Censorship News Articles

A suit brought against a publisher for allegedly aiding and abetting a triple murder by publishing a "how-to" manual for contract killers was dismissed in a federal district court.

Penny Culliton, a New Hampshire teacher who fought back against attempts to smear and ultimately fire her, has been reinstated by the Mascenic School Board following a decision of the state's Public Employee Labor Relations Board. The Labor Board upheld an arbitrator's previous award that had turned Culliton's dismissal into a one-year suspension.

After a long and excruciating censorship legal battle, officials in Cincinnati have been thwarted again. (Cincinnati is where an art museum and its director were prosecuted for exhibiting the photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. A jury acquitted them.)

  Issue 63, Fall 1996 National news spotlighted the rejection by the Hudson, Ohio Board of Education of The American People, a multicultural history textbook recommended by educators for high school use. But the Board's reversal of its action seems to have gone unnoticed outside of the state. Under pressure from a local religious group, the board first voted not [...]

"When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and -- eventually -- incapable of determining their own destinies."

When it comes to the Internet, many libraries are apparently not following the traditional and important principles of the American Library Association on patron access.

Composer Elliott Sharp has produced State of the Union, 146 artists responding to the presidential State of the Union address in 146 minutes.

When a parent demanded that Poetry in Black America be removed from school libraries in Okaloosa County, Fla. for "inciting violence," the Florida Coalition Against Censorship arranged for challenged poet Nikki Giovanni to speak with school officials. The board retained the book.

Two obscenity convictions of comic 'zine creator Mike Diana were upheld by Florida Circuit Court Judge Douglas Baird, as he dismissed a third conviction for advertising obscene matter. Baird's ruling declared that Diana's homemade comic books, Boiled Angel 7 and Boiled Angel Ate, were designed to appeal to prurient sexual interests.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a June hearing on the legislation which, if passed, could affect a wide array of constitutionally protected expression and chill creative expression in every field -- banning snapshots of babies in bathtubs and classical drawings, paintings, and sculptures, for starters.

  Issue 62, Summer 1996 by Fred T. Haley  In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel in federal court in Philadelphia struck down the provisions of the 1995 Telecommunications Act which would have restricted all on-line communications to ideas, images, and information deemed suitable for children. Finding the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional, the three judges, in separate opinions, decried the [...]

Twenty-five years ago today, reporters, editors and owners of The Times stood accused in Federal court of treasonous defiance of the United States. We had begun to publish a 10-part series about the Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page study of how four Administrations became entrapped in Vietnam -- progressively more committed and more frustrated than they dared at every stage to admit to the public.

An art exhibit, Love Makes a Family: Living in Lesbian and Gay Families, created to depict the diversity of families, was recently attacked in Amherst, Massachusetts by opponents who brought a lawsuit to have it banned from further showings in public schools. The exhibit includes photos and text about families that include gay children or parents.

In a continuing and costly saga, the Rib Lake, WI school district is still reeling from the censorship actions of its school board in 1993, although four of the seven members and two administrators have since been replaced. When school guidance counselor Mike Dishnow was fired for criticizing the school board's banning of Judy Blume's novel Forever, Dishnow sued the district for violating his First Amendment rights and won an award of almost $400,000 including his legal fees (Censorship News 61).

A judicial hearing officer ruled in March that Denver-area high school teacher Alfred Wilder cannot be fired for showing Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 to a senior class studying logic and debate. While the epic film on the rise and fall of Fascism is over 4 hours long, officials of the high school created a 24-minute videotape of strung-together excerpts taken out of context to discredit the film and the teacher. Curiously, however, under Colorado law, the ruling is only advisory -- the school board now has twenty days to decide whether to accept her ruling.

A divisive campaign is snowballing around the country. It wrongly assumes that educators and parents are adversaries and books are the enemy. Watch for this campaign in your state; it's a camouflage for censorship!

A federal judge ruled that the Olathe, Kansas school system had violated students' and parents' First Amendment rights when it ordered that all copies of the book Annie on My Mind be removed from high school library shelves. The book is the story of Annie and Liza, who meet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, fall in love and consequently struggle with declaring their homosexuality to family and friends.

NCAC wrote to The New York Times to point out a serious omission in a news report announcing the appointment of Lee C. Bollinger as the new President of the University of Michigan.

The actual cost of public broadcasting is minuscule in comparison with other public activities. In fiscal 1995 the total federal operating budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is $286 million, while $200 million yearly is allocated to military bands.

You might wonder what could possibly be wrong with a group that calls itself Family Friendly Libraries. But be prepared: its true purpose is belied by its genial-sounding name. Family Friendly Libraries is the creation of people who are very angry at libraries -- and librarians -- and they are hard at work shaping libraries to fit their narrow beliefs and to "protect" the public from the "wrong" books, films, periodicals, and ideas.

Republicans in both houses of Congress displayed devout contempt for the right to free speech by promoting and voting for a telecommunications bill that tramples First Amendment rights in two ways...

After Martin Luther King Day this year, my son recounted what he had learned during his kindergarten class' commemorative activities: Dr. King worked to make America a fairer country for everyone; he did not believe in fighting; he was killed when he was still young.

During the Persian Gulf war, NCAC protested to Defense Secretary Cheney, with other groups, about Pentagon press restraints which far exceeded the need to protect lives. Public acceptance of the extreme restrictions shows a tenuous understanding of the reasons for press freedom.