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Press Release: The National Coalition Against Censorship and 18 Other Groups Call For Accountability in New York’s Educational Policy-Making System Citing Repeated “Sanitization” Of Literature in Mandatory English Language Arts Regents Exam

By |2016-02-05T13:14:57-05:00January 8th, 2003|Press Releases|

NEW YORK—In a letter dated January 6, 2003 the National Coalition Against Censorship, civil liberties organizations, and associations representing booksellers, publishers, librarians, educators, writers, and parents called for public hearings to address the lack of accountability in New York's educational policy-making system and its effects on the quality of education. The request, addressed to Richard Mills, Commissioner of the NY [...]

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Press Release: Groups Urge Bush Administration to Abide by Established Combat-Coverage Guidelines

By |2016-02-05T13:16:44-05:00December 19th, 2002|Press Releases|

  A coalition of 16 journalism groups today urged the Bush administration to abide by guidelines the Pentagon and media groups established after the 1991 Persian Gulf War if an invasion of Iraq occurs. The plea came as the coalition issued an updated Statement of Principles first released a year ago. Journalists remember how their hands were tied a decade [...]

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Now They Check the Books You Read

By |2016-02-05T13:06:11-05:00September 16th, 2002|Blog|

Newsday September 16, 2002   In the post 9/11 world, there is undoubtedly a government official whose job is to invent innocuous-sounding, if not reassuring, acronyms for government initiatives against terrorism. Operation TIPS is a case in point. The Terrorism Information and Prevention System will recruit millions of utility, transportation and other workers to report on "potentially unusual or suspicious [...]

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Catholic League Objects to Traditional Figurines in Art Installation

By |2019-03-15T17:47:27-04:00January 7th, 2002|Blog|

Always on the alert for "offensive" art work, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has once more found a target: the work of Spanish artist Antoni Miralda exhibited at Copia, Napa Valley's new food, wine and arts museum. The exhibition, "Active Ingredients," which runs through April 22, features specially commissioned food-related works by seven contemporary artists. Miralda, a [...]

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Remarks Delivered to NYLA

By |2016-02-05T12:39:22-05:00October 24th, 2001|Blog|

THE KNOWLEDGE PROJECT While censorship in the fields of art and politics has traditionally garnered the preponderance of public attention, the last few years has brought increased scrutiny of First Amendment concerns in the area of scientific research. A scientist's right to communicate and disseminate his or her research findings, however, is a form of speech that is no less [...]

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Not in Front of the Children: A Reply to the Critics

By |2017-07-05T16:52:30-04:00October 1st, 2001|Blog|

A number of critics have taxed Not in Front of the Children with being insufficiently sensitive to the concerns of parents about sexual explicitness and graphic violence in popular culture. It's true that the book doesn't decry all the gross and offensive entertainment that is available—there is already a vast literature on that subject. My purpose instead was to stimulate [...]

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Male Nude Proves Too Realistic for California Art League

By |2019-03-07T22:43:16-05:00September 27th, 2001|Blog|

The Elsie May Goodwin Art Center, run by the Stockton Art League, rejected a sculpture by one of its members—Vincent Mazo—because the piece was too anatomically explicit. The gallery has no policy excluding nudes, but, according to Aleen Gall, the gallery manager, the nudes normally exhibited are female and show no genitals. Interesting, I thought genitals were a part of [...]

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Bryn Athyn, PA – Where Artists Censor Art

By |2024-08-02T16:39:01-04:00September 27th, 2001|Blog|

Orchard Artworks, a Bryn Athyn, PA art gallery, removed six works by Linda Griffith from an exhibit that opened September 21, 2001. The work was considered "too political" for the gallery. The exhibit, "Uncertain Future: Earth Found, Used and Abused," focused on environment issues. Griffith's photographs committed the sin of bringing issues of environment abuse too close to home. The [...]

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Testimony of Artemis Records CEO Before Senate Commerce Committee

By |2020-01-02T15:07:04-05:00September 13th, 2000|Blog|

Chairman McCain, Senator Hollings, and Members of the Committee. I am pleased to have the opportunity to testify before you today. I am the CEO and co-owner of Artemis Records a year old independently owned record company. Our current roster includes Rickie Lee Jones, Steve Earle, Warren Zevon, and the Baha Men. During the nineteen-nineties I was the President of [...]

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Helmsmanship in the Arts

By |2019-02-25T12:33:34-05:00August 7th, 2000|Blog|

    The Nation August 7-14, 2000 by Marjorie Heins Command Performance: An Actress in the Theater of Politics. By Jane Alexander. Public Affairs. 335 pp. $25. When Jane Alexander took charge of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1993, hopes were high among the cultural elite that the much-loved actress's glamour, status and theatrical skills would disarm the [...]

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MIT Professor Visited by Pentagon Officials after Criticizing Missile Testing Program

By |2024-10-30T11:05:56-04:00July 12th, 2000|Blog|

UPDATE: MIT was denied the security clearance necessary to complete a full review of the situation to determine if data was in fact manipulated. Theodore Postol, Professor of Science and Technology and National Security at MIT, wrote a letter describing how the Missile Defense Agency had doctored the results of the National Missile Defense Test. Postol was then visited by Pentagon [...]

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Coming Soon to Your Library – Culture Wars – The Sequel

By |2017-06-08T12:52:10-04:00February 3rd, 2000|Blog|

by Joan E. Bertin In Holland, Michigan, a small town near Grand Rapids, there’s a pitched battle over Internet censorship in the library. It’s only one salvo in what promises to be another long, drawn-out culture war. On February 22, voters in Holland will be asked to decide whether the city should withdraw funding from the district library if the [...]

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Good News: Library Filters Rejected

By |2024-09-30T18:46:37-04:00February 1st, 2000|Blog|

Holland, Michigan On February 22 the community defeated, 55 to 44, a proposal to require filters on all Herrick District Library computers. For an article in The Holland Sentinel, click here. Background (Posted January 2000): On February 22, 2000, Holland, Michigan, will vote on a proposal to force the city to withdraw funding from the Herrick District Library unless the [...]

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Teacher Threatened with Dismissal for Promoting Banned Books

By |2016-02-01T10:26:55-05:00January 1st, 2000|Blog|

In the second week of January, Spotswood High School English teacher Jeff Newton, four high school students and five groups representing libraries, booksellers and authors filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, alleging that their First Amendment rights were violated when the school's principal ordered the removal of a list of banned books posted on Newton's classroom door. Background: Spotswood [...]

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Arts and Free Speech Groups Support the Manhattan Theatre Club

By |2016-02-05T12:45:08-05:00October 13th, 1998|Press Releases|

  "I know first-hand the devastating effects of censorship, so I wholeheartedly support Terrence McNally's right to speak without being subjected to threats and intimidation. Anyone who thinks his views are offensive has the right to say so - but they don't have the right to silence his voice." - Judy Blume, best-selling author "Political and economic censorship have the [...]

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NCAC Supports Foodspeak Coalition

By |2017-06-08T12:18:45-04:00May 1st, 1998|Blog|

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) is an alliance of 48 national, non-commercial organizations, including religious, educational, professional, artistic, labor, and civil liberties groups. United by a conviction that freedom of thought, inquiry and expression must be defended, they work to educate their members and the public about the dangers of censorship and how to oppose it. NCAC opposes food [...]

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Internet Online Summit Must Respect 1st Amend Law and Values

By |2017-06-08T12:40:10-04:00December 1st, 1997|Blog|

The National Coalition Against Censorship has joined the Internet Free Expression Alliance to insure that the Internet Online Summit, which is dominated by an effort to restrict children's access to certain kinds of materials on the Internet, does not promote policies and practices that violate the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression. NCAC urges participants in the [...]

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Pornography Law Goes too Far

By |2017-06-08T11:31:59-04:00October 17th, 1997|Blog|

LOS ANGELES TIMES Friday, October 17, 1997 The first round of papers has been filed in a federal appeals court in San Francisco challenging the constitutionality of the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996. At the same time, the new movie version of Vladimir Nabokov's book Lolita, starring Jeremy Irons, is opening all over Europe, even though it is not [...]

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Sex-Related Censorship on the Rise

By |2017-06-08T11:40:47-04:00September 1st, 1997|Blog|

ProChoice IDEA - Summer/Fall 1997 Sex and the Censors Censorship of anything related to sex is on the rise. Here are some recent examples:  The police in Oklahoma City seized copies of the Academy-Award winning film, The Tin Drum, after a local group complained about it and a judge called it "obscene." The Wall Street Journal reported that the new [...]

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Tin Drum Censors Have Tunnel Vision

By |2016-02-01T10:33:21-05:00August 5th, 1997|Blog|

  NEWSDAY Tuesday, August 5, 1997   What can explain the fact that The Tin Drum could win an Academy Award for best foreign film and Best Picture at the Cannes Film Festival in 1979, and be faced with the claim that it is "obscene" and "child pornography" in 1997? Were we all blind to obscenity and child pornography then? [...]

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Teacher Dismissed For Showing Film About Fascism Reinstated by Court Ruling

By |2017-01-26T15:47:17-05:00May 1st, 1997|Blog|

The Colorado Court of Appeals ordered the Jefferson County School Board to reinstate the high school teacher they had fired for teaching Bertolucci's film, "1900." Alfred Wilder, an English teacher for 25 years, was dismissed for not obtaining prior approval to show the film about fascism, considered an epic, in his logic and debate class, and for other alleged infractions.

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New Hampshire Teacher Fired for Teaching “Unsuitable” Books Reinstated by School Board

By |2017-06-08T11:20:00-04:00September 1st, 1996|Blog|

Penny Culliton, a New Hampshire teacher who fought back against attempts to smear and ultimately fire her, has been reinstated by the Mascenic School Board following a decision of the state's Public Employee Labor Relations Board. The Labor Board upheld an arbitrator's previous award that had turned Culliton's dismissal into a one-year suspension.

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Vonnegut on Censorship

By |2024-10-25T12:24:54-04:00January 16th, 1986|Blog|

Click here to download a PDF of Vonnegut's remarks on censorship and literature from a January 16, 1986 briefing on the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, organized by NCAC.

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