On September 29, NCAC marked Banned Books Week with a program co-sponsored by PEN and ABFFE, featuring readings by authors of banned and challenged books for young adults: Judy Blume, Robert Lipsyte, Walter Dean Myers, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Deborah Hautzig. Peter Sis, and Rita Williams-Garcia. The setting was Free Speech Zone, an installation by artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese at the Donnell Library in New York.

A sculpture by artist Tsehai Johnson was removed from the website of the Colorado Council for the Arts. The sculpture became controversial after a report that Johnson had originally entitled it "Twelve Dildos on Hooks," inspiring Governor Bill Owens, who had never seen the piece, to call it "offensive and in extremely poor taste." The Council no longer supports individual artists.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that creationism should be taught alongside evolution, according to a new poll by The Pew Research Center.

Attorney Stephen Pearcy's painting T'anks to Mr. Bush - a depiction of an American flag being flushed down the toilet - was moved from an exhibit in the California Justice Department "out of concern for the events that are going on in the Middle East."

The University of Wisconsin sponsored a provocative art exhibit, Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin, but officials then ordered the removal of a work that depicts stamps of President Bush with a handgun pointed at his temple, a flag in the background, and the words Patriot Act. Chancellor Bruce Shepard decided that it "represent[s] advocacy of assassination."

School boards, beware! In Fayetteville, Arkansas, parent Laurie Taylor, heady with success in having three books removed from the school library, is after 70 more. NCAC's warning that censorship always brings more, was quoted in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and other papers. The school board restored the three books it had banned, but the controversy rages on.

Display cases in Manatee County, Florida's public libraries were off-limits to community art for nine months. Complaints about a nude sketch prompted county commissioners to create a policy to prevent the display of "offensive" materials.

Kudos to David Cohen, director of the Library and professor emeritus at Queens College (NY) for being named to the ALA's Freedom to Read Foundation Roll of Honor. Cohen, who is 95, has worked closely with NCAC over the years.