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Monthly Archives: January 2003

NCAC Letter to New York City Department of Education Chancellor

By |2016-01-15T12:10:31-05:00January 27th, 2003|Updates|

Dear Chancellor Klein:

We understand that Russell Banks' novel Continental Drift has become the center of a dispute at Brooklyn Technical High School, and that a veteran teacher at the school, Todd Friedman, has been disciplined for assigning the novel to an eleventh grade student as supplemental reading. The principal, Dr. Lee McCaskill, acted in response to a parent's complaint about sexually explicit language in a few isolated passages.

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Press Release: Free Speech and Civil Rights Organizations Speak in Support of UC Berkeley Chancellor Berdahl

By |2016-01-15T12:10:32-05:00January 17th, 2003|Updates|


Today the National Coalition Against Censorship and other free expression and civil rights organizations issued a statement commending University of California, Berkeley Chancellor Berdahl for affirming the University's commitment to academic freedom by overriding a previous decision to censor a fund-raising appeal for the Emma Goldman Papers Project.

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Press Release: The National Coalition Against Censorship and 18 Other Groups Call For Accountability in New York’s Educational Policy-Making System Citing Repeated “Sanitization” Of Literature in Mandatory English Language Arts Regents Exam

By |2016-02-05T13:14:57-05:00January 8th, 2003|Press Releases|

NEW YORK—In a letter dated January 6, 2003 the National Coalition Against Censorship, civil liberties organizations, and associations representing booksellers, publishers, librarians, educators, writers, and parents called for public hearings to address the lack of accountability in New York's educational policy-making system and its effects on the quality of education. The request, addressed to Richard Mills, Commissioner of the NY [...]

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Letter from NCAC and Other Organizations to Stop Censoring Literature in Mandatory English Language Arts Regents Exams

By |2016-02-05T13:15:40-05:00January 6th, 2003|Incidents|

Dear Commissioner Mills, Chancellor Bennett, Senator Kuhl, and Assemblyman Sanders: We have previously written to object to the routine censorship of literary passages on New York State English Language Arts Regents exams, which is questionable on pedagogical, intellectual and legal grounds. In our earlier correspondence, we documented numerous examples in which material was deleted apparently to eliminate any reference to [...]

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The Silver Lining

By |2019-03-07T23:17:30-05:00January 1st, 2003|Censorship News Articles|

New Yorkers learned a lot about the First Amendment from former Mayor Giuliani. He was sued for infringing free speech more than any mayor in memory, and maybe in history. Ironically this became a living civics lesson.

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