Stop the Censorship! Put the Wojnarowicz video back! Protest in New York City - Sunday, December 19th, 1:00 PM (details below) Send a message to the Smithsonian Institution and all of its museums: Stop the Censorship. Late in November the Smithsonian's head, G. Wayne Clough, did something unconscionable and shocking - he ordered the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC [...]
Censorship incidents on the web are more and more common, but it's still rare when they happen to an anti-censorship organization like the NCAC. Network Solutions, a company providing web services, has threatened to remove TheFileroom.org, an interactive archive of worldwide censorship cases administered by the National Coalition Against Censorship, unless a photograph of two naked children by Nan Goldin, [...]
This is from an attendant at the protest organized by Transformer on Thursday, Dec. 2nd: The protest's silence was very effective. The rows standing mute along the entire width of north steps of the Portrait Gallery for about 25 minutes until the museum closed at 7:00 was eloquent and impactful in a way beyond the quantity of supporters or passion [...]
Victory: the Flagler Palm Coast High School production of Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD will be staged in the auditorium on February 24, 25, and 26 (two shows). It will be staged AS WRITTEN! The production was canceled last month by the school's principal, who was concerned about the use of the word "nigger" by characters in the play.
If David Wojnarowicz were alive to witness his video, Fire in the Belly, attacked by the Catholic League and removed from the National Portrait Gallery, he probably would not have been surprised. Wojnarowicz’s work received its share of controversy during the culture wars of 1989-90. His essay Postcards from America: X-rays From Hell caused National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) [...]
Yesterday (Nov 30th), in response to complaints from the Catholic League and several Republican representatives the National Portrait Gallery decided to remove Fire in My Belly, a video by multimedia artist David Wojnarowicz. The video was part of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, an exhibition exploring issues of sexuality and specifically gay sexuality (thought the official description of [...]
The NCAC Free Speech Matters Benefit was a great success. Over 200 people came to the City Winery in downtown Manhattan to celebrate free speech and honor YA writer Lauren Myracle, school librarian Dee Ann Venuto, and YFEP 2009 Film Contest Winner Jordan Allen. All three work hard to promote free expression. Lauren Myracle is a NYTimes bestselling author of [...]
A photograph of a male nude by Savannah College of Art & Design student Nicole Craine was among the several artworks taken down before an Open Studio Exhibition at the school in October. Reportedly, the students were given no explanation as to why their work was taken down. College administrators later admitted that the content would be “unacceptable” for a [...]
Last week, the Plano Independent School District in Texas decided to pull a humanities textbook that is used by freshmen and sophomores in the district's gifted and talented program. The book in question, Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities: Alternative Volume, is a survey of various pieces of artwork throughout history. Apparently, a couple was concerned that their [...]
This year we received more than 70 film contest submissions from youth all over the country in response to this year's theme: "I'm All For Free Speech, BUT..." After viewing all the entries, we chose the top ten films -- some personal, some provocative, some profound, some just plain fun! We congratulate the semifinalists and all our applicants for their [...]
Blanca Barrera & April Dash, "Uncensored and Censored Religion" Lizzie Boone, Kya Gibson, & Christian Serra, "Censor Yourself" Aaron Dunbar, "Hare Tactics: When Free Speech Goes Too Far" Evangeline Fachon & Lindsay Tomasetti, "Static" Aidee Guzman, "Freedom of Speech?" Moriah Love, Lauren Wirth, Jacob Waddle & Lauren Brunn, "The Censors-Bowl" Sarah Phan & Lyndi Low, "Malediction" Tate Phillip, "Society's Lack [...]
NCAC devotes the latest issue of Censorship News to video games and the latest in a series of efforts to “protect” minors by restricting their freedom of speech. We discuss the video game case heard in the Supreme Court on November 2, Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association. The Court will decide whether the state can impose criminal penalties for selling [...]
A Florida high school production of a play based on Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer prize-winning novel about racial conflict, To Kill a Mockingbird, has been cancelled. At the center of the controversy that prompted the cancellation was the historically necessary use of the word “nigger”. The reason “nigger” is a word that carries such painful weight, of course, is due [...]
Like all the other forms of expression that were feared initially – including the printing press – video games will certainly become part of mainstream culture, and the anxiety over their effects on young people will appear foolish in retrospect.
The Parents Television Council has done a lot of things bordering on the inane, but this time they’ve outdone themselves by saying that the cover of GQ magazine “borders on pedophilia.” As Frank Bruni pointed out in the New York Times, the women pictured on the cover are 24. Somebody at PTC should check the dictionary before using big words. [...]
On occasion of the controversy over the sexually suggestive cover of Kanye West’s upcoming album "My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy," Billboard has created a fun slideshow of 20 banned album covers. Check them out here: If you want to learn more about music censorship, you can check out NCAC’s Timeline of Music Censorship, which was created by former NCAC intern [...]
Suzanne Collins's young adult novel The Hunger Games is challenged in New Hampshire by a parent whose 11-year old said the book gave her nightmares. The parent has yet to file a formal complaint or read the book. Regardless, the Superintendent is gathering a committee to review the book while it remains in the classroom. A Texas school district in [...]
Earlier this year we reported on YouTube's removal and subsequent restoration of videos by dance-artist Amy Greenfield. At that point we voiced serious concerns about the lack of an appeals process for individuals who believe that their work has been unfairly removed from the site as well as the absence of "art" in the list of exceptions to the YouTube [...]
What began as a heated protest over Enrique Chagoya’s artwork at the Loveland Museum in Colorado has ended in vandalism. A disgruntled woman ripped into Chagoya’s controversial lithograph “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals” after she busted the artwork’s plexiglass case with a crowbar. City council members, religious groups and individuals had hoped that the public pressure caused by the [...]
For several days in September, Craigslist, the Internet’s premier destination for classified ads, replaced the link to its adult services section with a bar reading “censored.” The eight-letter word was a symbol of the way in which the government managed to regulate the site’s content despite the existence of a federal law – Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act [...]
Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association et al: The brief challenges a California law designed to prevent minors from purchasing "violent video games." The law requires that any violent video game "that is imported into or distributed in California for retail sale" be labeled with a two inch by two inch label marked "18."
On Monday, September 27, NCAC and BFA Department of Visual & Critical Studies at the School of Visual Arts will screen a special not-so-late-night double feature picture show of controversial films Destricted and Ken Park. A discussion with the filmmakers about censorship and its effects on art will take place during the intermission. These films have been banned in countries [...]
Beat-icon Allen Ginsberg is getting a resurgence of attention, 13 years after his death at the age of 70. A movie based on the story behind Ginsberg's signature poem, HOWL, opens this Friday, September 24. It stars James Franco as the young poet embroiled in a 1957 obscenity trial over the poem, which ended in a landmark win for free [...]
TONIGHT, NCAC and The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School have invited several prominent visual artists to participate in a discussion about visual expression that provokes controversy today. Some of these artists are associated with the culture wars of the 90's, others were more recently censored during the War on Terrorism. Have attitudes towards representations [...]
Last Wednesday NCAC and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School were joined by Bill Ivey, Beka Economopoulos, Magdalena Sawon, Nato Thompson, Martha Wilson, and moderator Laura Flanders of GritTV, to discuss public funding of the arts, free speech and self-censorship, and the impact of the Decency Clause. (Check out their bios here.) In an [...]
Tomorrow, September 15 at 6:30 PM, NCAC and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, presents the first of two FREE panels on art and censorship. Panel 1, “Survival vs. Autonomy: Public Funding of the Arts, Free Speech and Self-Censorship”, examines how the introduction of the decency clause and culture wars over arts funding in general have contributed to [...]
A disappointing ruling came out last night regarding Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian in Stockton, Missouri. The Stockton School Board voted 7-0 holding firm in its decision to remove the book from school classrooms, notwithstanding pressure from many educators to keep it. The board also ruled in favor of banning the book from the high [...]
When it was founded in the 1960s, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a central part of its mission was to support individuals and institutions producing edgy and innovative artwork. Twenty years ago, as a result of pressures on behalf of Republicans in Congress and the religious right, Congress amended the statute governing the NEA to require that it [...]
An invitation to young adult novelist Ellen Hopkins to speak about her experiences as a writer was rescinded by the Superintendent of the Humble (Texas) Independent School District after some parents complained about the content of her books. NCAC coordinated a letter of protest with five other national organizations. After Hopkins was disinvited to Teen Lit Fest 2011, five other [...]
The Executive Director of the Springfield Business Improvement District (SBID) in Massachusetts has issued a formal apology for painting over the underside of a resident artists’ artwork. Robert Markey was asked to paint a "sneaker" for the "Art and Soles" project – giant sneakers covered the town in hopes to illustrate “what makes Springfield great.” He painted his “sneaker” with [...]
PEN American Center, a member of NCAC’s coalition, released a statement in support of the proposed Park51 Community Center project, calling First Amendment freedoms “the birthright of all and our best defense.” NCAC is grateful to PEN for expressing thoughts we share about this fear-based controversy. The statement reads: As members of the American literary community who believe in the [...]
PEN American Center, a member of NCAC’s coalition, released a statement in support of the proposed Park51 Community Center project, calling First Amendment freedoms “the birthright of all and our best defense.” NCAC is grateful to PEN for expressing thoughts we share about this fear-based controversy. The release and statement: Writers Support Park51 Project, Religious Freedom New York City, August [...]
The word “fuck” has caused quite a stir in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Its appearance - 45 times, according to parent and avid swear-word-counter, Kelli Smith - in young adult novel Shooting Star by Fredrick McKissack Jr. is reason enough for one parent to remove the book from school district libraries. Grudgingly, the Broken Arrow Board of Education will keep the [...]
The battle over same-sex marriage has taken many twists and turns. One of the more unusual cases pitted the privacy rights of those who signed a petition to repeal a Washington law on domestic partnerships against supporters of the law who claimed the public records law required disclosure of the names of the petition signers. Both claimed the First Amendment [...]
In what appeared to be a retaliatory move against vocal citizen Steve Fults, Wakulla County (FL) Commissioner Mike Stewart proposed to eliminate the public’s use of AV equipment during meetings.
In the latest case of a nude sculpture causing a stir... Managers at Chessingtons Sea Life centre have covered up a topless mermaid sculpture. Justine Locker, Chessingtons Zoo Experience Manager, said: "Young boys, and not so young boys, spending a lot of time ogling her in the walkthrough ocean tunnel" (Courtesy of the Telegraph.)
China has been dominating censorship headlines recently, but, while we’ve been focused on the Great Firewall of China, a Great Firewall Reef has been growing in the democratic West. Australia has one of the harshest censorship regimes among the world’s democracies. Films like Ken Park (Larry Clark) and Salo (Pier Paolo Pasolini) have been Refused Classification and are not allowed to [...]
John Stagliano had his case thrown out by Judge Richard Leon early this week. Rather than having been found not guilty based on the First Amendment, it was thrown out because the prosecution bungled their case, and the judge determined that not enough evidence was given to prove that Stagliano was involved with Evil Angel Productions. The counsel for the [...]
“I’m all for free speech, BUT…” We all believe in free speech, but does that mean anything goes? What about the speech that offends us, makes us cringe, and provokes our anger (and desire to censor)? Is there anything that should be outlawed in art, films, books, music, video games, TV, or online? Is free speech an all or nothing [...]
Massachusetts has become the latest state to try to try to protect minors from sexual content online at the expense of First Amendment rights. Like many states, Massachusetts has long had laws on the books making it a crime to provide minors with material deemed “harmful to minors.” But the law did not extend to electronic communications. Concerns about minors [...]
