“Barbara Jones, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, said she has received requests from many younger ALA members over recent years who want to understand what happened in 1977 and want to revisit the controversy with a 21st-century perspective. “I remember my first term paper at Columbia University’s School of Library Service (1977) was about ‘The Speaker’ controversy. It is an issue still with us today when it comes to speech that most of us hate to protect or endorse. We plan to give ALA membership ample opportunity to express their opinions about this issue before, during, and after the conference, because it is complex and important.”
“The debate over the limits of free speech has always been incendiary,” said Judith Platt, director of free expression advocacy for the Association of American Publishers. “For those of us in the book community it is crucial to understand the history and context within which that debate has taken place. This program on ‘The Speaker’ and it’s attendant controversy will provide an excellent forum to deepen our understanding.””
ALA members to discuss controversial film ‘The Speaker’ at Annual Conference | News & Press Center.
MiscEtcetera v2 
The real issues surrounding this film, according to several past ALA-Presidents who were part of the discussion, was the quality of the film and whether or not to put ALA’s name on the film. Those that expressed the view that ALA should not put its name on the film were accused of being censors instead of just feeling it was a very poorly done film. A list of related pieces that are worth reading has been posted in the comments on the ALA OIF blog, http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=4985.
Thanks, Diedre!