The most enjoyable part of my election night was walking away from hipster Williamsburg and past a laundromat where Obama's acceptance speech was playing. Inside the laundromat was a young Orthodox Jewish couple, a biracial lesbian couple, a handful of young adults looking up at a TV. As strange as this scene felt - either a classic 1980s tableau of [...]
Dahlia Lithwick, who's covering Wyeth v. Levine in the Supreme Court describes the case like this: "Wyeth is being called the most important business case of the year because, if the court finds that the FDA warning occupies the field of drug warnings, it will effectively immunize drug makers from many state tort suits. If it finds pre-emption here, the most business-friendly Supreme Court in decades can cancel the room with two queen-size beds and order a single king for itself and big pharma".
Shelbi Kepler - this year's 2nd place film contest winner - takes on our challenge to one more video response to this dramatic election. Here's her video on gay marriage:
Here is the full text of Dan Rather's remarks at NCAC's Annual Celebration of Free Speech and Its Defendents: Thank you to the National Coalition Against Censorship for this honor; I am humbled. I do not think myself worthy of this recognition, but I will try to become worthy of it. This is a cause that speaks to the core [...]
We had our Annual Free Speech benefit last week and we have pictures to prove it. It was held at the incredible Rubin Museum of Art. Honorees were Ruth Gruber, Caroline Hirsch, Anthony Lewis, Barney Rosset, and finally Dan Rather. The winning films from the youth film contest "My Vote For Free Speech" premiered and the first place winners won [...]
1st place: Silence by Peter Block and Connie Saltzman 2nd place: Lost Expression by Shelby Kepler 3rd place: XYZ by Corey Steinhouse, Cameron Robinson, and Mercy Emelike.
In keeping with the theme of banned books. I've selected I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou written shortly after the Civil Rights era and was inspired the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970 and remained on The New York Times paperback bestseller list for two [...]
This week's banned book is the 2004 novel ttyl (talk to you later) by Lauren Myracle. This is the first novel ever written as instant messenger style conversations between three fictional characters. ttyl was New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and Book Sense bestseller, and has had two sequels, ttfn and l8r, g8r. The book follows the friendship of [...]
No. As The Birmingham News reports: According to the ALA's office for intellectual freedom, there were 420 documented attempts to ban books from libraries nationwide last year, and up to four times as many unreported attempts". What gets banned? "Topping the list typically are novels written for young adults, and fantasy books such as the Harry Potter series. The Potter [...]
Attacks on artistic expression are proliferating at a frightening rate, and any connection with lesbian or gay matters brings campaigns for suppression. This censorship is affecting the visual and performing arts, museums and movies, television and art exhibits and it is occurring in small towns and big cities everywhere in the country. Last year in Cincinnati, Ohio, the owner, manager, [...]
Julia Alvarez is a highly-acclaimed author of over a dozen books and numerous essays and poems.
Contradicting widely advertised claims of an “uncensored” broadcast, XM Satellite Radio has suspended “shock jock” duo Opie and Anthony for 30 days.
The father of two teenage boys wants $20,000 from his city after his sons found a book on lesbian sex on a public library bookshelf. Earl Adams of Bentonville, Ark., is also requesting that the library director be fired, ac cording to KOCO TV in Oklahoma City. The boys, ages 14 and 16, were searching for material on military academies [...]
In March 2007, a naked figure of Jesus sculpted out of chocolate elicited public condemnation from Catholic groups, who claimed it was offensive to their religion. The New York City gallery where the work was to be displayed received threats of boycott and violence and eventually cancelled the exhibition. No sooner had the brouhaha over that media spectacle died than [...]
The Global Democracy Promotion Act, first introduced in 2001, may finally be gaining traction in Congress. The bill would ensure that the United States cannot impose standards on organizations outside its borders that it would not stand for imposing within its borders; allow funding for organizations that provide services that are legal in their own country and also legal in ours; and end the punishment of health care providers that observe the same standards of medical ethics and seek the same freedom of speech that apply in the United States.
According to Variety Magazine, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and NATO (National Association of Theater Owners) are instituting changes to the longstanding film ratings system: A year ago at Sundance, Kirby Dick made noise with his documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," which took direct aim at the Motion Picture Assn. of America's ratings system for being [...]
Hearings this week, held by the new Democratic chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Henry Waxman, have documented long-standing charges that the White House routinely injects political considerations into the work of federal science agencies in an attempt to censor government scientists and mislead the public about the extent of the danger posed by [...]
Do Senate Democrats' calls for ABC to cancel or edit its docudrama The Path to 9/11 constitute censorship?
Update: On July 27, the House voted 410-15 in favor of the Deleting Online Predators Act. Having passed in the House, the bill now goes to the Senate. Hopefully, DOPA will not be rushed through the Senate as it was in the House, giving Senators time to think beyond the bill’s name and understand its true implications. The Deleting Online [...]
The web is still abuzz with discussion of Stephen Colbert's keynote address at the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner. If you missed his performance, you can see it here. The roast has generated such a preponderance of discussion, criticism (of both the press corps and Colbert himself), and even fawning admiration, it seems useful to point our readers [...]
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan granted the Entertainment Software Association’s (ESA) request for a preliminary injunction to block implementation of the recently enacted Michigan statute seeking to ban the sale of certain video games to minors.
First Amendment Protected in Case Involving Video Game Violence Judge Whyte of the District Court of Northern California granted a preliminary injunction preventing a California statute from going into effect on January 1, 2006. The Act required that violent video games be labelled, and prevented the sale or rental of these video games to minors. In his decision, Judge Whyte [...]
Video Games Upheld as Protected Speech In a decision hailed by free speech advocates, the Illinois District Court Judge Kennelly issued a strongly worded 53 page opinion in which he concluded that both the restrictions on violent and non obscene sexually explicit games violate the First Amendment and granted a permanent injunction against their implementation. In his opinion, Judge Kennelly [...]
Free Speech or Blasphemy? Censorship or Discretion? Click here for a statement from NCAC on the controversy surrounding the Mohammed cartoons, featured in Censorship News #101. We are presenting here a selection of the material published on the issue, and reports of incidents of censorship in connection with the cartoons. Resources An extraordinarily thorough summary of the controversy is [...]
Rick Piltz, a Senior Associate at the Climate Change Science Program who resigned in March, has charged that political officials have been editing scientific reports dealing with climate change. His charges have focused specifically on Philip Cooney, the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality; Mr. Cooney is a lawyer who previously worked as a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute.
Recently, Principal Cheryl Alligood of Wellington High School in Wellington, Florida, confiscated copies of the school newspaper, The Wave, over an article about sex. She claims she did "what was best for the student body." We think her decision taught students the wrong lesson. School papers provide a critical forum for expression and discussion for students. Unlike the classroom, students make [...]
Ohio is the latest state to encounter proposed legislation to adopt an "academic bill of rights" for colleges and universities. ...
by Ward Churchill When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm ...
Earlier this month, Hamilton College, in Clinton, NY, cancelled a talk by University of Colorado Boulder Professor Ward Churchill because of threats of violence...
by Ward Churchill In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite [...]
To the Editor: If Rachel Donadio ("Is There Censorship?" Book Review, 12/19/04) is correct that the "c-word" is occasionally overused, the main example this holiday season is the absurd claim that using generic phrases like "happy holidays" and "season's greetings" constitutes censorship of "Christmas" and "Christians." More importantly, however, Donadio's overly restrictive view of censorship misses the big picture. The reader is left unaware of the assault on teaching evolution, [...]
A political satire entitled Richie Bush by cartoonist Peter Kuper, of Mad Magazine and 'Spy vs. Spy' fame, is one of two stories from the Eastern European comic anthology Stripburger that has caused several books from a recent shipment to the port of Charleston to be seized by U.S. Customs.
Copyright legislation grows increasingly restrictive with remarkable regularity. Copyright was recently extended to 70 years beyond a creator's death for individuals and to 95 years since inception for corporations. As the argument goes, "fair use"—the provision within copyright law allowing commentary or satire about a protected work—adequately balances free speech requirements and the right of an author to profit from [...]
Steve Kurtz's wife Hope died of a heart attack May 11. Steve, an associate professor of art at University at Buffalo, called 911. The police who came saw some of the materials for an art exhibit on genetic modification and called the FBI. The FBI came in, cordoned off half the block, confiscated Hope's s body, Steve's computer, his notebooks, his art supplies and their cat.
S. 2056, a bill to increase the penalties for transmission of "obscene, indecent, and profane material" by TV and radio broadcasters to $275,000 for each violation (from 27,000) is currently on the Senate Legislative Calendar.
CBS rejected a Super Bowl advertisement from MoveOn.org, saying the ad violated its advocacy rules.
The Super Imposer Removed from Fairfield Center for Creative Arts Fairfield, CA Jim Kimberly's sculpture, "The Super Imposer," was removed from the Juried Art Show at the gallery of the Fairfield Center for Creative Arts in Fairfield, CA because it was considered politically controversial. The interactive sculpture, a two-sided panel with the American Flag on one side and Osama bin [...]
NEWSDAY June 25, 2003 Three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court compared the Internet to "a vast library including millions of readily available and indexed publications ... a vast platform from which to address and hear from a world-wide audience." Unfortunately, the library and the audience have just shrunk. On Monday, the court upheld the Children's Internet Protection Act [...]
A review of: Aaron Caplan's "Public School Discipline for Creating Uncensored Anonymous Internet Forums," Williamette Law Review, Winter 2003, v39, n1. Facilitating the anonymous speech of others has always been a hazardous endeavor. In the 18th century, publisher John Peter Zenger sat in prison for eight months for printing and disseminating some unsigned articles that attacked an unpopular governor [...]
While galleries and museums could choose to avoid controversy and exclude potentially controversial art, the Internet, with its wide accessibility ...
