Yesterday we sent a letter to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, questioning the DOT’s decision to remove a number of video games in rest areas along the Massachusetts Turnpike after a visitor at one rest stop complained the games were “inappropriate.”
In Our Mothers' House, a book about an adoptive family with two moms will no longer be hidden behind a counter at school libraries in Davis County, Utah. Following a lawsuit by the ACLU, the district reconsidered its restrictions on the book. KRRP wrote a letter defending the book in June of 2012.
Once more The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has faced censorship in author and YFEP Film Contest Judge Sherman Alexie's home state. A panel of educators, administrators, parents and media specialists voted to retain the book in Yakima, WA, where it is being read by 10th grade students.
Despite recommendations by a library committee that the book be retained, Alan Moore's Neonomicon was pulled from library shelves in Greenville, South Carolina. The library services director who ultimately made the decision called the book "disgusting" in an interview with The Greenville Times.
NCAC reached out quickly and effectively on a challenge to Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle, a summer reading assignment for 9th graders in the Traverse City school district. A school board reconsideration committee had already supported removing the book, but the school board ultimately voted 4-3 to retain the book.
Several works being taught in AP English classes in Katy, TX were removed or replacafter complaints. Fight Club by Chuck Palaniuk, A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley and Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" were among the objectionable titles.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Michael O’Neil, NCAC Communications Director [email protected] or 347 788 1646. Yale University’s first joint campus is set to open in Singapore this August, and the Ivy League school needs to answer some tough questions about how its educational mission, which includes a tradition of respect for academic freedom, and freedom of thought and expression, can succeed [...]
NCAC and partner organizations sent a letter voicing our concerns over a push to remove books from classrooms in the Springfield School District in Massachusetts. Among those objected to are Sherman Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and The Other Wes Moore.
NCAC and nine partner organizations came together on a Kids' Right to Read Project letter to the Guilford School District in Greensboro, NC. The letter advised the district to stay strong and continue to follow its policies in the face of recent complaints over "The Handmaid's Tale", "Cat's Cradle" and other texts used in AP English classes. Parents in the district have complained that the texts "denigrate Christianity."
Don’t mess with Abbe Klebanoff from the Lansdowne Public Library (PA). She encouraged teens to create a music video called "Read It" to Michael Jackson's "Beat It," and posted it on YouTube. What followed was predictable—Sony objected and took it down, claiming copyright infringement.
The Rocklin School District in California reversed an earlier decision to remove Stephen King's "Different Seasons", a short story collection which contains "Shawshank Redemption" and "Apt Pupil" among others. NCAC sent a letter to the district urging them to keep the book.
Kids' Right to Read was joined by the American Library Association in defense of Stephen King's Different Seasons which has been challenged in a school library in Rocklin, CA. A parent objected to a rape scene in the novella "Apt Pupil" and wants the book removed.
Kids' Right to Read responded to the removal of Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate from classrooms in Nampa School District in Idaho. Informal complaints led the school to ban the book, despite the fact alternative assignments were offered and no formal process had been followed.
Censorship of Betsy Schneider's "Quotidian" in response to complaints jeopardizes the institution's integrity and commitment to artistic freedom.
NCAC joined with the American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in writing a letter of support to the King County Library System for their response to a recent challenge of Hero Heel 2, a manga title intended for mature audiences.
Artists and action groups join NCAC in letter to museum. Leave your comment of support!
Board members in East Penn high school recognized that voting to remove Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep and Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test without a formal review would have constitutional implications. The Kids' Right to Read Project pointed out this fact in a letter to the board after a single board member motioned to axe the books, mislabeling them "pornographic."
Though no formal complaint had been filed and despite the fact that both titles had already been upheld by a reconsideration committee in previous years, a Board Member in East Penn School District in Emmaus, PA, motioned to nix Prep and Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test from the district's summer reading lists.
Though no formal complaint had been filed, district officials in Enfield, CT thought it best to cut the graphic novel Sidescrollers from its summer reading list, after a citizen--who is not even a parent in the district--voiced her concerns about the book's content to members of the media and to the school board.
The Kids' Right to Read Project, a joint intiative of NCAC and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, supported in part by AAP and the CBLDF, sent a letter to the members of the school board, urging them to follow their own procedures and to return the book.
The Kids' Right to Read Project tackled two separate -- but similar -- challenges to books featured on summer reading lists: Sidescrollers, a graphic novel by Matt Loux, was removed in Enfield, CT; in Emmaus, PA, a board member has motioned to remove Prep and Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test from the list. No official parental complaint was filed in either case.
NCAC weighed in on the controversy surrounding Prague High School Valedicatorian Kaitlin Nootbaar's use of the word "hell" in her gradution speech. In a letter to the Superindendent of the Oklahoma School District, NCAC and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), urged the district to give Nootbaar the diploma she rightfully earned.
The Frederick County Board of Education decided to retain the textbook Social Studies Alive! Our Community and Beyond, which had come under challenge after parents objected to "left-leaning" or "socialist" statements in the text. The Kids' Right to Read Project issued a letter urging the Board not to remove the book because of objections to its content.
Copyright claims and creative freedom clash once again in the case of 3C, a recent play by David Adjmi. The play is a parody of the 1970s sitcom Three’s Company, and, as such, should constitute fair use. Nevertheless, the owners of Three's Company sent Adjmi a letter claiming copyright infringement and demanding that Adjmi cease further performances of the play anywhere.
The Kids' Right to Read Project joined with partner organizations in writing a letter to the Fremont, CA School Board, warning against another rejection of the book Bastard Out of Carolina without sound pedagogical reasons. KRRP also wrote a letter in 2011 about the board's rejection of Tony Kushner's pulitzer-prize winning play Angels in America.
The effort in New York State to combat bullying in schools is "deeply flawed", according to the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which has urged New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo not to sign the recently passed S.7740/A.I0712 bill into law. In a letter sent after the announcement of the bill's passage, NCAC praised the goals of the bill but warned of language so vague and overbroad that it "will likely create more problems than it solves."
The free speech organizations issued a letter to the Library Board of Trustees in Greenville, SC urging them to retain Alan Moore's graphic novel Neonomicon. The book, which is intended for an adult audience and was shelved in the adult section, has come under fire after a patron complained her teenage daughter had read it.
Patricia Polacco's In Our Mothers' House is a story about love and family. But its the non-traditional nature of the family which has drawn complaints from parents, resulting in restricted access. NCAC objects to the district's response to these objections and said as much in a letter to the Superintendent.
NCAC organized a number of free speech groups in a letter to the Harford County Public Library, criticizing its exclusion of E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey (Vintage). The library has stated it will not buy the book, despite demand from patrons, because of a categorical ban on "pornography."
Seven organizations joined with the Kids' Right to Read Project on a letter urging the Erie School Board to reconsider its ban on Todd Parr's The Family Book (Little, Brown and Company) and all materials endorsed by GLSEN. The book was removed from schools because of objections to a page saying "some families have two moms or two dads."
The Dirty Cowboy, a children's book about a cowboy taking his annual bath was removed from school libraries after a parent objected to the cowboy's partial nudity, calling it "pornography" The Kids' Right to Read Project is urging the book's return.
Students in a high school English class in Sumner County, T.N. chose John Green's award-winning Looking for Alaska as their post-exam in-class reading. Within a week, a single complaint led to a county-wide ban. The Kids' Right to Read Project is standing against this sudden, wide-reaching ban. Read our letter and watch the author's video statement.
UPDATE: New video. NCAC speaks out against the removal of the best-selling Fifty Shades of Grey from the Brevard County Library system in Florida as an affront to First Amendment rights. Read our letter to county officials.
PayPal, the dominant processor of Internet payments, retracted its threat (Reuters) to close the accounts of online booksellers who sell works that include descriptions of rape, incest and bestiality.
The company’s threat to close the accounts of online booksellers who sell works that include descriptions of rape, incest and bestiality would have a chilling effect on the sale of books that adults have a legal right to buy
We are calling on Villanova to reverse this decision and the damage it will cause to academic freedom within the university community
Read the joint statement of over two dozen organizations speaking out against the removal of books used in the Mexican-American Studies Progam in the Tucscon Unified School District
In a networked world, it is important that we work in solidarity to promote global artistic freedom.
From Indybay.org: The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) and supporters protested the decision by the Museum of Children's Art (MOCHA) to cancel the exhibit "A Child's View From Gaza" under pressure from Zionist organizations. MOCHA held firm that they would not allow the exhibit. MECA announced that the exhibit would open on the originally scheduled date anyway, outside rather than [...]
NCAC participating organization The Dramatists Guild protests the cancellation of a community theater production of The Rocky Horror Show in Carrollton Georgia.
Oakland Children's Museum incident the latest in a pattern of political interest groups silencing open critique and discourse on conflict in the Middle East.
Photo by Noah Berger for the San Francisco Chronicle
