Anti-Zionist Book").
This is not a freedom of the press issue, but an issue of whether or not the book-buying public, seeing the UM Press imprint on a book binding, can safely assume that the volume has gone through the customary peer review, and can rely on the factual allegations contained inside to meet a scholarly standard. As Jonathan Harris of StandWithUs-Michigan made clear last year in an article in The Detroit Jewish News,
StandWithUs unqualifiedly supports freedom of the press, and the ideologically driven Pluto Press certainly has the right to publish whatever it wishes, however reprehensible the works may seem to others. The question is not Pluto’s right to publish these views, but rather, whether it is right for UMP to distribute and, in effect, promote them. Whenever a publisher distributes books produced by other publishing houses, the inescapable conclusion is that they meet certain standards. When the publisher is a university press, readers are led to believe that an academic review has taken place, and that a high standard has been met. ("Overcoming Oversight").
Instead, the UM Press acknowledges that titles by Pluto Press are not peer reviewed. As reported last October by Campus Watch: “The university confirmed that Pluto Press distributes several hundred titles via UMP, none of which are reviewed, and this has been standard in their ‘four-year relationship.’” ("University of Michigan Distributes Anti-Zionist Book").
