FacebookXYouTubeInstagram

Arts & Culture Advocacy Program

NCAC and CAA denounce Arkansas Tech University’s handling of Controversial Exhibition

By |2023-02-23T21:15:18-05:00February 7th, 2023|Blog, News, Press Releases|

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and the College Art Association (CAA) expressed their deep concern with Arkansas Tech University’s handling of its on-campus exhibition, Artifacts, by artist Dominique Simmons. According to the artist's statement, Artifacts sought to acknowledge “the past, good and bad,” as it relates to the American South and included fraught imagery. However, the university’s museum [...]

Read More

Statement on Faculty Firing at Hamline University | UPDATED

By |2024-11-01T15:37:29-04:00January 10th, 2023|News|

UPDATE - July 24, 2024: The controversy over the historic artwork and non-renewal of the professor’s contract, resulted in a lawsuit and subsequent settlement between the art history professor and Hamline University. The terms of this settlement remain confidential. Additionally, the American Association of University Professors finds that the display of historical artwork was in fact consistent with scholarly [...]

Read More

National Organizations Condemn Cancellation of Student Production of Play ‘Indecent’ in Duval County, Florida

By |2023-01-10T14:15:07-05:00January 10th, 2023|News, Press Releases|

NEW YORK — The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), PEN America, and the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund, organizations dedicated to artistic, intellectual, and academic freedom, today expressed deep concern over the cancellation of the student production of the play, Indecent, by the administration at Douglas Anderson School of Performing Arts in Duval County, Florida. The groups urged school officials [...]

Read More

Following advocacy efforts by NCAC and DDA, Meta pledges to improve transparency around “shadowbanning”

By |2023-02-23T21:16:17-05:00December 9th, 2022|Blog, In The News, News, Press Releases|

New York - The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which represents 59 education, publishing, religious and arts organizations, and Don’t Delete Art (DDA), a collaborative project between NCAC and several other organizations and artists, welcome Meta’s recent announcement of Instagram policy updates that promise to improve transparency around downranking for the platform’s professional account users. The announcement follows several [...]

Read More

NCAC and DDA Join Other Organizations to Demand Internet Infrastructure Providers Stop Censoring User-Generated Content

By |2022-12-02T13:26:11-05:00December 2nd, 2022|News, Press Releases|

NEW YORK – Today, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which represents 59 education, publishing, religious and arts organizations and Don’t Delete Art (DDA), a project of NCAC and several other organizations and artists, joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation and over 50 other organizations and institutions in supporting Protect the Stack, a statement calling on internet infrastructure providers not [...]

Read More

Artistic Freedom and the Internet Infrastructure

By |2024-08-19T06:17:32-04:00December 1st, 2022|Blog, News|

Companies providing core internet infrastructures—including internet service providers, website host companies, payment processors, and more—rarely have substantial contact with their users, user-generated content, or user activities. And, even though they typically lack expertise, authority, resources, and policies to regulate user content with consistency, many online infrastructure companies do just that. The result has severely restricted free speech on the internet, [...]

Read More

Censorship at the Orange County Museum of Art

By |2022-11-09T18:10:15-05:00November 9th, 2022|Blog, News, Press Releases|

In the Fall of 2022, the much-anticipated reopening of the Orange County Museum of Art was marred by the censorship of a painting by renowned artist Ben Sakoguchi in the museum’s California Biennial 2022: Pacific Gold.  A few months prior to the opening, the artist was informed of concerns coming from the museum’s education department that some of the [...]

Read More

Joint Letter Calls On Texas Wesleyan University to Reschedule “Down in Mississippi”

By |2022-10-17T16:57:42-04:00October 17th, 2022|Blog, News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which represents 59 trusted education, publishing, and arts organizations, joins the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund and PEN America to encourage Texas Wesleyan University to support artistic free expression and reschedule Down In Mississippi, a play by Carlyle Brown that the university's theatre department recently canceled due to language concerns and complaints. History is [...]

Read More

NCAC Condemns San Francisco Public Library’s Cancellation of Art Exhibition

By |2022-10-05T10:28:59-04:00October 5th, 2022|News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has written to the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) regarding their decision in March to cancel the exhibition Wall + Response over objections to an idea expressed in one of the pieces. It is our understanding that when Wall + Response was approved by library officials, the poems and murals comprising the project [...]

Read More

NCAC responds to NY Town’s Move to Censor Civil Rights Mural

By |2022-10-05T10:28:05-04:00September 16th, 2022|News|

Photo Credit: Jerald Braddock The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has written to the Town Supervisor of the Town of Greenburgh, New York, regarding its recent call to remove the depiction of Minister Louis Farrakhan, and potentially other controversial figures, from a new town-commissioned mural overseen by the artist known as Kindo Art. The mural was initially commissioned to [...]

Read More

Artists, Curators and Advocates Condemn Florida Mayor’s Political Censorship of Coral Gables Public Art Show

By |2021-09-28T10:46:49-04:00September 22nd, 2021|News|

In July 2021, echoing the rhetoric of the 1950s McCarthy era and in flagrant disregard of fundamental constitutional principles, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago urged the city’s commissioners to condition city funding for Illuminate Coral Gables, a public art show, on the exclusion of two of the participating artists because of their purported political views. As artists, arts professionals and free speech organizations we are deeply troubled by demands to censor a public art show so as to penalize political viewpoints.

Read More

NCAC Objects to Removal of Artwork by Public Officials in California

By |2021-08-09T12:31:17-04:00July 26th, 2021|News|

The National Coalition Against Censorship is concerned that the City of Encinitas’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts has removed several works from an exhibition because of apparent discomfort with some of the content of those works.  The censored artist, Elena Karavodin, was selected by the city to produce a number of works for an exhibition in one of [...]

Read More

Don’t Delete Art Hosts Workshop for Artists on How to Avoid Instagram Censorship

By |2024-08-02T16:53:30-04:00June 11th, 2021|News|

On June 2, 2021, artists Dina Brodsky, Savannah Spirit, and Spencer Tunick hosted a conversation to share advice on how to tag, contextualize, or modify artwork on Instagram so as to improve its chances of not being removed. The webinar is part of Don't Delete Art, a gallery, resource center and campaign advocating for artistic freedom on social media. [...]

Read More

NCAC Opposes Removal of Mural Depicting Slavery

By |2020-07-27T11:47:28-04:00June 24th, 2020|News|

NCAC is asking the University of Kentucky (UK) to cancel recently announced plans to remove a 1930’s-era mural depicting aspects of Kentucky history, including slavery. Some students have demanded its removal because they consider it demeaning to people of color on campus. In 2018, the university commissioned an installation by Karyn Olivier, a noted Black artist, that was painted above [...]

Read More

NCAC’s Arts Advocacy Program Shines at the Creative Time Summit

By |2024-10-28T13:57:08-04:00December 19th, 2019|Blog|

  In November 2019, for Creative Time Summit X: Speaking Truth, our Arts Advocacy Program (AAP) organized the roundtable session Fear and Controversy: Censorship in the Arts at the Cooper Union with artists Christina Freeman (UltraViolet Archive), Roopa Vasudevan (Center for Media at Risk, University of Pennsylvania) and Joy Garnett (NCAC's Arts Advocacy Program). The number of attendees (approx. 25 [...]

Read More

Mayor Vetoes Bill Clarifying Washington DC Arts Commission’s Independence

By |2024-08-02T13:01:58-04:00October 11th, 2019|News, Updates|

UPDATE: 10/24/19: On October 22, the DC Council voted unanimously to override Mayor Muriel Bowser's veto of an emergency bill that would have clarified the DCCAH’s independence. “The underlying legislation cemented DCCAH's separation from the executive's office after a tumultuous summer during which the mayor tried and failed to grab control of the District's public arts.” (see original post below) [...]

Read More

Art Auction 2019

By |2024-09-09T12:26:18-04:00October 8th, 2019|Events|

The National Coalition Against Censorship is grateful to the incredible artists who have generously donated to this year's NCAC Art Auction. The works will be displayed on Monday, November 11th at Let Me Speak: A Celebration of Free Speech and Its Defenders, NCAC's annual benefit in New York City. The auction is hosted online by Paddle8. The auction is [...]

Read More

San Francisco Mural Controversy: Perspectives and Updates

By |2024-10-25T12:26:02-04:00August 26th, 2019|News|

UPDATE October 4, 2019: The George Washington High School Alumni Association filed a lawsuit in the public interest against the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education, challenging the School Board’s commitment to remove from public view Victor Arnautoff’s 1936 New Deal mural with panels without conducting an environmental review, which is required by California law.  UPDATE August 13, [...]

Read More
Go to Top