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1st Amendment

NCAC and FIRE Issue Joint Letter to Pennsylvania School District on Unconstitutional Policy Proposal

By |2022-08-15T12:21:33-04:00August 15th, 2022|News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression have cowritten a letter to the Pennridge School District in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, demanding changes to a proposed policy that would unconstitutionally restrict the communications that students can distribute both on and off school grounds. The proposed policy is shockingly broad and impermissibly vague. If implemented it [...]

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NCAC Urges New York School District to Support Free Expression

By |2022-08-08T16:55:20-04:00August 8th, 2022|News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship has delivered a letter to the Auburn Enlarged City School District Board in Auburn, New York, in response to proposed amendments to its Instructional Materials and Controversial Issues policy that will allow parents to limit access to school library materials. Policy amendments are in response to complaints made early this year about All Boys Aren't [...]

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Pennsylvania School District Passes Strict Book Banning Policy

By |2022-07-28T11:49:18-04:00July 27th, 2022|News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship has written to the School Board of Central Bucks School District in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, after recent proposed changes to the District’s Library Materials Policy raised serious censorship concerns. The Board voted to adopt the policy on July 26, 2022. The policy leaves the authority to remove materials in the hands of a single person. NCAC [...]

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Fairview, Pennsylvania, Superintendent Removes Gender Queer from Library | Updated

By |2023-11-28T10:51:19-05:00July 20th, 2022|News|

Updated 11/28/23 - The graphic novel Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe was returned to school libraries, although students must request access from the nurse. 7/19/22 - The National Coalition Against Censorship has written to the Fairview School District School Board in Fairview, Pennsylvania, regarding a recent decision to remove Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer from the Fairview High School library.  [...]

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NCAC Criticizes Rhode Island School District for Silencing Student Protesters

By |2022-07-18T14:43:28-04:00July 18th, 2022|News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship has written to the Superintendent of Foster-Glocester Regional School District in Glocester, Rhode Island, after students at Ponaganset High School were silenced for expressing their personal views.  The students in question, according to The Providence Journal, brought “anti-tolerant” flags to school following a Pride Month celebration. It is unclear if the students faced disciplinary action, but [...]

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Free Speech and the War in Ukraine

By |2022-03-08T18:46:22-05:00March 8th, 2022|News|

In times of war, free speech suffers. Right and wrong appear indisputable. There is moral certainty that “God is on our side.” When we are convinced that the enemy is producing only dangerous lies and propaganda, we want to bar their entry into the marketplace of ideas.   The war between Russia and Ukraine is the latest test of our commitment [...]

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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 [...]

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NCAC Joins Letter Calling on Arkansas Superintendent to Reprint Censored Yearbook Pages

By |2021-08-25T11:12:00-04:00August 25th, 2021|News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship has signed on to a letter by the Student Press Law Center calling on the Superintendent of Arkansas’s Bigelow High School to reprint yearbook pages that were censored after alleged “community backlash.” The letter also asks that the Superintendent apologize to the yearbook staff and former adviser Meghan Walter who resigned due to the censorship. [...]

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NCAC Urges Congress Not to Authorize FISA Anti-Privacy Provisions

By |2020-12-19T16:54:23-05:00September 15th, 2020|News|

NCAC has joined a coalition of two dozen organizations calling on Congressional leaders not to reauthorize several expired provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorities by adding them as amendments to a must-pass appropriations bill or other emergency legislation. In a letter sent to Congress on September 14, NCAC and the other organizations argue that these controversial measures [...]

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Court Decision Limits School Officials’ Ability to Punish Student Use of Social Media

By |2020-08-17T14:12:38-04:00August 13th, 2020|News|

One of the most common complaints of students who come to NCAC for assistance is that they have been threatened with discipline for something that they said on social media. In an important decision that greatly reduced the power of school officials to “reach into a child’s home and control his/her actions” and speech, a panel of the Third Circuit [...]

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Alaska Community Unites in Opposition to Book Ban

By |2020-09-15T12:31:31-04:00July 17th, 2020|News|

When a school board in Alaska voted in April to remove five classic books from a high school reading list, it had no idea that it would outrage many in the community as well as several alumni of the school who are now rock stars. Although the Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) Borough School Board reversed its decision a month later, the controversy [...]

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Georgia High School Punishes Students Over Social Media Photos

By |2020-09-10T11:07:40-04:00July 6th, 2020|News|

On August 3 and 4, two students at North Paulding High School in Dallas, GA, posted pictures to social media showing students in crowded hallways where social distancing was clearly impossible. Most students were not wearing masks. Unsurprisingly, the pictures immediately became a topic of discussion in the national media. In response, the school suspended the students on the grounds [...]

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NCAC Opposes Removal of Mural Depicting Slavery

By |2020-07-27T11:47:28-04:00June 24th, 2020|News|

NCAC is asking the University of Kentucky (UK) to cancel recently announced plans to remove a 1930’s-era mural depicting aspects of Kentucky history, including slavery. Some students have demanded its removal because they consider it demeaning to people of color on campus. In 2018, the university commissioned an installation by Karyn Olivier, a noted Black artist, that was painted above [...]

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Libel Judgment Threatens Free Speech on College Campuses

By |2024-04-09T14:50:54-04:00June 17th, 2020|News|

NCAC has joined several free speech organizations in supporting Oberlin College’s appeal of a $44 million libel judgment that threatens the free speech rights of its faculty and students. They filed an amicus brief in an Ohio appeals court on June 5. The case grew out of the arrest of three African American students in 2016 for attempted theft [...]

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Vermont Principal Removed for Statement on Black Lives Matter

By |2020-07-15T17:42:40-04:00June 16th, 2020|News|

WINDSOR, VT -- The Mt. Ascutney School District Board has removed Windsor School Principal Tiffany Riley from her position after she stated on her personal Facebook account that she disapproved of some of the tactics used by some Black Lives Matter activists. In response, NCAC has written to the school board urging them to rescind their decision to remove Ms. [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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Turn It Off, Dammit! — Opposition to Film Screening

By |2020-01-03T13:47:44-05:00June 11th, 2012|Blog|

Turn Me On, Dammit!, an indie Norwegian film about a 15-year-old girl’s struggling with her burgeoning sexuality and dealing with high school tensions, has been widely acclaimed by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet, controversy led to the cancellation of a screening in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the film was scheduled to be shown as part of the Arts [...]

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Reassessing “Decency”

By |2020-01-03T13:42:53-05:00July 1st, 2011|Blog|

On Monday, June 27th, the Supreme Court announced that upon returning from its summer recess in October, it would revisit the Federal Communication Commission's rule that allows it to fine broadcasters for “indecency.” Last year, the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC was violating broadcasters' free-speech rights. The Court also stated that [...]

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Sorrell Means Business

By |2020-01-03T13:42:53-05:00June 29th, 2011|Blog|

Last week’s Supreme Court decision in Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc.  signified a subtle yet important shift in commercial speech interpretation that may precede increased corporate strength in the legal arena.  The opinion, by Justice Kennedy, argues that Vermont did not have grounds to ban pharmaceutical data-mining as it is a form of non-deceptive commercial information-sharing that is [...]

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Free to Speak or Free to Seize?

By |2020-01-03T13:42:48-05:00June 24th, 2011|Blog|

A recent surge in vulnerability to search and seizure, despite protection under the Fourth Amendment, is creating a climate of fear of punishment for constitutional free expression.  Multiple stories this week share the theme of government interpretation of the Fourth Amendment infringing on the rights of the public.  If professionals and the public must live in fear of [...]

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Guest Blog: John Davis Malloy on the Smithsonian After Hide/Seek

By |2020-01-03T13:40:44-05:00May 11th, 2011|Blog|

It’s true that the Smithsonian’s Flashpoints and Faultlines forum was too late for Hide/Seek, but keeping the issues alive months after the exhibit closed may be the right timing for the future of this public institution. It was no surprise that in his welcoming remarks Wayne Clough described himself as having no choice but to censor the artwork.  Less expected [...]

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WEAR IT PROUD

By |2020-01-03T13:40:08-05:00March 28th, 2011|Blog|

Button brought back from the March 2011 Culture Wars symposium with the Corcoran and Transformer DC.

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Democracy Now: Journalist Searched On Return From Haiti

By |2020-01-03T13:39:06-05:00February 15th, 2011|Blog|

Democracy Now! reports the Obama administration is continuing the Bush regime's policy of directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to search and copy computers, smartphones, cameras, and hard drives of "listed" Americans returning to the United States. ACLU (NCAC member!) staff attorney Catherine Crump says "many journalists and lawyers who often work abroad have also experienced similar interrogations." The ACLU [...]

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US Government, Sponsor of Book Censorship

By |2016-01-14T12:56:34-05:00January 24th, 2011|Blog|

NCAC occasionally publishes guest blogs on topics related to free speech. The views in these articles do not necessarily reflect the official position of NCAC, however they raise important issues for discussion. By Vel Nirtist How do you keep the unwashed masses known as the "public" from highly prestigious and quite remunerative pursuit known as "public debate" which rightly belongs [...]

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Waterbury CT School District Attempts to Cancel August Wilson Play

By |2019-03-07T21:45:25-05:00January 18th, 2011|Blog|

Censorship continues full front attacks on all the arts. Two weeks into 2011, we've already seen censorship of David Wojnarowicz at the National Portrait Gallery; a new edition of Mark Twain's Huckelberry Finn hit the bookstores, without the N-word; the arrest of Belarus theater director Nikolai Khalezin of Belarus Free Theatre and now the Waterbury Connecticut school district is attempting [...]

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New Museum Opens – Museum of Censored Art

By |2016-01-14T12:58:12-05:00January 12th, 2011|Blog|

On Thursday, January 13th, a new museum opens in Washington, DC: The Museum of Censored Art, founded by art and free speech activists Mike Blasenstein and Michael Dax Iacovone. Mike and Mike are the iPad protesters, who were expelled from the National Portrait Gallery when they attempted to show David Wojnarowicz's video Fire In My Belly in the galleries of [...]

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Author of the Banned Books Week Manifesto Censored!

By |2020-01-05T23:18:54-05:00September 17th, 2009|Blog|

Ellen Hopkins, author of numerous Young Adult titles as well as most recently, the Banned Books Week Manifesto is being censored in Norman, Oklahoma. Hopkins was scheduled to speak at Whittier Middle School on September 22nd about her experiences as an author writing about real life issues facing youth today. However, her talk was reportedly cancelled by the district's superintendent [...]

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Land of Free Expression…? Map of Book Censorship in the USA Suggests Otherwise

By |2020-01-05T23:18:42-05:00August 13th, 2009|Blog|

Being so busy with campaigns promoting “freedom and democracy” in the Middle East and central Asia, it’s hardly surprising that most of us here in the United States are unaware of an archaic and abominable practice that continues here at home - book banning. The Kids’ Right to Read Project (KRRP), a collaboration of NCAC and the American Booksellers Foundation [...]

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Student Press Goes to Washington

By |2020-01-02T15:06:26-05:00December 23rd, 2008|Blog|

With what promises to be the most crowded inauguration in US history, SPLC has issued an advisory to student journalists planning on covering the event: The Student Press Law Center is advising college journalists who plan to cover events surrounding the Presidential Inauguration to be held January 20 in Washington, D.C., to take several precautionary steps to avoid being arrested [...]

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