On October 2, celebrate Banned Books Week with an evening of stirring readings from erotic classics at Fifty Shades of Banned: A Celebration of Erotic Literature. The event starts at 8 PM at the Village Pourhouse on 64 3rd Ave (11th Street Entrance, across from Webster Hall) and benefits NCAC and Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
Board members in East Penn high school recognized that voting to remove Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep and Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test without a formal review would have constitutional implications. The Kids' Right to Read Project pointed out this fact in a letter to the board after a single board member motioned to axe the books, mislabeling them "pornographic."
Join NCAC for our annual Celebration of Free Speech and Its Defenders on Monday, November 12 at Tribeca 360° in New York City!
Visit our registration page for sponsorship opportunities and tickets.
Though no formal complaint had been filed, district officials in Enfield, CT thought it best to cut the graphic novel Sidescrollers from its summer reading list, after a citizen--who is not even a parent in the district--voiced her concerns about the book's content to members of the media and to the school board.
The Kids' Right to Read Project, a joint intiative of NCAC and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, supported in part by AAP and the CBLDF, sent a letter to the members of the school board, urging them to follow their own procedures and to return the book.
Though no formal complaint had been filed and despite the fact that both titles had already been upheld by a reconsideration committee in previous years, a Board Member in East Penn School District in Emmaus, PA, motioned to nix Prep and Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test from the district's summer reading lists.
The Kids' Right to Read Project tackled two separate -- but similar -- challenges to books featured on summer reading lists: Sidescrollers, a graphic novel by Matt Loux, was removed in Enfield, CT; in Emmaus, PA, a board member has motioned to remove Prep and Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test from the list. No official parental complaint was filed in either case.
The staff at The Visceglia Gallery were very much looking forward to the opening of its GET IT ON THE RECORD exhibit, a collection of works by twenty-one African-American artists investigating the "collective history of Black America." As part of the exhibit, poet Amiri Baraka had been invited to speak. That invitation was rescinded, however, because the College President and others [...]
Bulging nipples are definitely not appropriate for mixed company, a.k.a. The Facebook. Even if they are microscopic in size. Even if they are drawings and especially if they are on Eve. Or so determined Facebook this week when it suspended The New Yorker's account after it posted a Mick Steven's cartoon featuring Adam and Eve on its Facebook page. The social networking [...]
I'm blogging from Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) conference Leading Creatively 2012, where I'm representing the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). Earlier today I presented on a panel entitled Digital Frontiers: Copyright, Censorship, the Commons, and Privacy. The panel description read: Can freedom of the press and the right to know survive the [...]
FFE gets a call-out in a controversial media case down under . . .http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/dont-let-the-prudes-deprive-us-of-the-spice-of-sexual-banter-20120717-228cs.html
A parent of an incoming freshman in Enfield, CT took a complaint about the graphic novel Sidescrollers to the district Board of Education and succeeded in having the book axed from the list. In addition, the board decided to take responsibility for creating the reading list out of the hands of its teachers and funnel it through a board committee and [...]
SummerStage will not be performing their "diabolical" play at Lapham Peak State Park in Wisconsin as previously scheduled, as a right-wing radio host put the fear of God in The Department of Natural Resources. The Progressive reported the DNR pulled "The Bible: Complete Word of God, Abridged" after evangelical clergyman Vic Eliason dedicated an hour-long radio rant calling for them to [...]
The Free Speech Pamphlet Series: ProstitutionA proposed revision of the laws governing prostitution is a complicated and multi-faceted issue. Feminists for Free Expression advocates the decriminalization of prostitution. This paper sets forth why this ...
