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While the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has monitored the ardent Holocaust denier Bradley Smith for decades, the organization has now published a guide for college campuses on how to respond to Smith's attempts to gain a foothold among college students.

"He's become active after a recent flurry of attempts to have misleading advisements published in campus newspapers and in some cases has been successful," said Etzion Neuer, regional director for ADL's New Jersey region, citing Harvard Crimson's publication last year of one of Smith's ads, which the paper immediately apologized for and said was an oversight.

The ADL recently partnered with Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life to release "Fighting Holocaust Denial in Campus Newspaper Advertisements: A Manual for Action," that has been distributed to Hillels, Holocaust research centers, and university administrators across the state and country.

The guide provides background on Smith and his one-man organization, the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, or CODOH, his recent efforts to publish his ads in student newspapers, how the papers should respond to these solicitations, and how the campus community should react if one of his advertisements is indeed published.

Smith, who has been a leading Holocaust denier since the 1980s, began a campaign last year to run his ads in college papers. In one of his ads, for example, Smith claims to have asked 200 historians for proof of one person killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz. The ad goes on to state that none of these historians could answer his query, implying that there is no answer and that the Holocaust is a fraud. Last spring, Smith successfully ran his ads in approximately a dozen college papers around the country, according to the report.

"Holocaust denial is not about historical truth, it is about anti-Semitism," Neuer said, explaining how Holocaust deniers do not begin with "an honest examination of the facts," but rather start with their anti-Semitic beliefs and piece together half-truths and outright falsities to deny the truth of the Holocaust.

The guide explains that these ads usually end up in college newspapers for one of two reasons.

The first is due to an error, where the advertisement simply slips through the cracks of the paper's management and gets printed accidentally, as in the case of the Crimson.

The second reason is when a newspaper's staff believes that allowing such ads in their paper is a matter of free speech.

"More disturbing is when newspapers recognize that the advertisement is in fact Holocaust denial, but run it anyway under the mistaken belief they have some sort of First Amendment responsibility," Neuer said.

The guide informs readers that the selection of what advertisements to print is subject to the same editorial discretion as any other article. "Although campus media are a natural venue for the expression of ideas -- even controversial ideas -- editors should be aware that privately owned publications have editorial autonomy to decide what will and will not be published," the report states.

Neuer reiterated the point that newspapers have editorial discretion over advertisements submitted, and that it is their right to reject material they deem inappropriate or false.

"For example, many college editors might reject a racy beer ad if they felt that it was demeaning to women and that would be within their rights to do so. By the same token they can reject an advertisement that promotes Holocaust denial," he said.

While none of Smith's advertisements have been published in a New Jersey college's student newspaper in recent years, it is not because of a lack of effort.

Steve Jacobus, the marketing director of Rutgers' Daily Targum, said that the paper had recently received a solicitation to print one of these advertisements.

"We got one earlier this year, and we put it pretty much directly into the garbage," Jacobus told The Jewish State.

Jacobus said that while the decision to run or not run an ad is largely up to the discretion of the individual in his position, he insisted that a Holocaust denial ad "will never run in the Targum."

"We're not going to run something controversial like that even if they're willing to pay us," he said.

The report advocates that college newspapers establish clear, formal standards for accepting advertisements as most commercial newspapers have.

"Having such standards set up in advance makes it easier for newspaper staff to determine whether or not to publish ads containing Holocaust denial, and to justify their decisions on the issue should controversy arise later," the report states.

The report also provides guidance as to what should be the appropriate response from the community if such an advertisement is run for any reason.

"While the guide offers suggestions and a manual if a Holocaust denial advertisement appears in a campus newspaper, we can certainly agree that is better not to happen in the first place," Neuer said.