Blog

UPDATE: VICTORY! NCAC Joins Open Letter to President Biden to Release Guantánamo Artwork

By |2023-02-08T20:23:23-05:00October 24th, 2022|Blog, News|

Update 02/08/2023: After nearly six years of calls to do so, the Defense Department of the U.S. Government has agreed to end the Trump Administration’s policy preventing the release of artwork made by prisoners of the Guantànamo Bay Detention Camp. Former and departing prisoners are now permitted to retain a “practicable quantity” of their artworks they made while imprisoned, [...]

Joint Letter Calls On Texas Wesleyan University to Reschedule “Down in Mississippi”

By |2022-10-17T16:57:42-04:00October 17th, 2022|Blog, News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which represents 59 trusted education, publishing, and arts organizations, joins the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund and PEN America to encourage Texas Wesleyan University to support artistic free expression and reschedule Down In Mississippi, a play by Carlyle Brown that the university's theatre department recently canceled due to language concerns and complaints. History is [...]

Escambia County School District in Florida Restricts Over 100 Books Prior to Completing Formal Review | UPDATED

By |2023-03-27T12:19:12-04:00October 14th, 2022|Blog, News|

Updated 3/27/2023 – The school board has reviewed 4 of the books challenged and voted to retain the books in their schools. Those books were Toni Morrison's “The Bluest Eye”, Raina Telgemeier's "Drama," Amy Reed's "The Nowhere Girls." and Jerry Craft's "New Kid." This shows why removing books pending adjudication is never a good idea. Students in Escambia County School [...]

NCAC Statement on Greenburgh, New York, mural dispute

By |2022-10-05T18:48:56-04:00October 3rd, 2022|Blog, News, Press Releases|

NEW YORK - The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) is deeply concerned by the threatened censorship of a mural that the town of Greenburgh, New York, commissioned from the artist known as Kindo Art. The alteration of the mural without the artist’s permission would be a violation of his First Amendment rights as well as those of the residents of [...]

Buy a Journal. Fight Censorship!

By |2022-09-23T12:24:12-04:00September 16th, 2022|Blog, News, Press Releases|

CHICAGO — Sourcebooks, a leading independent publisher based in Chicago, and the American Library Association’s (ALA) book publishing imprint, ALA Editions | ALA Neal-Schuman, announce the publication of “Read These Banned Books: A Journal and 52-Week Reading Challenge.” Available via the ALA Store as well as through bookstores nationwide, this interactive recommended reading list presents readers with a different banned or [...]

Texas Students Distribute BIPOC and LGBTQ+ Books During ‘FReadom Week’ Initiative | Student Perspective

By |2022-03-23T17:39:47-04:00March 23rd, 2022|Blog, News|

When Jerry Craft's New Kid was banned from school libraries in Katy, Texas earlier this year for "pervasively vulgar" content, I defended his book and advocated against this inexplicable censorship. After that, school board meetings in Texas only intensified. After months of persistent demands for intellectual freedom being outnumbered by conservatives and drowned out by more book bans, we finally [...]

Body Language: 2021 Film Contest Winners

By |2022-02-18T15:05:29-05:00February 17th, 2022|Blog, News|

For this year’s YFEP Film Contest, we invited teens to create a film on the importance of expressing one’s gender and identity through personal appearance. The 3 winners tackled a wide range of polarizing, and often taboo, topics including gun violence, immigrant family separation, gender equality, toxic masculinity, shaming and bullying, and climate change. The Chairs of the New [...]

Social Media Under Pressure Part I: Trump Lashes out at Twitter

By |2020-06-19T16:40:11-04:00June 5th, 2020|Blog, News|

Rhetorically framed as defense of free speech, the President’s Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship, is exactly the opposite: an attempt to intimidate social media platforms into yielding to the president’s views of what speech should be allowed online. While we agree that social media platforms “function in many ways as a 21st-century equivalent of the public square” and share [...]

Social Media Under Pressure Part II: Protests, Polarization, and Social Media Regulation

By |2020-06-17T17:30:14-04:00June 3rd, 2020|Blog, News|

As misinformation proliferates, protests escalate, and the 2020 U.S. presidential election looms, how much should social media companies regulate the content on their platforms? Rules and regulations are changing as social media giants are figuring out how to wield their unprecedented power over information. As an organization committed to free expression, we welcome efforts to provide more information, alternative sources [...]

NCAC’s Arts Advocacy Program Shines at the Creative Time Summit

By |2019-12-19T16:17:44-05:00December 19th, 2019|Blog|

  In November 2019, for Creative Time Summit X: Speaking Truth, our Arts Advocacy Program (AAP) organized the roundtable session Fear and Controversy: Censorship in the Arts at the Cooper Union with artists Christina Freeman (UltraViolet Archive), Roopa Vasudevan (Center for Media at Risk, University of Pennsylvania) and Joy Garnett (NCAC's Arts Advocacy Program). The number of attendees (approx. 25 [...]

Remembering Toni Morrison

By |2019-08-07T10:59:57-04:00August 6th, 2019|Blog|

Joan Bertin (former executive director, NCAC), Toni Morrison, Fran Lebowitz “The thought that leads me to contemplate with dread the erasure of other voices, of unwritten novels, poems whispered or swallowed for fear of being overheard by the wrong people, outlawed languages flourishing underground, essayists’ questions challenging authority never being posed, unstaged plays, canceled films—that thought is a nightmare. As [...]

Truth to Power: Film Contest Winners and Semi-Finalists

By |2019-06-24T14:13:05-04:00June 18th, 2019|Blog|

Over 100 teen filmmakers spoke Truth to Power for this year’s YFEP Film Contest. We invited teens to speak directly to those in power to lead change about issues that matter to them. The 12 finalist films tackled a wide range of polarizing, and often taboo, topics including gun violence, immigrant family separation, gender equality, toxic masculinity, shaming and [...]

Considerations and Guidelines for School Officials

By |2020-12-07T11:32:34-05:00April 30th, 2019|Blog|

School officials have broad discretion to establish curricula and decide what materials to include in their classrooms and libraries. However, parents, special interest groups and others sometimes attempt to impose their personal beliefs on the public school system and demand the removal of educational materials. Listed below are some general considerations school administrators should take into account when such challenges [...]

Tumblr Adult Content Ban Will Chill Free Expression Online

By |2019-05-01T11:37:37-04:00December 19th, 2018|Blog, News|

On December 17th, Tumblr permanently banned adult content from its platform. Under the new community guidelines, any image that depicts sex acts, real-life human genitalia, or (with a few exceptions) female nipples will be hidden from public view. Despite the company’s claims, the new guidelines will not create a “better, more positive” Tumblr.

University of Kentucky Unveils Installation to Encourage Dialogue about Race

By |2020-01-03T15:51:06-05:00August 28th, 2018|Blog|

The University of Kentucky has unveiled a new site-specific public artwork by Philadelphia artist Karyn Olivier, commissioned in response to a heated controversy around a fresco that students said was traumatizing, creating a model for balancing conflict and tensions around campus art.

NCAC Joins FIRE and the ACLU Urging the University of Kansas to Restore American Flag Artwork

By |2018-07-18T12:24:48-04:00July 16th, 2018|Blog|

NCAC has joined the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kansas in a letter to the University of Kansas (KU) strongly urging it to take a stand against censorship by restoring a public artwork that the university removed last week.

Kansas Governor and Secretary of State Pressure University to Remove Artwork | UPDATE: NCAC Co-Signs Joint Letter

By |2022-10-03T16:26:24-04:00July 12th, 2018|Blog, News, Press Releases|

Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer and Secretary of State Kris Kobach separately pressured officials at the University of Kansas (KU) to remove an art display, threatening the free expression of the artist, curator and KU students.

Fraternal Order of Police Challenges Summer Reading List in South Carolina High School

By |2020-01-03T15:51:01-05:00July 2nd, 2018|Blog|

Both The Hate U Give and All American Boys have been highly praised for their complex handling of stories centering on the intersections of racism and police violence, but local police are challenging the books' inclusion on Waldo High School's summer reading list.

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