I focused on the Swimsuit Issue scenario in this week's assignment and decided to investigate the fact that Sports Illustrated has stopped sending libraries and classrooms the swimsuit issue. I wanted to poke around a little deeper to see if they have amended that policy since the controversy.
In March of 2007, SI spokesperson Rick McCabe stated:
"Over the course of time, we've received feedback from some of those institutions saying it wouldn't be an acceptable thing for them to have or to share with their constituents, and the decision was made that this was one way to hopefully alleviate that issue."
This decision brought about quite a bit of controversy. Leslie Burger, ALA President released a statement stating "Limiting access to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in response to alleged, anonymous, and amorphous expressions of concern is an infringement on the First Amendment rights of library users and an unwarranted attempt to censor the materials available in our nation’s libraries.” The New York Times, The Library Journal and numerous blogs picked the story up and many members of the library community weighted in on the situation. Sports Illustrated quickly realized they had made a mistake and will not be holding the issue back next year. I think this is a wonderful example of the library community coming together to fight for Intellectual Freedom. It shows just how powerful a community we are.
As an aside, I wonder what Mr. McCabe meant by "institutions." I would be curious to know if these institutions were public libraries or school libraries or libraries affiliated with some religious organization. It seems like a library concerned with the tenants of Intellectual Freedom would not contact Sports Illustrated with this concern.
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