Some good and bad news for you today, folks, on the fifth day of Banned Books Week… First the good news: In Pennsylvania, Downingtown West High School followed model procedure in addressing a challenge against Laurie Halse Anderson’s Twisted. We are please to report school officials and parents resolved the issue amicably through discussion. For more information click here. Also [...]
I thought it would be a good idea to not just have my ideas in the video, but other people at my school as well. I was surprised at the amount of people that WANTED to talk into the camera, that WANTED to give their imput on my documentary. I loved making this film, talking to my school principal about [...]
Its Banned Books Week and yet efforts to censor books in the U.S.A continue. In fact, just this past week, Ellen Hopkins, author of the Banned Books Week Manifesto was censored in Norman, Oklahoma. According to Ms. Hopkins, "I was supposed to do a school visit at Whittier Middle School. A parent went in complaining about content in CRANK and [...]
Kids' Right to Read Protests Efforts to Censor Young Adult Author Ellen Hopkins in Oklahoma
Biographies of "Friends" participating in NCAC's 35th Anniversary - A Night of Comedy with Judy Blume & Friends.
On Monday, we reported on the Kids' Right to Read Project's response to a challenge in North Pocono High School against Laurie Halse Anderson's book Speak. We have since learned North Pocono is not the only place in PA where Ms. Anderson's writing may be censored. Her novel, Twisted, which tackles serious teenage concerns about sex, alcohol, grades and family [...]
Kids' Right to Read Protests Efforts to Remove Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
Kids' Right to Read Objects to Censorship in Kentucky High School
Kids' Right to Read Opposes Censorship at Panther Valley Middle School
On Monday, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski announced the commission’s support of net neutrality, a principle which holds that Internet Service Providers (e.g. Comcast, Verizon, Time-Warner, AT&T) should not be permitted to discriminate against specific online content or applications and privilege other content with higher quality service. In introducing the National Broadband Plan, Genachowski, described some of the threats to an open internet posed [...]
I think girls these day have to much pressure to be a grown up to fast. And to make decisions that they shouldn't be faced with. One thing girls have a problem with is pressured to be intimate with a guy. Then if she gets pregnant she has more decisions to make. To get married, have the baby, give it [...]
NCAC and the College Art Association recently filed an amici curiae brief in United States .v Stevens in the Supreme Court, heard October 6. Although the subject matter - images of animal cruelty - is extremely distasteful - the case raises critical First Amendment questions that would affect a wide variety of valuable expression and undermine fundamental constitutional principles.
The following is the Judiciously Using Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act support letter, commending the senators for introducing legislation that will amend many provisions of law that have diminished Americans’ privacy over the last eight years. The letter also urges Congress to pass the bill as soon as possible.
I was the leader/director of this project, we aimed at exposing the faults and corruptions of the United States government. We were told that we could use any form of speech available to us. Yes, we received a certain amount of controversy for our political views, but the video was a massive success and has spread around our school, giving [...]
The Kids' Right to Read Project is urging the general public to speak out against book censorship at two high schools, one in Pennsylvania and the other in California where Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak and Jeannette Wall’s The Glass Castle are being challenged. KRRP is calling on supporters of free speech to advocate for students’ right to read everywhere, especially [...]
Temecula Valley Unified School District
North Pocono High School
My music video depicts a student walking through campus in a backwards moving environment. He is the only one moving forward and sticks out from everyone else in his world. When this visual is combined with the lyrics from the song, we begin to hear the free speech subtext of the film. The chorus of the song plays, "Sheep Go [...]
Under an onslaught of vocal protests that President Obama’s “stay in school and study hard” speech was a means to “indoctrinate” children into “socialist” values and the President’s political “agenda” schools and whole school districts decided not to show the speech. For a partial list of schools and school districts that have canceled the speech click here. Nobody equipped with [...]
Several school districts did not show President Obama’s Back to School Speech on September 8th.
Author Ellen Hopkins reads for Banned Books Week Manifesto. In an interview with NCAC and ABFFE's Kids Right to Read director, she says, "My book Burned had been and continues to be censored in Pocatello, Idaho... Burned is not available anywhere, including stores and libraries everywhere. I tend to be outspoken and so the Banned Books Week Manifesto came out [...]
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 [...]
As Benjamin Franklin rolled over in his grave, the Pennsylvania State Senate discussed Wednesday night whether all of Philadelphia's 54 libraries will have to close on October 2. Mayor Michael Nutter's Plan C, or "Doomsday," budget will start to go into effect on Friday unless enough state senators vote to pass a 1% sales tax hike. The plan, which the [...]
Celebrate NCAC's 35th Aniversary - A Night of Comedy with Judy Blume & Friends by placing a tribute ad in the special anniversary journal.
The deadline has been extended for our contest Free Speech in Schools: Does it Exist? Students 19 and younger are encouraged to film their response in 4min or less for the chance to win up to $1000 and a scholarship to the New York Film Academy. See more details on our website ncac.org or even apply online now! According to [...]
RSVP here for NCAC's 35th Anniversary - A Night of Comedy with Judy Blume & Friends.
The National Coalition Against Censorship, joined by 11 leading academic, civil liberties, journalism and free speech organizations, today sent a letter to Yale University officials protesting the school’s decision to remove all images of the prophet Mohammed from a scholarly treatise, The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Professor Jytte Klausen.
Kids' Right to Read Project Interview with Ellen Hopkins, author of the Banned Book Week Manifesto
We write to protest the decision to remove all images of Mohammed from the forthcoming book, The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Jytte Klausen, which will be published by Yale University Press in early October. The University’s role in that decision compromises the principle and practice of academic freedom, undermines the independence of the Press, damages the University’s credibility, and diminishes its reputation for scholarship.
This film is basically about a group of children gossiping about Johnny, a boy who has allegedly said something horrific, but has actually just been "caught" praying. The idea for this came about when I thought about how in schools today, on behalf of both the students and the teachers, you can get away with saying the most profane and [...]
On Wednesday, September 9th , the Supreme Court reheard arguments in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (see our coverage of this case here and here). The issues addressed in the rehearing were much broader than the question whether Hillary: The Movie, a 90-minute documentary attacking Hilary Clinton, may be considered electioneering communication. As Marjorie Heins of [...]
This was a great chance for somebody like me to get up on stage with a microphone and with a comedic style talk about a real life issue. I am Hispanic, born and raised in Mexico, which makes me a majority. And as an (18 year old now) adult, having people calling you "Mrs" on the phone is something [...]
Earlier this year, we covered Citizens United v. FEC, a Supreme Court case on the constitutionality of federal election laws. As we explained in April, “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,” or a political editorial [...]
In August, 2007, Debbie Almontaser was the interim principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, an Arabic language public high school she had worked with the New York City Department of Education for two years to establish. Though the school was secular (a point Almontaser sought to emphasize by naming the school for the famous Christian Lebanese poet), [...]
Touch every book. Char every page. Burn every word to ash. Ideas are incombustible... The NCAC is excited to present the Banned Books Week 2009 Manifesto written by Ellen Hopkins, author of several verse novels on teenage struggles, including Crank, Burned, Impulse and most recently, Tricks. We here at the NCAC want to know what you are doing this year [...]
I Remade a music video of the band NIN's song " Closer " and tried to submit it for a competition at my school for an award, but it was denied because it had inappropriate language. So i had the choice to show the video with a edited version that would censor out the profane words of the video, or [...]
