NCAC Essay Featured In CAA
"Hide/Seek: Museums, Ethics, and the Press: A Symposium Report", by NCAC's Svetlana Mintcheva, has been featured by the College Art Association
NCAC Covering Smithsonian Flashpoints Forum On Censorship
We'll post live updates from the much-anticipated "Flashpoints and Fault Lines" forum, planned in the aftermath of the censoring of David Wojnarowicz's "A Fire In My Belly" from the National Portrait Gallery in late 2010
NCAC Joins Letter To Remove “Anti-Speech” Policy From Intelligence Authorization Bill
Under the guise of security, Section 403 grants the agency director extraordinary powers to revoke pensions and benefits without formally charging, much less convicting, current and retired intelligence employees for any speech deemed a "leak".
Future Social Media Policy (and policy)
In his article "The Challenge of Developing Effective Public Policy on the Use of Social Media," John Palfrey, co-director of Harvard Law's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, discusses the problems that American youth face in the wake of increased online social media presence in his article. One of Palfrey's concerns is balancing the desire to encourage “...digital-era youth media practices (for instance, [...]
Christian Extremists Vandalize Art — Again and Again
Last October we reported about an incident at the Loveland Museum/Gallery in Colorado where a woman ripped into a lithograph after she busted the artwork’s plexiglass case with a crowbar. She did this because God told her to do it. In her explanation of the vandalism, Kathleen Folden refers to the similar destruction of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ in Australia [...]
Reading Below the Fold, and Between the Lines
After a member of the La Salle University's faculty hosted an optional symposium with special guests (read: exotic dancers), the editors of the university's paper The Collegian knew they had a story on their hands. One of the Collegian staff members interviewed two students who had attended the conference, as well as university officials and the professor himself. But the [...]
Worldwide Protests For Ai Weiwei’s Release
Demonstrators all over the world were sitting outside Chinese embassies on Sunday demanding the release of the detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
NCAC Joins Open Letter To Obama Administration For Student Press Freedom
"Regrettably, the United States will lack the full moral authority to advocate for world press freedom so long as our laws fail to effectively protect the majority of the Americans who gather and report news each day: Those working for student media." 2011 World Press Freedom Day Letter To President Obama on Student Press Freedom
Obama’s Anti-Bullying Policy Threatens Overreach
Department of Education threatens student speech rights with overbroad definition of harassment
Joint Letter In Response To FOIA Request Of University Of Virginia Climate Research Emails
Joint Letter re: Open Records Request to UVA On Climate Research Emails
Victory! Marin Civic Center Recinds Censorship Of Painting
After receiving a letter from NCAC and First Amendment Project, Civic Center requests that the nude painting be reinstated to art show
NCAC and FAP Send Letter To Marin Civic Center re: Nudes Censorship
As blogged earlier this week, admins at the Marin Civic Center censored a painting of a nude female from an annual art show because an employee claimed it constituted sexual harassment. This morning, NCAC and the First Amendment Project sent Marin County a letter to show them the error of their ways. In it, we sought to explain [...]
Letter From NCAC and FAP To Marin Civic Center In Response To Art Censorship
As organizations dedicated to promoting the First Amendment right to free speech, including freedom of artistic expression, we are deeply concerned about the removal of Sylvia Cossich Goodman’s work from the annual Marin Arts Council member show at the County Civic Center. Your decision, as a government employee, to remove an artwork from an exhibition held at a public space raises serious First Amendment concerns. We urge the Civic Center to immediately put the work back on display and, in the future, draft exhibition policies that are consistent with First Amendment principles.
NCAC Signs Amici Brief For Barnes v. Zaccari Student Censorship Case
In 2007, Hayden Barnes was expelled from Voldosta State University for the simple act of posting a photo-collage to Facebook to protest the envirnonmental impact of a new university parking garage. VSU President Ronald Zaccari was warned by his administrators that punishing Barnes would violate his First Amendment rights, but Zaccari persisted and, after failing to dig up any dirt on Barnies, kicked him out anyway. TheFIRE.org has supported Barnes' case since 2007, and NCAC is happy to join this Amici Brief to support student free speech rights in campuses across America.
Nudes In The News! Marin County Civic Center Censors Artist
The Marin County Civic Center has chosen to eliminate a nude painting by San Rafael artist Sylvia Cossich Goodman from a public exhibition. The full-frontal nude was accepted through what we can assume was a standard submission process, and was up in public for a week. So why take it down now? Because an employee complained it created "a hostile [...]
NCAC Calls For Release of Ai Weiwei
NCAC is adding to the global community of artists and institutions calling for the immediate release of the renowned Ai Weiwei, one China's most innovative and socially engaged creators. He was arrested at Beijing Airport this week for "economic crimes", and he alleges that in 2009 the security police attacked and beat him. Check out our call to [...]
Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’? Create a Statue of Jackson With Child
A statue commemorating the time Michael Jackson dangled his baby son out of a Berlin hotel window was unveiled in London this week. L.A. artist Maria Von Köhler has received death threats for the statute, entitled "Madonna and Child". Others have asked that the installation be removed. Enraged fan krazy4kitties asks, "This is disgraceful. What kind of person would do [...]
Nude Exhibit Generates Controversy
During the final weeks of the exhibition "Pornucopia" at Allegra DeViola Gallery in the Lower Eastside in Manhattan, in March, 2011, controversy struck, when the news media reported that an Orthodox Yeshiva allegedly called the police on the gallery. This is a video examining how the media reports on nudes in art.
Call For Imediate Release of Ai Weiwei
The arrest of Ai Weiwei at Beijing Capital Airport on April 3 is an assault on socially engaged artists everywhere. Read NCAC's statement and find out how to add your voice.
Famous Art Censored For Sensitive Types
In response to the disturbing story of a woman who attacked a Gauguin at the National Gallery, Flavorwire Art Editor Marina Galpernia has helpfully compiled a photo set of great works modified for those with...delicate sensibilities: Thou shall not show your wiener to God, Adam. Even if Michelangelo’s God is emerging out of an embracing pile of amorous angels, he [...]
The Logic of the Censor
Susan Burns, the woman who tried to tear a Paul Gauguin painting off a wall at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., stated her reasons thus: “I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it’s very homosexual. I was trying to remove it. [...]
The 8th Dirty Word
In today’s current political climate, a taboo-challenging novel may begin this way,
“Labor, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. La-bor the tip of the tongue taking a trip of two steps down the palate to tap, on two, through the lips. La. Bor…”
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Subscribe to Censorship News NCAC's newsletter, published four times a year, covers current book censorship controversies, threats to the free flow of information, obscenity laws, creationism, attacks on school textbooks, and more. Available in print form from the National Coalition Against Censorship for $30 per year. Simply print out this page, fill in the spaces below, and mail or fax [...]
Senators Call For Response to Idiotic Burning of Qur’an, But What Kind?
A couple weeks ago, Terry Jones finally gave into his burning desire to burn a Qur'an. Over the weekend, Afghans rioted over online video of the burning, resulting in the deaths of up to 20 people. General Petreus called the burning a "security threat" to the Afghan occupation, and Senators Harry Reid and Lindsay Graham have called for Congress to [...]
Can They Do That? Saggy Pants Edition
Perhaps you heard that the Arkansas State Legislature has banned students from wearing "clothing that exposes underwear, buttocks, or the breast of a female" at all school-related functions. So: Can they do that? Fire up the Free Speech Wayback Machine to 1969. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court ruled that school authorities could not [...]
Voluntary Surveilance, Crowdsourced Censors
On Wednesday we featured an RSAnimate video about mutual knowledge as an essential element of dissent, as demonstrated by Wikileaks. Today we feature an RSAnimate on how authoritarian regimes can leverage dissent on the Internet for their own end: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk8x3V-sUgU The speaker, Evgeny Morozov, notes a few phenomena of interest. First, in China, how blogs critical of local governance are [...]