ARTINFO reports: After outraging the art world, several of its funders, and a giant chunk of its constituency with its fatal decision to remove David Wojnarowicz’s “Fire in My Belly” from the National Portrait Gallery’s “Hide/Seek” show, the Smithsonian has chosen to respond to its critics in a dramatic, and rather odd, fashion: instead of returning the work to the [...]
Overruling a decision by the schools' superintendent, the Waterbury, Conn Board of Education allowed a high-school production of August Wilson's play, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, to go on. Superintendent David L. Snead had opposed the production, saying that the school and educators should not be staging a play that might encourage use of the word "nigger." The play will [...]
Censorship continues full front attacks on all the arts. Two weeks into 2011, we've already seen censorship of David Wojnarowicz at the National Portrait Gallery; a new edition of Mark Twain's Huckelberry Finn hit the bookstores, without the N-word; the arrest of Belarus theater director Nikolai Khalezin of Belarus Free Theatre and now the Waterbury Connecticut school district is attempting [...]
This is from an attendant at the protest organized by Transformer on Thursday, Dec. 2nd: The protest's silence was very effective. The rows standing mute along the entire width of north steps of the Portrait Gallery for about 25 minutes until the museum closed at 7:00 was eloquent and impactful in a way beyond the quantity of supporters or passion [...]
A photograph of a male nude by Savannah College of Art & Design student Nicole Craine was among the several artworks taken down before an Open Studio Exhibition at the school in October. Reportedly, the students were given no explanation as to why their work was taken down. College administrators later admitted that the content would be “unacceptable” for a [...]
Last week, the Plano Independent School District in Texas decided to pull a humanities textbook that is used by freshmen and sophomores in the district's gifted and talented program. The book in question, Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities: Alternative Volume, is a survey of various pieces of artwork throughout history. Apparently, a couple was concerned that their [...]
China has been dominating censorship headlines recently, but, while we’ve been focused on the Great Firewall of China, a Great Firewall Reef has been growing in the democratic West. Australia has one of the harshest censorship regimes among the world’s democracies. Films like Ken Park (Larry Clark) and Salo (Pier Paolo Pasolini) have been Refused Classification and are not allowed to [...]
In August, 2007, Debbie Almontaser was the interim principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, an Arabic language public high school she had worked with the New York City Department of Education for two years to establish. Though the school was secular (a point Almontaser sought to emphasize by naming the school for the famous Christian Lebanese poet), [...]
But not in La Grande Oregon, where on Wednesday night, school board members voted to uphold Superintendent Larry Glaze’s decision to censor a student production of Steve Martin’s “Picasso at the Lapin Agile”, ignoring spirited and articulate appeals from the High School principal and drama teacher. It was yet another disturbing case of school officials catering to the more censorious [...]
The new president is giving every mildly liberal person reason to hope their pet cause might be advaced in the next four years. So what about my pet cause: creative freedom? Things appear optimistic. After all Barack Obama enters office with the first-ever presidential arts platform drafted during the campaign. Among other things the platform promises increased funds for the [...]
Now Twittering: AJGaza The New York Times recently printed an article by Noel Cohen about the limited access Americans have to Al Jazeera’s coverage of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. This, as Cohen notes, is in part because the station is carried only by cable providers in Burlington, Vt.; Toledo, Ohio; and Washington, D.C. Why is it so important that Americans [...]
The latest scandal around Facebook's ban on images of nursing mothers, which show a glimpse of the areola or nipple, only presents us with the latest case of nipplephobia - an extreme panic reaction at the view of the female nipple (to my knowledge the male nipple fails to exert such power). Facebook's action was a misguided enforcement of its [...]
Happy New Year, everyone.
A new article in Color Lines revitalizes the discussion around the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, NY. The school, which teaches classes in both Arabic and English, was conceived of in 2005 as a multicultural learning environment. “Since 9/11, Arabs have been targeted in New York,” said one Arab parent who did not want to be named for fear [...]
[polldaddy poll=1188091] Sherman Alexie book pulled Student sues for Facebook suspension RENT cancelled by director Bumper sticker suspension upheld Censored Girl, Interrupted replaced
Following Barney Rosset's National Book Award in November (and NCAC's honoring Rosset as a Free Speech Defender), Newsweek has published a long piece on Rosset, his work and his role in bringing new literature and thought to the American conversation. An excerpt: Before Rosset challenged federal and state obscenity laws, censorship (and self-censorship) was an accepted feature of publishing. His [...]
2009 is approaching, and as we plan our next year, we want to know: what censorship issue is nearest and dearest to you? Your answers can help shape this blog and the kind of projects NCAC pursues. Feel free to write in answers. And send it along to friends and frenemies. [polldaddy poll="1158458"]
A friend of NCAC reading this blog at work saw the following: An 11th grade student was recently told to remove her bumper sticker from her car parked in the Wala Wala High School (WA) parking lot. The content of the sticker: "I **censored**ed Your Boyfriend." Content filtering at the office censored the anti-censorship blog. Brilliant.
We've addressed the study that links sex on TV to teen pregnancy, and came on the side of education rather than fear about content on TV. Not everyone agrees: In reference to the article, “Study suggests TV shows may spur teen pregnancies,” is censorship still in existence as it was many years ago? If not, perhaps it’s time to go [...]
Editorial from the Detroit Free Press: Television broadcasts shouldn't be filled with curse words uttered without regard to purpose, time of day or relevance. But it's equally true that the Federal Communications Commission, which has adopted increasingly aggressive but vaguely defined standards for punishing broadcasters who air curse words, shouldn't have such a free hand in suppressing speech. [...] Assuring [...]
CommLaw Blog is covering FCC v Fox Television in the Supreme Court. But as Marjorie Heins points out at the Free Expression Policy Project, it looks like the case will turn on what should be censored for "indecency" rather than whether or not the FCC's censorship poses a threat to the First Amendment. She writes: Anyone hoping to hear outrage [...]
We had our Annual Free Speech benefit last week and we have pictures to prove it. It was held at the incredible Rubin Museum of Art. Honorees were Ruth Gruber, Caroline Hirsch, Anthony Lewis, Barney Rosset, and finally Dan Rather. The winning films from the youth film contest "My Vote For Free Speech" premiered and the first place winners won [...]