NCAC has joined an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to strike down the Trump administration’s travel ban against citizens and nationals of six predominantly Muslim countries.
NCAC joined PEN America and nearly 30 other cultural, literary and artistic groups representing the full breadth of the artistic community in filing the amicus brief, which argues the ban violates religious freedom protections and interferes with the First Amendment right of Americans to engage with artists and writers who want to travel to the United States from the six affected countries.
The brief argues that freedom of speech includes the ability to facilitate the free international exchange of people and ideas. The travel ban, however, “prevents our citizens from in-person transmission of ideas, expression, and speech” and therefore violates constitutional protections of the right to receive information. It argues the face to face transmission of information is essential to the proper functioning of our democracy.
NCAC previously objected to the Trump administration’s travel ban in a statement signed by over 40 international cultural institutions and human rights organizations that warned the ban’s “broad and far-reaching impact on artists’ freedom of movement will seriously inhibit creative freedom and the free flow of ideas.”