It’s refreshing to see President Obama moving forward on his promise to separate science from politics. By freeing scientists to do more research using stem cells, and by commissioning NIH to develop guidelines, the President has put scientific decisions where they belong – with scientists. Now maybe he’ll do the same with abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which have been condemned as inaccurate [...]
Image of Henry Kissinger’s backside by David Levine that was pulled from the NYT Op-Ed Page AlterNet reports on a new book by Jerelle Kraus, the former art director of The New York Times Od-Ed and editorial pages, that details the censorship of editorial illustrations in The New York Times. The book All The Art That’s Fit to [...]
In episode 124 of his sex-advice podcast, Dan Savage weighs in on "sexting." An excerpt: ... I just want to say a quick word about "sexting" which is the craze sweeping the nation. Young people are occasionally being arrested and being bounced out of school ... because once you take a picture of your own junk when you're a minor [...]
On February 20, Washington D.C. resident Yaraslau Kryvoi received notice from Internet service provider and webhost, Utah-based Bluehost, that it was suspending Kryvoi’s account and giving him 10 days to remove content that Bluehost found objectionable from his website. The objectionable content in question? Kryvoi, an immigrant from the former Soviet republic of Belarus, maintained and operated a website for [...]
"That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" -- William Shakespeare The day JuicyCampus shuttered, the website (juicycampus.com) began redirecting to College ACB (Anonymous Confession Board). With the same promise of anonymity, College ACB now provides us with the same gems JuicyCampus used to. Select any of the colleges in the drop bar, and [...]
According to The Associated Press: The Supreme Court ruled unanimously . . . that a small religious group cannot force a city in Utah to place a granite marker in a local park that already is home to a Ten Commandments display. The case, reported in NCAC’s last issue of Censorship News, involves a Salt Lake City based religious sect [...]
It’s raining here in New York, and it also seems to be raining book censorship news! From near and far, here’s the round up of book challenges we’re watching. A woman in West Bend, WI, has submitted a complaint to the West Bend Library because she objects to books in the youth section of the library that address [...]
Good news: Picasso at the Lapin Agile is a go in Eastern Oregon. As a student weighed in the comments section: Hey just wanted to thank you for taking the time to mention our struggle here in Good Ol’ Eastern Oregon. As an update, a student group at Eastern Oregon University has pledged to fund a production of our play [...]
Again? Another plaintiff ignores Section 230 of the CDA and sues a website over user generated content SUNY Albany freshman Denise Finkel is suing four former high school classmates, their parents, and Facebook, Inc. over the allegedly defamatory content contained in a private Facebook group the classmates had set up. (Finkel v. Facebook, Inc., 102578-09 (N.Y. Supreme Ct. complaint filed [...]
It’s about time that Karl Rove and Harriet Miers testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the dismissal of nine US Attorneys in 2006. There have been widespread allegations that they were fired solely for political reasons, which were supported by an internal Justice Department investigation. Still, Rove and Miers have refused to testify or turn over relevant documents to [...]
We’ve been covering challenges to several books about sex in the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. In February, the library board voted to restrict The Joy of Sex, The Joy of Gay Sex, The Lesbian Kama Sutra, and Sex for Busy People, removing them from general circulation in the health section of the library. Svetlana wrote then, While restricting [...]
The Supreme Court handed down an opinion today that doesn’t seem to be about suppression of scientific information, but it is. Diana Levine lost her arm when a drug manufactured by Wyeth, was administered to her improperly. Wyeth knew of the risk of this method of administration, but did not disclose it in its warning label. Because the label had [...]
Promoting drug use in a high school newspaper is undeniably inappropriate, but is there ever room for critical discussion about drugs? How about reporting on substantial medical research, which claims some psychedelic drugs might offer positive effects? Lakeridge High School senior Tyler Smith’s January op-ed, “Psychedelics: Agents of spiritual growth?” which reported on the effects of psychedelic drugs and brought [...]
A recent paper in the journal, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, examines censorship in medical research. Giovanni A. Fava describes the damages to intellectual freedom that result when academic medical researchers are influenced by corporate and special interests. He notes that censorship can take several forms in this arena, from suppression of accurate data that conflicts with industry interests, to retaliation against [...]
The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that Independent Newspapers, which runs the forum Newszap.com, could not be forced to reveal the identities of online posters who had written critical comments about a Dunkin’ Donuts. The owner of the restaurant, Zebulon J. Brodie, claimed that the commenters had defamed him and called on Independent Newspapers to reveal their identities. [...]
But not in La Grande Oregon, where on Wednesday night, school board members voted to uphold Superintendent Larry Glaze’s decision to censor a student production of Steve Martin’s “Picasso at the Lapin Agile”, ignoring spirited and articulate appeals from the High School principal and drama teacher. It was yet another disturbing case of school officials catering to the more censorious [...]
Good news for kids’ right to read! On Wednesday, the Muscogee County (GA) School District’s media committee voted unanimously to keep the novel, My Brother Sam is Dead, in elementary school libraries. Counting up 19 terms she found inappropriate, one parent had challenged the book for its profanity. In its decision to keep the book on the shelves, media committee [...]
Earlier this month, we covered the banning of The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad in Wyandotte, MI. The Wyandotte School Board banned the book, removing it from the High School library and classrooms while it is reviewed by a reconsideration committee. The committee meets tonight to discuss the book. The Kids’ Right to Read Project is sending this letter [...]
Jurist reports that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has held that a California ban on the sale of video games to minors is unconstitutional. According to Jurist: The bill, originally signed into law by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in October 2005, prohibited the sale or rental of violent video games to minors under the age of [...]
A survey of 1,280 teens and young adults conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com finds that 22% of girls and 18% of boys said they have electronically sent or posted nude or semi-nude images. The impulse to make a nude self-portrait is neither new, nor specific to kids. In the introduction to a [...]
CNN’s coverage of the NY Post’s controversial cartoon from a First Amendment perspective. Click here to watch the video. NCAC Executive Director Joan Bertin weighs in, noting NCAC’s response to the violence in Denmark resulting from a newspaper’s running cartoon portrayals of Mohammed. […]
Satellite television provider Direct TV’s recent decision to reject an advertisement produced by the advocacy group U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation raises serious questions about the responsibilities of corporate media to permit, if not promote, the free exchange of ideas on important questions of national policy. The advertisement, which asks viewers to contact President Obama and tell him [...]
In January, we reported on a Topeka, Kansas woman’s push to move books about sexuality to a restricted section. As Rebecca wrote then, “Restricting books may seem like a fine compromise, but it has a serious chilling effect on library patrons’ reading selection, and adopting such a policy would permit one person to enforce her views on everyone else.” Yesterday, [...]
In December we covered the depressing situation at Rowlett High School where a teacher pulled a performance of “RENT: School Edition” after controversy about the play’s content. “RENT: School Edition” is a “modified” version of Jonathan Larson’s Tony Award winning musical about “bohemian” life in New York. The play explores the lives of artists struggling to live out a romantic [...]
Facebook users now can send e-condoms to their online friends compliments of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In a world of abstinence only education, where many public health departments focus on suppressing information about safe sex, I applaud NYC’s bold move to provide accurate, lifesaving information to teenagers. While there are some flaws in the design – [...]
A short picture book for children ages 4-8 has been getting a lot of attention recently. Vamos a Cuba by Alta Schreier and its English counterpart, A Visit to Cuba, were banned from school libraries in 2006 by the Miami-Dade School Board. The book was removed based on complaints that it painted to favorable a [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the School Board of Nassau County, Florida for denying students permission to open Gay-Straight Alliances in Jacksonville’s Yulee HS and Middle School. In prohibiting the GSA, school district’s superintendent, John L. Ruis, is quoted in the State saying, “A club highlighting sexual orientations will not be permitted as it would [...]
Science based policy had a rough time of it for the last eight years. More than any prior administration, Democratic or Republican, the Bush Administration censored, suppressed, distorted and ignored science. Government scientists were harassed and retaliated against and scientific research and even information gathering were de-funded. Censorship of science violates the values embodied in the First Amendment and the [...]
Two judges in Pennsylvania pleaded guilty last week to taking $2.6 million in exchange for sentencing juveniles to time in privately run detention centers. 5,000 juveniles have been sentenced since this kickback scheme started; many of them were first-time offenders. What if sentencing of those 5,0000 juveniles had been done by a judge seeking accountability and rehabilitation for the offender [...]
A new book, Closed Minds?: Politics and Ideology in American Universities (Brookings Institution Press, 2008), by Bruce L. R. Smith, Jeremy D. Mayer, and A. Lee Fritschler examines claims that America’s universities are dominated by faculty members who indoctrinate students in a leftist or liberal ideology and, instead found evidence of an “emerging risk-averse campus climate that threatens to impoverish [...]
Recently NCAC was contacted by a high school student who was having difficulty accessing particular LGBT websites from his school. Upon further investigation this student uncovered the likely culprit- an internet filtering policy that includes the blocking of “Sites that provide information, promote, or cater to gays, lesbians, swingers, other sexual orientations or practices, or a particular fetish.” The policy [...]
According to the Student Press Law Center, Josh Moore, a college sophomore in Kentucky, has collaborated with a state representative to introduce a bill into the Commonwealth’s House of Representatives that seeks to combat restrictions on student press. Moore believes that it is better for students to be given full responsibility as journalists and to suffer the consequences, than for [...]
Mark in the blog comments pointed out yesterday that he’d like to see more stories about students standing up for their rights. Student newspapers have great editorials supporting free speech, even in dicey cases like JuicyCampus (JuicyCampus itself is no longer running, but a replacement has already sprung up). NCAC’s film contest gives youth the chance to tell their story. [...]
The art work of four art students at Ceres’ Central Valley High School (Ceres, CA) was rejected from the annual Young Masters Art Show. The Art Show, hosted by the Mistlin Gallery in downtown Modesto, CA, features the work of young people ages 1 through 18. Art teachers are allowed to submit 20 pieces (two per student), with all entries [...]
This week, Blogging Censorship will look at student speech: the new technologies that create more spaces for free expression, and growing concerns about cyber-bullying, internet filtering, and student online speech off-campus. Today, we’ll look at cyber-bullying, peer-to-peer. That is, students harassing other students online. A recent report from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University declared that [...]
A new book examines claims that America’s universities are dominated by faculty members who indoctrinate students in a leftist or liberal ideology and, instead found evidence of an “emerging risk-averse campus climate that threatens to impoverish the intellectual vitality of undergraduate education.”
It has been a busy week for book censorship. On Tuesday, MSNBC reported that The Bookseller of Kabul, a nonfiction account of life inside an Afghan household, was removed from a high school in Wyandotte, Michigan. The book had been assigned for an 11th grade honors English class at Roosevelt High School. MSNBC quotes a former teacher at the school: [...]
NCAC's director Joan Bertin responds to Ian Buruma's op-ed on the Dutch legislator Geert Wilders in a recent letter to the editor in The New York Times. According to Bertin: Ian Buruma is right to note how ironic it is that the Dutch legislator Geert Wilders is becoming a free speech martyr while seeking to ban the Koran. But Mr. Buruma [...]
Obama and his team pledged to work on overturning the 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which only allows gays and lesbians to serve in the U.S. military if they keep secret their sexual orientation. According to the Boston Globe, although getting rid of this law is on Obama’s agenda, he “does not want to ask lawmakers to do so [...]