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.
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 [...]
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 [...]
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.