In the wake of the Wikileaks controversy, the Obama administration has increased its efforts to punish government officials accused of leaking classified information to the news media. While the Justice Department has the right to hold FBI, NSA and CIA employees to the confidentiality agreements in their contracts and keep certain information classified, these initiatives are undermining First [...]
GRADE: B – The push to teach abstinence-only education landed Health Education (primarily sexual education) in an abysmal place. As we have explained on the NCAC website, government funding-based mandates to provide a narrow and limited curriculum on a topic, such as human sexuality, amounts to censorship. Essentially, the abstinence only curriculum left out essentially information about contraception and sexually [...]
GRADE: C The debate around the role of creationism in American high school science classrooms continues to evolve. Although the courts have rebuffed creationist attempts to re-brand their religious message as “intelligent design,” creationists continued their assault on science in the classroom with urges to “teach the controversy.” Texas, the nation’s second largest purchaser of high school textbooks and therefore [...]
This Wednesday, June 3, National Coalition Against Censorship’s launches the Free Speech Leadership Council with A Conversation with Toni Morrison. Talking with Fran Lebowitz, Morrison will talk about her new book Burn This Book and her experiences with censorship. Just recently, Morrison's Song of Solomon was pulled - and then returned - in AP classes in Shelby, MI. This book, [...]
Jack Thompson, who penned HB 353 (the bill pending in Utah that we asked you to help stop) has written a letter to President Obama calling for a national plan similar to the one proposed in Utah. In response to a recent tragedy in Germany where a young man shot 15 people at his former school, German and American media [...]
In an article published today in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Peter Schmidt responds to the call to stop ideological exclusion, the denial of visa to foreign scholars, writers, etc. based on their political positions. In this article, "Obama Must Tread Fine Line on Scholars Barred From the U.S. for Their Views," Schmidt warns that stopping this exclusion entirely may [...]
We’ve noticed that the State of Oregon has been a hotbed for censorship incidents lately. Here’s what’s been happening around the state: A Portland fifth grader has decided not to perform his act about President Barack Obama in his elementary school’s talent show after the principal forbade him from wearing a mask that depicts Obama during the performance. The principal [...]
It’s refreshing to see President Obama moving forward on his promise to separate science from politics. By freeing scientists to do more research using stem cells, and by commissioning NIH to develop guidelines, the President has put scientific decisions where they belong – with scientists. Now maybe he’ll do the same with abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which have been condemned as inaccurate [...]
CNN’s coverage of the NY Post’s controversial cartoon from a First Amendment perspective. Click here to watch the video. NCAC Executive Director Joan Bertin weighs in, noting NCAC’s response to the violence in Denmark resulting from a newspaper’s running cartoon portrayals of Mohammed. […]
Satellite television provider Direct TV’s recent decision to reject an advertisement produced by the advocacy group U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation raises serious questions about the responsibilities of corporate media to permit, if not promote, the free exchange of ideas on important questions of national policy. The advertisement, which asks viewers to contact President Obama and tell him [...]
It’s censorship projection day today. Leslie Harris, President and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology weighs in on the political landscape for internet censorship post-COPA at the Huffington Post: So what happens next? Will Congress once again beat against the tide and enact yet another Internet censorship law? … Will the Obama administration slam the coffin on Internet [...]
The new president is giving every mildly liberal person reason to hope their pet cause might be advaced in the next four years. So what about my pet cause: creative freedom? Things appear optimistic. After all Barack Obama enters office with the first-ever presidential arts platform drafted during the campaign. Among other things the platform promises increased funds for the [...]
The UK culture secretary Andy Burnham has recently spoken out about making the internet safer by adopting a rating system similar to the movie ratings. His take on the web: “quite a dangerous place.” According to the Telegraph: His plans to rein in the internet, and censor some websites, are likely to trigger a major row with online advocates who [...]
And yet not without consequences. After the November 4th election of Barack Obama, 4 North Carolina State students hit the “Free Expression Tunnel” to spray paint messages that have now sparked a fierce debate on campus about how to respond to hate speech. The messages, including one that read “let’s shoot that Nigger in the head”, have prompted strong response [...]
The Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule in August that values a religious doctor’s choice to refuse provision of services over a woman’s right to receive care. The proposed rule would protect the jobs of doctors who, on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions, refuse to provide abortion or sterilization services. In fact, those doctors [...]
The victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election has shown us signs of improving race relations in this country. Sadly this isn't the case some areas of the south where the election of the United States first black president have increased already high racial tensions. In North Carolina State University, four students spray-painted threatening and racist graffiti aimed at the [...]
From Agence France-Presse: Barack Obama holds his first post-election meeting with President George W. Bush Monday even as aides said he would reverse current White House policy on oil drilling and stem cell research. [...] But as both incoming Democrats and outgoing Republicans struck a tone of civility, Obama's transition chief signaled that the president-elect could wipe away some hallmarks [...]
The most enjoyable part of my election night was walking away from hipster Williamsburg and past a laundromat where Obama's acceptance speech was playing. Inside the laundromat was a young Orthodox Jewish couple, a biracial lesbian couple, a handful of young adults looking up at a TV. As strange as this scene felt - either a classic 1980s tableau of [...]