California School Faces Down Complaint Over ‘The Family Book’
A parent in Etiwanda, California is complaining that a celebrated children's book about tolerance and diversity is not "appropriate" for a kindergarten classroom.
Removal First, Review Second? NCAC Questions Handling of Challenge to “Black Swan Green”
Today, NCAC was joined by the American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression (ABFFE), the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (ALA), and PEN America in a letter sent to the Kings Canyon Unified School District in Reedley, CA. In the letter, the signatories expressed [...]
Riverside Schools Want Kids to Think They’re Immortal
Author John Green’s work has once again come under the censorship chopping block, this time in Riverside, California. His award-winning love story, The Fault in our Stars, was taken out of middle school libraries because the novel’s subject matter involves two terminally-ill teens who use crude language and have sex. “I just didn't think it was appropriate for an 11-, [...]
On college campuses, zoning out free speech
How freedom of speech is under assault on many American college and university campuses.
NCAC and FAP Send Letter To Marin Civic Center re: Nudes Censorship
As blogged earlier this week, admins at the Marin Civic Center censored a painting of a nude female from an annual art show because an employee claimed it constituted sexual harassment. This morning, NCAC and the First Amendment Project sent Marin County a letter to show them the error of their ways. In it, we sought to explain [...]
Nudes In The News! Marin County Civic Center Censors Artist
The Marin County Civic Center has chosen to eliminate a nude painting by San Rafael artist Sylvia Cossich Goodman from a public exhibition. The full-frontal nude was accepted through what we can assume was a standard submission process, and was up in public for a week. So why take it down now? Because an employee complained it created "a hostile [...]
Violent Video Games in the Supreme Court
Like all the other forms of expression that were feared initially – including the printing press – video games will certainly become part of mainstream culture, and the anxiety over their effects on young people will appear foolish in retrospect.
Book censorship round-up for this week
Suzanne Collins's young adult novel The Hunger Games is challenged in New Hampshire by a parent whose 11-year old said the book gave her nightmares. The parent has yet to file a formal complaint or read the book. Regardless, the Superintendent is gathering a committee to review the book while it remains in the classroom. A Texas school district in [...]
Temecula City Managers Remove Nude Artwork from Visual Expression 2010 Show
In January, artwork by Jeff Hebron, which had been selected for inclusion in a Temecula, CA juried art exhibit (Visual Expressions 2010), was removed upon the request of the City Management. The problem: the painting depicted a nude figure. The gallery where the piece was to be shown is a city-owned space, which is why there are serious [...]
Not even dictionaries are safe for children?
School officials at Menifee Union School District temporarily removed copies of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition for containing graphic terms like “oral sex" after a parent complained. (But as it turns out, the dictionary did not even contain this term...) Nonetheless, NCAC executive director Joan Bertin explains, Removing a book should be based solely on its educational value, not on [...]
School’s Punishment Runs Afoul of First Amendment Freedoms Online: J.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified School District
Schools that dish out draconian punishments to students who are mean to each other online (aka cyberbullying) risk running afoul of the First Amendment. Beverly Vista School, a K-8 school in the Beverly Hills Unified School District, learned this lesson via a November 2009 court ruling, where the federal district court for the Central District of California found that administrators [...]
There’s no such thing as a “safe library”
The phrase “safe libraries” should always raise a red flag. Proponents for “safer libraries” argue that some information is inherently dangerous, but the First Amendment is designed to ward off the suppression of information. In the case of internet filters intended to block sexually explicit material, librarians and community members have to ask the questions, “Safe for whom?” and “Safe [...]