This article originally appeared in Censorship News Issue 126 Using spurious First Amendment arguments, state legislators around the country are attacking science education, particularly the teaching of evolution and climate change. Supporters of SB 55 in South Dakota claimed the bill was necessary to protect the academic freedom and free speech rights of teachers. NCAC […]
Weaponized Protest
This article originally apeared in Censorship News Issue 126 It was the “winter of our discontent,” to judge by the number and intensity of protests around the country. Most of these protests, like the Women’s March and the March for Life, displayed the strengths of our constitutional system. But not all. Some protesters and public […]
Short Takes
This article originally appeared in Censorship News 126 Islamophobia and censorship In Tennessee, the leader of a Facebook group, Sullivan County Parents Against Islam Indoctrination, filed an official complaint seeking the removal of a Pearson textbook, My World History. She claims it promotes Islamic indoctrination and violates her daughter’s religious beliefs. NCAC explained the difference […]
Talking About Race
From Censorship News 126: NCAC’s Arts Advocacy Program reflects on controversy and calls to censor artwork that represent issues of race.
In the Supreme Court
This article originally appeared in Censorship News Issue 126 “Disparaging” trademarks The controversy behind Lee v. Tam began in 2011 when musician Simon Tam, an Asian-American, attempted to trademark his band’s name, The Slants. The Patent and Trademark Office rejected the trademark based on a provision of the 1946 Lanham Act that prohibits trademarks that […]
New Pressures on Press Freedom
This story originally appeared in Censorship News 126 As a candidate for president, Donald Trump made headlines for his scathing attacks on the press. They were not limited to labeling the media as dishonest, referring to unfavorable coverage as “fake news,” and threatening to change libel laws to make it easier to sue news organizations. […]
“I Don’t Want to be a Safe Writer”: An Interview With Rainbow Rowell
This Interview originally appeared in Censorship News Issue 125 Author Rainbow Rowell has won enormous praise for stories like Eleanor & Park, which perfectly captures the growing pangs, hormonal joys and general awkwardness of the teenage experience. Her raw portrayals of teenage life have, however, frequently made her books subject to censorship attempts. We spoke […]
Fall 2016 Legal Briefs
This article originally appeared in Censorship News Issue 125 Transit ads again A decision from the federal appeals court in Chicago revisits the contentious issue of ads on public transportation. The case involves a policy in Fort Wayne, IN, against advertisements that “express or advocate opinions or positions upon political, religious or moral issues.”The ad in […]
Confronting the Past in Pain[t]
This article orignally appeared in Censorship News Issue 125 History textbooks are re-written every few years – not because the past changes, but because our understanding of it does. Even as we reconsider our understanding of the past, artifacts survive that remind us how our predecessors saw the world. Historical paintings are a case in […]
Literature as “Pornography”
This article originally appeared in Censorship News Issue 125 Virginia state senator Amanda Chase recently claimed that three popular and highly-regarded books for teens are “pornographic.” The books were included on a high school summer reading list, but they were not required – students were free to choose other books. Nonetheless, Senator Chase demanded that […]
Ivory Tower Sex Panic?
Is there a new sex panic taking place in academia? Sexual expression is once again under attack as harmful to women, and possibly as a form of sexual harassment.
The Censored Truth of a Guantanamo Prisoner
Published in January, The Guantanamo Diary is an intense account of Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s excruciating experiences as a prisoner of the U.S. war on terror. Slahi was detained in his native Mauritania in 2001; a CIA rendition plane flew him to Jordan for brutal interrogation sessions, and from there he was taken to Afghanistan and […]
Expelling Oklahoma Frats
According to black students, the problems they face on campus — like poor retention and graduation rates and less financial aid — existed before the video surfaced. Perhaps there’s a problem at OU that goes beyond the reprehensible acts of some students on a party bus.
Waging War On History
Politicians and activists gear up to battle what they see as left-wing bias in the AP’s US History framework.
Pulped! by Robie H. Harris
PULP noun: A soft, wet, shapeless mass of material PULPED verb: To crush into a soft, shapeless mass A week into the international controversy over the removal and planned destruction—PULPING—of three children’s picture books by the National Library of Singapore, I read the headline Singapore halts pulping of ‘pro-gay’ books. The article reported that two of the books, AND […]
The Long And The Short Of It
NCAC screened our 2013 Youth Free Expression Film Contest Winners at the New York Film Academy on March 29. Top prize went to Ani Akpan of the Bronx for his visually dazzling Future Warfare III, followed by Peter Ackerman of Augusta, Maine and Austin Guerrero of Gresham, Oregon; Daniella Sanchez won the People’s Choice Award […]
Introduction
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” — Aldous Huxley Huxley would not be surprised then, that as we go to print, his 1932 novel, Brave New World, has been challenged in Delaware by a school board […]
40 Years on the Frontlines: Headlines from Censorship News
1975: “Burning Books in North Dakota” Bruce Severy was fired after having assigned James Dickey’s Deliverance and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five to his high school English students. When the school’s burning of the books created nationwide publicity, residents of Drake, N.D. were “dumbfounded and vaguely upset by the notoriety.” 1979: “Classified at Birth: The Progressive Case” The controversy around the […]
State of Censorship: Unabridged Contributions From Our Participants
Read contributions from: American Association of University Professors American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression American Civil Liberties Union American Library Association American Society of Journalists & Authors Association of American Publishers Catholics for Choice College Art Association Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Dramatists Guild of America Lambda Legal Modern Language Association National Center for Science […]
The Harlem Shakedown
Did 30 students at a suburban Detroit high school deserve suspensions for joining the latest viral dance craze? Not according to a recent poll. Most people thought it was harmless fun.
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