Kyle Lukoff’s Call Me Max and Jazz Jennings’s I Am Jazz, which both feature transgender main characters, were removed from school libraries in Palm Beach County, Florida, without review. NCAC has written to the district urging them to immediately return the books to library shelves. The removal was purportedly in compliance with Florida House Bill 1557 which was recently signed [...]
NCAC has written to officials at Fredericksburg Independent School District in Texas after numerous books were removed from district libraries without a formal review based on arguments that they are “pervasively vulgar.” The books in question, which include, among others, Jesse Andrews’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, address issues that [...]
When Jerry Craft's New Kid was banned from school libraries in Katy, Texas earlier this year for "pervasively vulgar" content, I defended his book and advocated against this inexplicable censorship. After that, school board meetings in Texas only intensified. After months of persistent demands for intellectual freedom being outnumbered by conservatives and drowned out by more book bans, we finally [...]
Jason Reynolds to headline Banned Books Week 2021, which has the theme, “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.” Two of Reynolds' books for young people made the Top 10 banned and challenged books of 2020 for their handling of issues around racism and racial justice.
Seven states are considering legislation to ban the teaching of "divisive concepts," which encompasses certain teaching about social justice and structural inequality.
The Free Expression Educators Handbook contains practical tools and advice for managing book challenges and censorship controversies in schools and school libraries. The handbook, created by NCAC in collaboration with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), is intended for teachers, librarians, and school administrators. It offers guidance for educators developing inclusive and viewpoint-neutral instructional material policies, including sample [...]
A California school district removed the novel Ghost Boys, which tells the story of a Black boy shot by police, from its curriculum.
When a school board in Alaska voted in April to remove five classic books from a high school reading list, it had no idea that it would outrage many in the community as well as several alumni of the school who are now rock stars. Although the Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) Borough School Board reversed its decision a month later, the controversy [...]
President Donald Trump is once again attempting to interfere with the publication of a book that he believes is critical of him. On June 16, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in an effort to block the June 23 release of The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, a book by John R. Bolton, Trump’s former national [...]
Following widespread protest by local citizens and national groups, including National Coalition Against Censorship, an Alaska school board has voted 6 to 1 to rescind its decision to remove five classic works of fiction from the reading list for 11th grade English classes. Students will once again be able to read: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya [...]
Banned Books Week 2020 declares Censorship is a Dead End: Find Your Freedom to Read. The annual celebration of banned books will be held from September 23-October 3, 2020.
The American Library Association released its annual list of the top 10 most challenged books of the past year. 80% of titles tell LGBTQ stories.
Democracy was missing in action in Colton, California, when the Board of the Colton Unified School District voted to remove Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye from the District’s reading list.
Wyoming school district considering a book challenge filed by a parent who argued against books about LGBTQ characters being available to students.
This list of our best resources on censorship and the First Amendment in schools will help you get ready for the school year.
Joan Bertin (former executive director, NCAC), Toni Morrison, Fran Lebowitz “The thought that leads me to contemplate with dread the erasure of other voices, of unwritten novels, poems whispered or swallowed for fear of being overheard by the wrong people, outlawed languages flourishing underground, essayists’ questions challenging authority never being posed, unstaged plays, canceled films—that thought is a nightmare. As [...]
A group of pastors in Rumford, Maine are attempting to have LGBTQ books banned from the Rumford Public Library's display of banned books.
Often, the most frequently challenged books tell the stories that most need to be heard. The 10 most challenged books of 2017, according to the American Library Association, were no different.
documenta 14, an art festival occurring every 5 years, puts the issue of book censorship front and center this year.
NCAC is in the process of writing to the elementary school underlining that students have a First Amendment right to receive and possess literature, provided the books in question do not cause disruption to school activities.
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and 6 other organizations committed to defending the right to read are urging a North Carolina school district to reinstate a children’s book in a 1st grade anti-bullying lesson plan after it was removed following pressure from local Republican lawmakers concerned about its gender-nonconforming themes.
The parents claim that the school taught solely Islamic religious practices in a World Culture and Geography curriculum, ignoring education in other world religions.
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, and Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian were flagged for "explicit, graphic" content.
A formal complaint was lodged by a local parent who was offended by the presence of profanity in the book, which includes passages that reference sexual assault.
Terms such as "inappropriate" are vague and over-inclusive, potentially leading to the exclusion of works of undeniable pedagogical value.
In a follow up letter, NCAC stresses the district that banned TKAM/ Huck Finn needs an innocent-until-proven-guilty approach to book challenges.
In his statement, the author of 'Bad Little Children’s Books' has asked ABRAMS not to print another edition of the book, because it has been so widely misunderstood and misconstrued.
With Banned Books Week on the horizon, PEN's report discusses NCAC's 'multipronged' approach to book challenges and the specific challenges censorship poses to diverse books.
Renae Roscart, 15, considers parents who argued for the reading list removal to be "pretending that sexual assault and alcoholism isn’t something that youths encounter."
The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom has sent a letter to the superintendent of the Alamogordo, N. M., Public Schools, asking that the district rescind its removal of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere from Alamogordo High School classrooms and the library. The ban, which was reported last week, came after a parent complained about content on one page […]
Khury Petersen-Smith of SocialistWorker.org caught up with Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi to talk about the shady restrictions being placed on the teaching of her book in Chicago. Again, Satrapi showed her insight and savvy and aptly expressed the utter confusion and dismay we are all feeling: What is so horrible in my book that you need guidance? Am I inviting people to [...]
Photo by Chris Walker/ Chicago Tribune Teachers and students gathered outside Lane Tech College Prep in the freezing rain Friday for a spirited protest. "Honk if you love free speech," and "Closing Schools. Banning Books. What's next?" students' signs read. The protest was organized in response to the revelation that the Chicago Public School Board had evidently mandated [...]
Despite receiving accolades ranging from the National Book Award to the Pulitzer, these five notorious novels have been banned by schools across the United States. Their Eyes Were Watching God —Zora Neal Hurston, 1937 "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is a bildungsroman about a young Black woman growing up in the Deep South. In 1997 parents in Brentsville, Virgina attempted to [...]
Combining a number of genres, Daniel Pritchard sends a unified message: ideas should be free to be shared and absorbed. Daniel is one of our 2012 Youth Free Expression Project Film Contest semifinalists. Like what you see? "Like" this video on YouTube and it could become our 2012 People's Choice Award Winner!
April Jackson dramatizes a story about her sister, who was told by their mother she wasn't allowed to read Harry Potter because it contained witchcraft. April's short film is one of our 2012 Youth Free Expression Project Film Contest semifinalists. Like what you see? "Like" this video on YouTube and it could become our 2012 People's Choice Award Winner!
Sarah Grabman and Evan Horowitz submitted their whimsical reflection on how the censoring impulse can even seep into your own head and self-perfection. This film is one of our 2012 Youth Free Expression Project Film Contest semifinalists. Like what you see? "Like" this video on YouTube and it could become our 2012 People's Choice Award Winner!
Kids these days! Daniel Boyle and Grace vanKan tell a story of enlightenment for our 2012 Youth Free Expression Project Film Contest. Like what you see? "Like" this video on YouTube and it could become our 2012 People's Choice Award Winner!
Rebecca Onstott is one of our 2012 Youth Free Expression Project Film Contest semifinalists. Like what you see? "Like" this video on YouTube and it could become our 2012 People's Choice Award Winner!
Teen Free Speech Fighters! There's still time to enter the Youth Free Expression Project's annual film contest and potentially win $1,000 cash prize and a $5,000 scholarship to the New York Film Academy. We've extended the deadline to November 25, so get out your cameras and tell us a creative story about a time where an adult or other individual [...]
“If you have freedom of speech, you have freedom of speech,” publishing legend Barney Rosset was quoted as saying. Rosset was responsible for the publication of many celebrated works of American literature, especially those that pushed the envelope in terms of sexual content. A staunch defender of the freedom to read, Rosset risked his reputation, business, and life on his [...]
