The past year has uncovered unsavory practices in New York State and City public schools, including an elite city high school. New York, however, is not the only place that needs fixing before the chill of censorship drives away some of the best teachers and dumbs down education.
At the end of its term the Supreme Court dealt a blow to the right of library patrons to unfiltered use of computers, ruling that the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is constitutional.
In 1671, the governor of Virginia said, "I thank God we have not free schools nor printing....For learning has brought disobedience and heresy, and sects into the world; and printing has divulged them and libels against the government."
Joel Klein Chancellor, New York City Department of Education 52 Chambers Street New York, NY 10007 Dear Chancellor Klein: As you may recall, we wrote you last January about a censorship incident at Brooklyn Tech High School involving the Russell Banks novel, Continental Drift. More recently, we sent you a copy of our letter to Dr. Lee McCaskill, Principal [...]
Resources Permission to Speak: Who Owns Identity & History? Identity & Political Correctness Alterman, Eric. What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News. 2003. Berman, Paul (ed.). Debating P.C.: The Controversy over Political Correctness on College Campuses, 1995. Bruce, Tammy, Laura C. Schlessinger (Foreword). The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds. [...]
Dear Dr. McCaskill:
As you undoubtedly are aware, my organization and a number of other First Amendment groups have been concerned about the fact that a teacher at your school, Todd Friedman, was disciplined last year after a parent complained about sexual content in Russell Banks' novel Continental Drift.
For immediate release This week, the National Coalition Against Censorship sent a letter to the University of Central Oklahoma urging the University to adopt a statement affirming the value of free expression, as well as develop guidelines for the exhibition of student art, which would guarantee the viewpoint-neutral selection of artwork and establish a procedure for responding to challenges. The [...]
Dr. Chris Markwood Dean of Arts, Media, and Design University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, Oklahoma Dear Dean Markwood, We were disturbed to hear about the removal of one of your students' artwork from an exhibition. Our understanding is that Sarah Wall?aka "PIE"?displayed a number of her works as part of a curated student monochromatic show. The show was located [...]
Of all the odd "indecency" rulings that the Federal Communications Commission has issued over the years, the silencing of Sarah Jones's rap poem Your Revolution is the most deeply suggestive of the discriminatory nature of American censorship.
President Bush has signed an executive order which keeps secret, for another three years, millions of government documents that were due to become declassified on April 17. The new policy amends a more open policy of President Clinton.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the second time that a law prohibiting commercial websites from posting material that is "harmful to minors" is overly broad, not narrowly tailored, and impermissibly vague.
When the director of the Emma Goldman Papers Project asked permission to send a solicitation letter, officials at the University of California at Berkeley, where the project is housed, took out the red ink.
Peter Arnett was fired from NBC because of statements he made in an interview on Iraqi television commenting on the strength of Iraqi resistance.
Members of Congress put the brakes on the Total Information Awareness Program proposed by the Defense Department, in response to widespread protest and concern for individual rights.
UPDATED: Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed the amendment that could have stripped $3.1 million from the University of Kansas' School of Social Work if materials used in one of its classes were determined to be obscene. The governor said she was vetoing the proviso because it was "an inappropriate use of legislative powers designed to impinge upon academic freedom in the [...]
Governor Kathleen Sebelius Office of the Governor Topeka KS Honorable Governor Sebelius, We protest the amendment to the 2003/04 Kansas State budget that would eliminate funding for the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas, as well as for any academic unit that purchases "obscene" videos for educational purposes. The amendment is an attack on academic freedom and, [...]
A review of: Aaron Caplan's "Public School Discipline for Creating Uncensored Anonymous Internet Forums," Williamette Law Review, Winter 2003, v39, n1. Facilitating the anonymous speech of others has always been a hazardous endeavor. In the 18th century, publisher John Peter Zenger sat in prison for eight months for printing and disseminating some unsigned articles that attacked an unpopular governor [...]
Follow-up Letter to the State Education Department March 12, 2003 James A. Kadamus, Deputy Commissioner Office for Elementary, Middle, Secondary & Continuing Education State Education Dept. Room 875 EBA University of the State of New York Albany, NY 12234 Dear Mr. Kadamus: We are in receipt of your letter in defense of the construction of the June 2002 [...]
Teaching Sex, by Jeffrey Moran, recently published, provides a timely historical overview on the politics of sexuality education.
The defense of free speech involves increasingly complex and subtle debates which conflate ideas and action, pit free speech against other societal goals, and seek easy answers to intractable problems
NCAC Censorship News Issue #81:
by Marjorie Heins
In January, the Supreme Court declined to review a sweeping decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that essentially denied state-employed professors any First Amendment right to academic freedom. The case of Urofsky v. Gilmore was a challenge to a Virginia law that barred state employees (with the exception of state police) from using state-owned or state-leased computers to access any "sexually explicit" Internet content without prior written approval from their "agency head."
College campuses erupted recently over a controversial ad that appeared in some student newspapers. The ad, written and paid for by conservative activist David Horowitz, opposes reparations for descendants of slaves.
12 librarians at the Minneapolis Public Library filed a sexual harassment complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission protesting unfiltered computers where patrons can access pornography.
For applying chaotic thinking to terrorist chaos, Jerry Falwell takes the cake.
The outpouring of emotion since September 11th is taking a toll on free expression, in what many describe as the "new McCarthyism."
With a stroke of the pen on Nov. 1, President Bush stabbed history in the back and blocked Americans' right to know how presidents (and vice presidents) have made decisions. Executive Order 13223 ended more than 30 years of increasing openness in government.
Michigan's "cussing canoeist" was recently vindicated when the state appeals court struck down a 105-year-old law banning vulgar language in front of women and children. Timothy Boomer was convicted in 1998, after cursing when he fell out of his canoe.
In Montgomery County, Texas, the award-winning children's sex-education book, It's Perfectly Normal, and It's So Amazing by Robie Harris, are still off the library shelves.
Freedoms that Americans treasure could be gravely endangered by an Orwellian program Vice Admiral John Poindexter has devised for the Defense Department in the fight against terrorism.
Mayor Jay Lee of Virgin, Utah has a unique view of First Amendment rights. Local residents who want to comment on zoning and planning issues at Town Council meetings must pay $25.
Issue 88, Winter 2002/2003 by Joan E. Bertin New Yorkers learned a lot about the First Amendment from former Mayor Giuliani. He was sued for infringing free speech more than any mayor in memory, and maybe in history. Ironically this became a living civics lesson. Even those who disagreed vehemently with the message supported the KKK's right to demonstrate peaceably [...]
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA et al., Appellants v. PLAYBOY ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, INC. BRIEF AMICI CURIAE OF SEXUALITY SCHOLARS, RESEARCHERS, EDUCATORS, AND THERAPISTS IN SUPPORT OF APPELLEE No. 98-1682 In the Supreme Court of the United States October Term, 1998 On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware Marjorie Heins Counsel of Record 170 West [...]
NCAC Censorship News Issue #60: Art Censorship : Female Nudity, Not in Our Community December 1995 After the Raleigh (North Carolina) City Council decided to "preview" some art works that had been booked for exhibit in a city-owned building, the gallery yielded to pressure and booted the artist and her erotic works from the show. The gallery committee had wrestled [...]
School officials cannot ignore their own policies, an editorial in Wisconsin's The Star News observes, confirming NCAC's constant advice to those fighting school censorship. In commenting on Dishnow v. Rib Lake School District in the May 15th newspaper, Associate Editor Laurie Meyer ascribed the origins of the costly court battle to evasion of Rib Lake's review and reconsideration procedures when administrators removed Judy Blume's Forever from the library.
The Communications Decency Act, the provision of the 1996 Telecommunications Act designed to restrict the flow of information over the Internet, has now been struck down twice by federal court judges.
NCAC Censorship News Issue #65: Spring 1997 As a tribute to her passionate commitment to the First Amendment and to her remarkable leadership, NCAC has established The Leanne Katz Fund for Free Expression (The LK Fund). With Judy Blume as its sponsor, the LK Fund will provide special support to carry forward NCAC's work into the millennium and build the [...]
NCAC Censorship News Issue #65: OF MICE AND MEN "Inappropriate" in Illinois Spring 1997 Another attempt to keep students from reading books selected by their teacher has happened in Peru, Illinois where eighth-grade teacher, Dan Brooks, has been told to stop teaching Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. After 13 years of using the book, Brooks was told it was "inappropriate" [...]
NCAC Censorship News Issue #65: Oklahoma University Bans Sex on the 'Net Spring 1997 The fight to protect free speech on the Internet was set back in January when a federal district court judge ruled that Oklahoma University's newsgroup is not a public forum. The case was brought by journalism professor Bill Loving when the University blocked access to almost [...]
NCAC Censorship News Issue #65: We Will Miss Tom Stoddard, Humanist Spring 1997 Thomas B. Stoddard, a member of NCAC's Advisory Council and former head of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, died in February. A trailblazer for human rights for lesbians and gays and for people with AIDS, his commitment and leadership was unsurpassed. Tom leaves a hole in [...]
NCAC Censorship News Issue #66: Summer 1997 In an effort to thwart two Supreme Court rulings that flag burning is symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment, the House of Representatives passed a bill to amend the Constitution, giving Congress "the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." The 3-to-1 vote mirrored the 1995 [...]