On March 28, 2009, students from all over New York City gathered at the first annual Youth Voices Uncensored. This video, shot and edited by Kyle Graffam, captures highlights from the day as participants discussed the topic of this year's 2009 YFEN Film Contest: Free Speech in School (Does it Exist?) Apply online
NCAC criticized the dismissal of four members of a library board for refusing to remove controversial books from the young adult section of the library in West Bend, Wisconsin. The controversy began in February when two patrons complained that the library’s young adult section includes both fiction and non-fiction about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.
National Coalition Against Censorship joined the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers and PEN American Center in criticizing the dismissal of four members of a library board for refusing to remove controversial books from the young adult section of the library in West Bend, Wisconsin. In a letter to the West Bend Common Council, the groups said that the dismissals threatened free speech in two ways--by punishing the library board members for attempting to apply objective criteria in the selection of books and by pressuring the library to remove the controversial books.
The quilts that grace the pages of Quilter’s Home’s March/April edition are probably not what your grandmother would have made. Their contemporary subject-matter and the direct approach of the quilting artists caused a stir with Jo-Ann Fabrics who refused to carry copies of this particular issue. It seems, however, that the magazine itself was instrumental in creating the stir: “Shocking [...]
In February 2009, NCAC and the ACLU of Tennessee jointly responded to a situation at a Knoxville, TN high school where internet filters are currently blocking constitutional protected material on the web, specifically sites that provide political and educational content around LGBT issues. The censorship was discovered by Andrew Emmitt, a senior at Central High School: When I found out [...]
Announcing the 2009 YFEN Film Contest Free Speech in School (Does it Exist?) Film your response in 4 minutes or less. Entries can be videos of any kind, including documentary, animation, experimental, or music video. The top three winners will be awarded cash prizes and the first place winner will receive a scholarship to the New York Film Academy.
Student Press: No Socialists Allowed At least that seems to be the case at Central Connecticut State University where student journalist, Marissa Blaszko, was apparently fired last month from the school paper because of her connections to the student club, Youth for Socialist Action, and her anti-war politics. In response to the decision, Blaszko released a statement saying: They informed [...]
See it in full effect. Inspired by Anatomy of the #AmazonFAIL protest.
The Vermont Legislature hopes to tackle the problem of teens facing criminal charges for sexting. The Senate has endorsed a proposal for a bill that would carve out a sexting exception in child pornography laws. Under this proposed law, people between the ages of 13 and 18 would not face child pornography charges for sending graphic images to one another, [...]
The twittersphere has been, well, a-twitter (sorry!) about a story this weekend of Amazon pulling media with GLBT content from it’s sales ranking. Search #amazonfail to have a look. The excuse? The books were “adult” materials. However, it became quickly clear that it was GLBT content that was defining “adultness,” rather than the potential age-appropriateness of the content. The impact? [...]
On Friday, March 26, the Texas Board of Education struck down a bill that required evolution be taught with consideration of the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory. The new bill, however, is not a striking victory for advocates of depolicized, science-based education. According to the NCSE: ...the revised biology standard (7B) reflects two discredited creationist ideas — that "sudden [...]
Contemporary Threats to Free Expression A Symposium for College Professors May 1-2, 2009 Capital Community College in Hartford, Connecticut Speaker Bios Francis G. Couvares E. Dwight Salmon Professor of History and American Studies, Amherst College Christopher M. Finan President, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression Martin B. Margulies Professor Emeritus and Adjunct Professor of Law, Quinnipiac [...]
Marking the anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, the First Amendment Center has issued their annual “Muzzle Awards”, a dubious honor given to “outstanding” Americans in violation of First Amendment principals. The story published on FAC's website notes that more than half of this year’s recipients are community college or K-12 administrators. While this bit of news is no surprise to [...]
In another case of challenged books from public libraries, a Wisconsin couple has petitioned for the reclassifying of several Young Adult books to Adult. Ginny Maziarka and her husband feel that books like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Geography Club, and Deal With It! a whole new approach to your body, brain and life as a gURL should [...]
We wrote some weeks ago about censorship and cyberbullying on the TV show, Gossip Girl. Now, Gossip Girl (the book), and The Bermudez Triangle are under fire. One parent in Leesburg, FL has challenged The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson and Only in Your Dreams: A Gossip Girl Novel by Cecily von Ziegesar because she objects to sexual content and [...]
Brian Chapman, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, resigned this week after a less than a year-long tenure. The resignation came shortly after the UNCW Faculty Senate passed a motion admonishing the UNCW administration for not consulting with the Women's Resource Center, Faculty Senate Steering Committee and other interested parties before requesting [...]
The Kids' Right to Read Project opposed a challenge to Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar (Hachette) and The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson (Peguin) in the Leesburg, Florida Public Library in April 2009 after a parent objected to the sexual content and drug references in the books. KRRP sent this letter in response to the challenge.
In honor of tonight’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, we bring you basketball-themed book censorship. Indeed, a story about a basketball star really is at the heart of a controversy in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where one parent has challenged Hoops by Walter Dean Myers. But the basketball itself doesn’t seem to be the main problem. The parent objects to profanity and [...]
Starts at 8:20. NCAC on internet censorship on the "Listening Post" on Al-Jazeera. From Al-Jazeera: The segment focuses on the role and responsibility of the Western companies who provide the technology to police the Internet, as well as how to get around the controls to access material that many governments do not want their citizens to see. NCAC's Svetlana Mintcheva's [...]
Chill. Porn is a genre like any other – science fiction, crime drama, horror. Why should the pleasure derived from viewing it be a guiltier pleasure from the one derived from viewing serial killers slashing throats? To each, after all, her own. (And, yes, women watch porn too). Porn is also – whether you like it or not – protected [...]
James Parlin's sculpture "The Middle School Science Teacher Makes a Decision He'll Live to Regret" provoked controversy and censorship when it was included in an exhibition of the artists' work at Bowling Green State University Firelands. Some even claimed the image was illegal child porn and condemned NCAC for opposing the censorship.
What our censorious culture is keeping from us. Deconstruction of an editorial in April's French Vogue. From Jezebel.com: ... It's a cigarette-fueled, pregnancy-padded, bottle-fed primer in that which cannot be done in Vogue's American pendant. ... Smoking is one of Carine Roitfeld's Favorite Things; she once told the Guardian she wouldn't want Anna Wintour's job because in America, you can't [...]
A Naperville, Illinois, school has canceled a speech by Bill Ayers, a professor of education, because of objections to his association with the Weather Underground 30 years ago. Ayers was scheduled to talk about his field, urban education, to a high school social studies class. All the students had parental permission to hear him speak. Word of his appearance leaked [...]
"I know it when I see it" - This famous phrase, by former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart,1 nicely summarizes the way that American law defines criminally punishable "obscenity." Yet the First Amendment to the Constitution states unequivocally that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." So where did the exception to the First Amendment for "obscenity" [...]
Ohio lawmaker wants to make sexting a misdemeanor Last week, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Ohio State Representative Ron Maag (R-Lebanon) plans to introduce a bill in the Ohio state legislature which would make the creation, exchange, and possession of nude materials between minors a First-Degree Misdemeanor. According to Representative Maag, Local prosecutors have brought to my attention that under [...]
Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the matter of Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission, Case no. 08-205. This is an interesting case in that the Court, among other things, needs to determine whether Hillary: The Movie, a 90 minute documentary about Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign with a decidedly conservative bias, is considered an “electioneering communication,” [...]
Most Americans today get their information and entertainment from the mass media - radio, television, newspapers, movies, and the Internet. The companies that own these mass media outlets thus have a powerful influence over our culture, our political system, and the ideas that inform public discourse. In the past half-century, media companies have grown into large conglomerates. With this growth [...]
