Censorship News Articles

A welcome decision from the federal Appeals Court for the Sixth Circuit in Kincaid v. Gibson restored First Amendment rights to Kentucky State University and other college students.

In Utah, a full-time official enforces the state's obscenity laws, and stores rent expurgated-only videos.

We recently received a request for help responding to a proposed policy to ban "racially offensive" books from the high school curriculum. As readers of CN know, Huck Finn is a perennial target for censorship because the word "nigger" repeatedly appears in it.

Rudy Giuliani may not be the nation's most visible opponent of First Amendment rights, but not for want of trying. Fresh from losing a bout with the Brooklyn Museum of Art over Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary in the Sensation exhibit, he's now proposing a "decency" commission in response to another image he considers "anti-Catholic" in a show of work by black photographers at the same museum.

We will miss Robert Cormier who died in early November—a luminary among authors of young adult fiction, whose brilliant writing holds continuing appeal for teenagers and adults.

Principled support for free expression requires us sometimes to defend speech that we personally find wrong-headed, offensive, and even abhorrent. But not always. A case in point: censorship of comprehensive sexuality education.

Leaves turn, temperatures fall, and hot air rises from the campaign trail, heralding "the silly season." Now is the time when political candidates hawk simple solutions for complex problems.

Embarrassed by an illustration of a vagina in a high school science textbook, school board members in Lynchburg, Virginia refused to approve the book unless the picture was covered or cut out. Some anatomical parts, apparently, are best unseen.

The Supreme Court struck down a federal law which made cable TV systems completely scramble their signals or restrict sexually-oriented programs to late-night hours to protect minors from exposure through "signal bleed" (U.S. v. Playboy).

Student-led prayers at football games provided the latest opportunity for the Supreme Court to address religious speech and church-state issues. The case was brought by families of Catholic and Mormon students in the Santa Fe, Texas, schools.

In 1996, with little discussion, a provision was added to a popular welfare reform law that established a federal entitlement program for abstinence-only-until-marriage sexuality education.

Creationism: Denial of Supreme Court review leaves standing a 5th circuit decision that a Louisiana school district's use of a "disclaimer" about evolution is unconstitutional because of its religious intent

Dr. Laura, the radio talk-show host, dishes out advice and vitriol. She's particularly acerbic in her condemnation of homosexuality, and her views are offensive to many regardless of their sexual orientation. So it's no surprise that she's the target of protests and a high-profile campaign to keep her off TV.

An art exhibit about Houston's civil rights history was removed from the windows of Foley's Department Store. The installation, Today's Special, by photographer Bill Thomas, commemorated the 1960 sit-in protests that resulted in the integration of Houston's downtown lunch-counters, including Foley's, where Thomas's mother had worked.

A ballot issue in Holland, Michigan to require the public library to filter all computers or lose city funding was roundly defeated.

Is free speech a positive good, or a necessary evil? Ask Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello, imprisoned in Cuba over a political article, or friends of Konca Kuris, a Turkish writer tortured and killed for her feminist views of Islam.

More than 138 years after its creation, the Confederate battle flag remains a potent symbol. The Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina statehouse has spurred an economic boycott by the NAACP and ignited public debate and discussion in the presidential primaries.

The Brooklyn Museum of Art settled its court case over the Sensation art exhibit at the end of March, ending an acrimonious battle with New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

An arts controversy in Santa Cruz, California has prompted artist Lynn Zachreson to wonder if east coast arts censorship is spreading west. When Zachreson displayed her paintings of nude figures at an annual community art show, the director objected.

The new director of the Detroit Institute of Arts padlocked the doors of an art exhibit, turning a show which was planned to display controversial art into a victim of censorship instead of its antidote.

I happened to be in London last summer on the very day "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," the third book in the wildly popular series by J. K. Rowling, was published. I couldn't believe my good fortune. I rushed to the bookstore to buy a copy, knowing this simple act would put me up there with the best grandmas in the world. The book was still months away from publication in the United States, and I have an 8-year-old grandson who is a big Harry Potter fan.

The Tacoma, Washington Public Library uses filters that strip images from 'restricted' websites, leaving only text, even for adults, and requires all users to register.

New York City has become ground zero in the culture wars, thanks to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s assault on the Brooklyn Museum over an art exhibit already seen by thousands in Europe. Perhaps the Mayor sees his future in Washington, the center of politics, rather than New York, a center of art and culture.

New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, facing an invasion of encephalitis-bearing mosquitos, has chosen to buzz a controversial art exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art that he considers 'sick.' The focus of his attention is a show of contemporary British art from the Charles Saatchi collection, which attracted record crowds in London and in Berlin. Now, thanks to the Mayor, it's attracting record crowds to Brooklyn.

My first thought upon hearing that the Kansas state education board had removed evolution from its mandatory curruculum was: Go ahead! Be like that! Handicap your kids for life.

The teaching of evolution has been overwhelmingly affirmed in New Mexico where the State Board of Education voted to strengthen the statewide science curriculum.

MIT professor Henry Jenkins ... warned the Senate Commerce Committee not to succumb to a climate of moral panic and embrace misguided and ineffectual proposals to censor youthful expression or the media.

This essay is about political exploitation of the Littleton school-shooting tragedy. Rich describes proposals offered by Congress and the President as "quick fixes"--not serious treatment to prevent real-life violence:

Congress must believe that flag-burning is epidemic. Year after year, the House of Representatives votes to ban physical "desecration" of the flag. This session is no exception.

The killings in the Littleton, Colorado high school have sparked a wave of soul-searching over whether the entertainment industry is partly responsible for creating a "culture of violence." Predictably, there are also questions about the meaning of the First Amendment. Can there be too much of a good thing? Does the First Amendment really protect all the blood and gore that is splattered on our TV and movie screens?

Nassau Community College in New York won a lengthy battle over a popular human sexuality course when a federal district judge rejected efforts to eliminate the course. Several residents, represented by the American Catholic Lawyers Association, alleged that Family Living and Human Sexuality (PED 251), violates the Establishment Clause by expressing a "hostility to certain religious views" and "constitutes a deliberate disparagement of traditional Jewish and Christian and particularly Catholic, teachings on marriage, procreation and adultery" (Gheta v. Nassau Community College).

One of the artistic wonders of the world, Michaelangelo's David, according to some, is not fit for children to see.

At an NCAC panel in New York, author and critic Judith Levine, artist and writer Barbara Pollack, and clinical psychologist and professor Leonore Tiefer explored some of the tensions and contradictions in adult responses to children's sexuality and the ways in which these responses are socially constructed.

Chief of the National Endowment for the Arts, William J. Ivey, created a new controversy when he withdrew funding for The Story of Colors, the Mexican folktale for children published by Cinco Puntos Press.

Radical protest groups that advocate or condone violence inevitably test the limits of free speech.

A well-intentioned third-grade teacher, who happens to be white, gave her mostly black and Hispanic students a critically praised book about a black girl with kinky hair. Then parents came to Public School 75, which is in Bushwick, Brooklyn. (by Clyde Haberman, excerpted from The New York Times, December 4, 1998)

Public libraries in Loudoun County, Virginia, may not block sexually explicit material on the Internet, ruled a federal district judge in a decision that is expected to influence library policies elsewhere (Mainstream Loudoun v. Board of Trustees).

We can all breathe a sigh of relief, at least for now, that a flag desecration amendment was not enacted in the 105th Congress. While the amendment passed overwhelmingly in the House, the Senate, where its fate depended on one vote, postponed its consideration. New senators may make a difference. For more information on SJ 40, click here.

Views on the News From the Executive Director: Teachers (and Education) in Trouble