GRADE: A- Math has been falling behind, and is overdue for some one-on-one attention. Wall Street, the state budget crises, the six-month-long-and-still-ongoing election recount in Minnesota, and investigations into the crane collapses in Manhattan, somewhere in each of these calamities is number theory, statistics, geometry or algebra. Our national report card in mathematics achievement seems deplorable. Last month, it was [...]
Kids’ Right to Read’s Jamie Chosak interviewed the Founder of West Bend Parents for Free Speech, Maria Hanrahan about the book challenges in West Bend. Here’s an excerpt: Kids’ Right to Read: What actions did you and the West Bend community take in response to the challenges? Maria Hanrahan: In late March, the Maziarkas started circulating a petition that asked, [...]
GRADE: C+ Books - always a hot button issue in the censorship debate. This year, similar to previous years, some curriculum classics got challenged. Here's a few of the fights we saw over books being taught in middle- and high-school classes. In December, the Coeur d’Alene School Board voted unanimously to return 26 titles (among them Brave New World, Tom [...]
Interview with Maria Hanrahan, founder of West Bend Parents for Free Speech
FOX News ran a national broadcast today about the Leesburg, Florida controversy over the Gossip Girl series of books in a public library. The segment, Unfit to Print?, features Dixie Fechtel and Dianne Venetta, the two mothers who brought their complaints before the Library Board, had them rejected, and are now petitioning the City Commission to have the [...]
It started with an invitation and ended with pepper spray and Tasers. This past April, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill chapter of Youth for Western Civilization, a student group dedicated to the survival of Western civilization, invited former Colorado state congressman Tom Tancredo to come offer his opinions on tuition assistance for undocumented immigrant students. Tancredo, honorary chair of [...]
Last week, we analyzed cases from the Second Circuit, in which Sonia Sotomayor had some part in deciding, addressing the right to free expression. Still the Supreme Court’s role, and Sotomayor’s judicial style make it difficult to make a broad statement about how she will decide on free expression issues in the years to come. […]
It started with an invitation and ended with pepper spray and Tasers. This past April, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill chapter of Youth for Western Civilization, a student group dedicated to the survival of Western civilization, invited former Colorado state congressman Tom Tancredo to come offer his opinions on tuition assistance for undocumented immigrant students.
Beijing recently gave computer manufacturers six weeks’ notice that all new PCs sold in China must have Green Dam software installed on their hard drives. The name for the government-developed filtering program comes from references to a regulated Internet as “green.” Many people inside and outside China are saying that “green” doesn’t translate into pornography-free and safe for children, as [...]
Yesterday, the Leesburg Library Advisory Board in Florida refused to move a couple of Young Adult books into the adult section of the library or give them advisory labels. Parents had drawn up a petition in April against the YA status of the books, Only in Your Dreams: A Gossip Girl Novel and The Bermudez Triangle. Mothers Dixie Fechtel and [...]
The occasion was the launch of the Free Speech Leadership Council, an advocacy arm of the National Coalition Against Censorship, a nonprofit founded in 1974, of which Friedman is chair. The main event was a conversation about censorship between Toni Morrison and Fran Lebowitz. And what a conversation!
slurkflickr's commentary on cleaning up her own artwork: So as a general rule, my relationship with DC Comics when I worked on "Star Trek TOS" was pretty great. I had a fantastic editor, Margaret Clark, and I even got a decent inker once or twice- rare for a relatively new penciller. However, there was this one time when I was [...]
Kids’ Right to Read’s Jamie Chosak interviewed West Bend library board member Mary Reilly-Kliss about the book challenges in West Bend. Here’s an excerpt: Kids’ Right to Read Project: On June 2, 2009, West Bend’s library board voted to keep the books where they are. What was your experience of this meeting and how did you feel upon hearing this [...]
In May 2009, artist Gabriel Villa’s work on private property was painted over. The National Coalition Against Censorship wrote in response: The political message of Villa’s mural gives it the highest constitutional protection. Its destruction is, therefore, much more significant “mistake” than Mayor Daley would have it, it is a violation of one of our most deeply cherished rights – [...]
In efforts to liven up her graduation ceremony, Springstead High School Valedictorian Jem Lugo planned on giving a speech that would poke fun at traditional graduation messages while perhaps giving her fellow students some thoughts to remember: I’m not gonna get up here and start spouting these crazy incomprehensible seven syllable words I probably can’t even pronounce. Why would I [...]
The censorship of Gabriel Villa's mural in Chicago. The political message of Villa’s mural gives it the highest constitutional protection. Its destruction is, therefore, much more significant “mistake” than Mayor Daley would have it, it is a violation of one of our most deeply cherished rights – the right to express an opinion without being silenced by a public official.
Mary Reilly-Kliss is a retired reading/language arts teacher, having spent 33 years working with young adults in grades 7-12. She was on the West Bend library board for 3 years. For the past year she served as co-secretary on the board. Mary also works at Fireside Books and Gifts, once part of the Little Professor chain, Fireside is an independent bookstore proudly serving West Bend for over 25 years.
6/1/2009 On Sotomayor and censorship: First the bad news… 6/2/2009 Student speech under fire under Sotomayor? 6/3/2009 The Good News: Sotomayor’s decision in U.S. v. Quattrone, gagging gag orders 6/4/2009 What about Souter? A closer look at the Supreme Court’s outgoing Associate Justice 6/5/2009 Courts favor “Douchebags”; Doninger redux, and the problem of school censorship when it comes to off campus Internet expression 6/5/2009 Sotomayor [...]
Sonia Sotormayor’s joining Judge Debra Ann Livingston’s decision in the matter of Doninger v. Niehoff doesn’t provide information about her views relating to free expression. The Doninger decision was made in the context of nuanced civil procedure, and law governing student free speech rights previously mangled and misconstrued by other courts. If anything, the Doninger decision says more about the [...]
Our analysis of Sotomayor’s free speech record wouldn’t be complete without a mention of her dissent in Pappas v. Giuliani. The case reached the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 2002 and concerned the firing of Thomas Pappas from the NYPD. The department had found that he had anonymously circulated racist and anti-semitic literature through the mail from his home. [...]
Click on the photo to see more photo's from last night's Conversation with Toni Morrison, launching NCAC's Free Speech Leadership Council.
The West Bend, Wisconsin public library battle finally ended Tuesday with the best decision possible. The Library Board voted unanimously to keep the challenged books on the shelves, “without removing, relocating, labeling, or otherwise restricting access,” according to the West Bend Daily News. An inspiring demonstration of support for free speech among West Bend community members influenced the decision. Last [...]
With all the focus on and furor over the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, it is easy to lose sight of the Justice she is replacing—indeed, he likes it that way. But any discussion of how Sotomayor will influence the Court’s freedom of expression jurisprudence is incomplete without some reflection on the Justice whose robes she will fill, David Hackett [...]
Did Bill O’Reilly’s speech about Dr. George Tiller violate the law? Probably not. It is despicable? Certainly. Should it be condemned? Absolutely. Following news of Dr. George Tiller’s murder, journalists quickly began looking at the organizations and individuals who’ve taken radical positions against abortion providers. The most mainstream is Bill O’Reilly, whose show on the Fox network has frequently mentioned [...]
Evaluating where Sonia Sotomayor stands relative to the principles espoused by the First Amendment is frustrating task for two reasons. First, Sotomayor has not authored that many opinions on free expression issues. More importantly, those opinions she has drafted have been fact specific and have narrowly applied existing laws. Her judicial style prohibits straying into “big picture” territory. That being [...]
Did Bill O’Reilly’s speech about Dr. George Tiller violate the law? Probably not. It is despicable? Certainly. Should it be condemned? Absolutely.
This Wednesday, June 3, National Coalition Against Censorship’s launches the Free Speech Leadership Council with A Conversation with Toni Morrison. Talking with Fran Lebowitz, Morrison will talk about her new book Burn This Book and her experiences with censorship. Just recently, Morrison's Song of Solomon was pulled - and then returned - in AP classes in Shelby, MI. This book, [...]
Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s record of First Amendment cases has been under scrutiny since President Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court last week. Let’s start with the bad news: In Doninger v. Niehoff (2008)*, Sotomayor was part of a panel of judges who decided that a high school student’s blog posts, made from a home computer, were not protected speech. [...]
It’s not every day that students’ voices are heard concerning school policy. Indeed, most major decisions in public education are made with little or no student input. But with teacher layoffs pending in school districts across the nation, hundreds students in Los Angeles sought to change that dynamic last Friday, staging a walkout to protest plans to fire more than [...]
The Canturbury Tales, Candide, the Holy Qur’an, The Evolution of Man, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: all these titles are on the list of books banned at a Catholic high school somewhere in the U.S. But that also means you can find them among the texts of Kat Atreides’ covert lending library, which she runs out of her [...]
We’ve read recently about controversy over YA author Laurie Halse Anderson’s recent novel, Wintergirls, in which a high school girl struggles with anorexia and her friend’s death from the disease. Critics of the book say it serves as a “how-to” guide to anorexia for young people. In related news, school officials at Williamson County Schools in Franklin, Tennessee, have decided [...]
Rebecca Zeidel has been an astute and dedicated* blogger here at NCAC blog. Chairing the Kids' Right to Read Project (a project co-sponsored by NCAC and ABFFE), she's written about book censorship, science censorship, and censorship of youth voices. Today's her last day, so I thought we'd bring out one of her more infamous blog posts: Super sez: ‘TTYL’ has g2g [...]
The New York Times weighed in Tuesday on "libel tourism" and advocated for the Senate bill that would protect U.S. citizens’ First Amendment rights from the more stringent laws of other countries, notably England. Senators Arlen Specter and Joe Lieberman recently introduced the Free Speech Protection Act of 2008 in the U.S. Senate. A bi-partisan effort prompted primarily by concern [...]
Natalie Jones, a sixth grade student at Mt. Woodson Elementary School, CA was censored earlier this month after her principal and superintendent failed to apply Ramona United School District's policy reasonably and professionally. Natalie was told she would only be allowed to give her independent research project class presentation on Harvey Milk during lunchtime recess and then only to students [...]
The process for developing iPhone applications is simple: you need a catchy idea, a smart programmer (or two, or more) and lots of time. Easy. Once you’re done, you can then submit your application to the Apple store for review. Once accepted, you set a price and start sharing profits with Apple for every app downloaded. And then, [...]
First Amendment jurisprudence celebrates the metaphorical marketplace of ideas. The website craigslist may very well be an actual representation of this metaphor in that it invites users all over the world to share their ideas, sell their used couches, find roommates and advertise other services, including sensual massages and escort services. I think most readers of this blog agree that [...]
The ACLU and the ACLU of Tennessee filed suit in Federal Court against two Tennessee school districts, charging the schools are unconstitutionally blocking students from accessing online information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. NCAC was involved in an initial response and has been following the case. Now see the story in flowchart form: See it in full effect [...]
A lot is happening in the world of book censorship. Here’s the most up-to-date news… Toni Morrison has been censored from yet another curriculum – this time from an advanced English class in Shelby, Michigan. Superintendent Dana McGrew ordered the teacher to remove Song of Solomon from the classroom. McGrew said her decision “was based on the fact that I [...]
The Inaugural Event of the Free Speech Leadership Council of the National Coalition Against Censorship Wednesday, June 3, 2009, 6:30 to 8:30 PM Hosted by Jane Friedman Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, Toni Morrison is the author of many novels, including The Bluest Eye and Beloved, which are widely taught, and frequent targets of censorship [...]
Antonio Finns in the Sun-Sentinel lauds Miss California Carrie Prejean for "defend[ing] free speech rights just beautifully." In the Miss America competition, she showed her support for "opposite" marriage (which we understand as "straight marriage") and not gay marriage. She lost the pageant. And since then, the conversation keeps devolving: with claims that she [...]