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 [...]
NCAC Censorship News Issue #66: NCAC Announces a New Executive Director and President of the Board Summer 1997 The Board of Directors of the National Coalition Against Censorship has selected Joan E. Bertin as its new Executive Director. She succeeds Leanne Katz, who died in March. The Board also elected Wendy Kaminer as its President. Joan E. Bertin, a lawyer, [...]
NCAC Censorship News Issue #68: Winter 1997 The most significant First Amendment decision in recent history was the Supreme Court ruling in Reno v. ACLU---which held that communications over the Internet deserve the highest level of constitutional protection. In overturning the Communications Decency Act, the Court ruled that attempts to regulate the Internet to prevent children's access to "indecent" or [...]
NCAC Censorship News Issue #68: Winter 1997 Student Press A federal district court in Kentucky ruled that the censorship of student press by high school officials, which was permitted by the Kuhlmeier v. Hazelwood Supreme Court decision in 1988, allows for censorship of college and university press as well. At issue was the confiscation of yearbooks at Kentucky State [...]
NCAC Censorship News Issue #68: Winter 1997 Reason Prevails... ...in the Levittown, New York public schools where Robert Lypsyte's novel, One Fat Summer, was restored after representatives of NCAC, the Nassau County Chapter of NY Civil Liberties Union, and the Long Island Coalition Against Censorship met with school officials. The book had been removed as required reading after a [...]
The House of Representatives has approved, and the Senate is perilously near approving, an amendment to the United States Constitution to prohibit "desecration" of the flag.
Three rulings this year have ominous implications nationwide for academic freedom, creative teaching, and learning. High school teacher Cissy Lacks was fired by a St. Louis suburban school district in 1995, allegedly for violating the student code prohibiting profanity, by allowing her students' writing to reflect their own experiences and concerns in drama and poetry classes.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that non-obscene speech is protected online, as it is in print (ACLU v. Reno). To circumvent the ruling, in October Congress enacted the "Child Online Protection Act."
Other News from the Courts -- Not So Go
The Supreme Court has declined to hear teacher Cissy Lacks' appeal.
The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 which bans sexual depictions of anyone who "appears to be" younger than 18, was upheld by the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston--overturning a lower court's ruling that the law is unconstitutionally vague and could prohibit legal adult pornography.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Virginia law that restricts state employees from accessing sexually related materials online.
Schools and libraries receiving federal discounts for Internet service will be required to install censoring software on their computers if the Children's Internet Protection Act, S. 97, is passed.
A decision from a federal appeals court in September sharply limits the First Amendment rights of university journalists in the Sixth Circuit. The decision has stunned advocates for student media and free expression.
Judy Blume Draws Crowds, Crowds, and Then Some!Popular author Judy Blume drew record crowds to NCAC’s booth at New York Is Book Country, an outdoor fair held each September in New York City to commemorate Banned Books Week.
NCAC celebrated 25 years of activism for free speech, artistic freedom, and the First Amendment with a gala party at the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York City on November 29th.
For those who care about free expression, it's been a pretty good century. I was recently reminded of this by NCAC Board member, Chris Finan, president of American Booksellers for Free Expression.
Great news from Congress: In a tremendous victory for free speech, the proposed constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration was defeated, ending the perennial cliffhanger when Senators Robert Byrd, West Virgina, and Richard Bryan, Nevada, switched and voted against it.
Best-selling author Judy Blume has joined the Board of Directors. Other members recently elected to the Board are Victor A. Bolden, former Assistant Counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.; Chris Finan, President of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; attorney Jerry Goldfeder; author and attorney Marjorie Heins; and ZD Net senior editor Josh Taylor.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York will show Tell It Like It Is!, NCAC's new video on censorship of children's books, produced by Lora Hays and Chris Pelzer.
In honor of her 90th birthday, friends and colleagues of Lora Hays have contributed to a student internship at NCAC to help with our work to protect freedom of expression and to teach students all about First Amendment principles.
School vouchers. Many free speech advocates follow school voucher controversies, not just because of their church-state implications, but because of concern that government-funded education in religious settings may inhibit both secular and religious speech.
In a profile in the New York Times Magazine last year, Jo List was quoted saying "I just do what matters to me." NCAC's work defending free expression was something that really mattered to Jo.
NCAC will hold a special preview and private tour of the Shelley and Donald Rubin collection of Himalayan art on May 30th in New York City.
Many thanks to Shelley and Donald Rubin for inviting NCAC supporters to a private viewing of their outstanding collection of Himalayan art on May 30th.
NCAC mourns the loss of two long-time Board members, Samuel Rabinove and Nanette Roberts.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson was drowned out by protestors at the recent international AIDS conference in Barcelona. This is ironic, given the Administration's track record of suppressing speech about sexuality and sexual health.
Last week, the Middle East Forum launched "Campus Watch" to condemn what it calls academic bias on the Middle East; a professor identified on the site was barraged with threatening e-mails.
Aristophanes' plays were banned in the 5th century B.C. because of obscenity and anti-war themes; Confucius's writings were incinerated around 250 B.C. after a change of dynasty made them politically incorrect.
The State of the First Amendment annual survey, conducted by the First Amendment Center, shows further erosion in support of First Amendment rights.
Dear Chancellor Klein:
We understand that Russell Banks' novel Continental Drift has become the center of a dispute at Brooklyn Technical High School, and that a veteran teacher at the school, Todd Friedman, has been disciplined for assigning the novel to an eleventh grade student as supplemental reading. The principal, Dr. Lee McCaskill, acted in response to a parent's complaint about sexually explicit language in a few isolated passages.
Today the National Coalition Against Censorship and other free expression and civil rights organizations issued a statement commending University of California, Berkeley Chancellor Berdahl for affirming the University's commitment to academic freedom by overriding a previous decision to censor a fund-raising appeal for the Emma Goldman Papers Project.
While galleries and museums could choose to avoid controversy and exclude potentially controversial art, the Internet, with its wide accessibility ...
NEW YORK—In a letter dated January 6, 2003 the National Coalition Against Censorship, civil liberties organizations, and associations representing booksellers, publishers, librarians, educators, writers, and parents called for public hearings to address the lack of accountability in New York's educational policy-making system and its effects on the quality of education. The request, addressed to Richard Mills, Commissioner of the NY [...]
Dear Commissioner Mills, Chancellor Bennett, Senator Kuhl, and Assemblyman Sanders: We have previously written to object to the routine censorship of literary passages on New York State English Language Arts Regents exams, which is questionable on pedagogical, intellectual and legal grounds. In our earlier correspondence, we documented numerous examples in which material was deleted apparently to eliminate any reference to [...]
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.
A coalition of 16 journalism groups today urged the Bush administration to abide by guidelines the Pentagon and media groups established after the 1991 Persian Gulf War if an invasion of Iraq occurs. The plea came as the coalition issued an updated Statement of Principles first released a year ago. Journalists remember how their hands were tied a decade [...]
In light of the ongoing war on terrorism and the potential for an attack on Iraq, the role of the press in informing the nation about public safety concerns and the military, diplomatic, law enforcement, and intelligence actions of the government continues to be tested in novel and profound ways.
Simon Taylor, curator at the Guild Hall Museum of East Hampton, Long Island was fired midway through a successful exhibition, "Personal and Political: The Women's Art Movement, 1969-1975."