As long as the instructor was not charging admission to see the video and was showing it to a relatively small group, that would probably be deemed a “fair use” under the copyright laws.

Posted by: rdelephant at November 20, 2004 09:11 AM

I can see course-related purpose being claimed in showing it to the film class — propaganda like Riefenstal’s and Moore’s is a category of film, after all. But no reason the English comp class should’ve been subjected to it.

Posted by: Achillea at November 20, 2004 12:11 PM

Haven’t you heard? Everything is a “text” these days. One of my best friends growing up dropped out of a literature program after attending a class where the consensus was that the concept of maternal instinct didn’t really exist but was simply another contrived exploitation tool invented by the Patriarchy.

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed at November 20, 2004 04:18 PM

..maybe if the Prof. gets a copy of..

http://www.stolenhonor.com/

..all will be forgiven..please hurry I `m holding my breath..

Posted by: Rob_NC at November 21, 2004 12:05 AM

Academic freedom is invoked to excuse a huge number of transgressions by the (non-academic) holders of academic positions. It is an increasingly spurious justification, the history of which merits investigation.

Posted by: TomTom at November 21, 2004 10:01 AM

Just one simple question about the purpose of the showing: Was it to winnow out the conservative students? In other words, would a student be punished academically for taking issue with the content of the film?

If the prof had a history of taking political stance in the class, and docking points for disagreeing with him, then he had no business showing F9/11 as coursework, and cries of “academic freedom!” ring hollow.

Posted by: gus3 at November 21, 2004 03:40 PM

When I was in undergrad, we often watched “political” films, usually focused on the Holocaust. Some were Nazi propoganda films, some were films made after the Liberation. We used that as a springboard to talk about the way goverments spin current history. In and of itself, such films can be used as instructional materials — i.e., why did the writer/producer use this particular picture or scene, what emotional response was he trying to create in the viewer, yada-yada.

However, reading the entire document from the Globe, it’s pretty clear that the instructor had an agenda — he was trying to get the movie shown outside of classes, etc. If he had just shown it to the film class without the extracurricular stuff, and slanted it toward “what does this film attempt to achieve, what’s effective, what’s not, why is this film so polarizing” I think it would have been no different than when I watched “Night and Fog” — which to my knowledge turned no one in the class into a Nazi.

Posted by: Mona B. at November 29, 2004 09:37 AM

..talk about beating a dead horse..I mean dang..even the bones are powder..

Posted by: Rob_NC at November 29, 2004 09:08 PM