As you point out, what lies did Sternberg make? They(Darwinians) harp about "job" or some such thing being the lie. But the facts are explicit. NCSE, which has no attachment to or authority over the Smithsonian nor to the group which published the journal in which Sternberg allowed an article supporting ID, was intruding into the relationship between Sternberg and the Smithsonian. And that intrusion was solely due to Sternberg's allowing the publication of the article in question.
Smithsonian's and NCSE's actions are examples of suppression of free thought.
I haven’t seen the film yet (although I have read quite a few articles pro and con on the film), but I have read the article by Meyer allowed through by Sternberg.
It offers no new ideas, facts, or research (which is what such journals are FOR). Its mostly a long history lesson and diatribe against macro-evolution. In the process it covers embryology, information theory, the Cambrian Explosion, population genetics, etc which brings up another problem the journal that Sternberg was editor of is about *taxonomy*. (The title of the article does include the word taxonomic, I guess to help people not notice how inappropriate the article was for that journal).
Heres an example of the journal. Although youd have to sign up to read the journals articles, you can at least see the titles and an abstract:
http://www.bioone.org/toc/pbsw/122/1?cookieSet=1
Feel free to scroll through past issues as well. Notice that virtually all the articles it publishes are just descriptions of new species and genera found, or sometimes redescriptions of known species or ideas on reclassifying species, etc.
So not only was the article inappropriate for ANY science journal, it was PARTICULARLY inappropriate for THAT journal.
So the people complaining about the article were hardly trying to suppress free thought. In fact, that the article was pro-ID is the ONLY reason it saw the light of day... if it was pro-evolution NO journal would have published it - particularly the journal in question.