The National Coalition Against Censorship has encouraged the school board of Martin County School District to amend their book challenge policy following the removal of nearly 100 books from school libraries. NCAC shared our Material Review and Policy Guidelines and Examples, a resource to help school officials address the problem of book challenges. Read NCAC's [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship has sent a letter to the Greenville County Library System in Greenville, South Carolina, expressing our concerns with a proposed change to their library collection policy which would limit access to children's and young adult books which affirms "that a person's gender is other than that person's biological sex." That [...]
CHICAGO — The American Library Association (ALA), founder of Unite Against Book Bans, released new data documenting* 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. The unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022 nearly doubles [...]
The NCAC has joined PEN America and more than a dozen other civil liberties, digital rights, and anti-censorship organizations in a joint letter to oppose proposed federal legislation and a wholesale ban on the social media platform TikTok. The joint letter acknowledges the platform's national security and user privacy concerns. It also encourages lawmakers to explore viable solutions to prevent jeopardizing [...]
NEW YORK - As organizations dedicated to the freedom of thought, inquiry, and speech, we are deeply alarmed by Florida public officials’ attempts to suppress LGBTQ expression. Legislative and administrative acts of intimidation aimed at deterring access to LGBTQ culture are a serious attack on First Amendment principles. Florida’s hostility to LGBTQ communities stands out amid an onslaught of [...]
NEW YORK - The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) announced today that Executive Director Christopher M. Finan will retire this summer after 40 years of defending free expression and First Amendment rights. Before joining NCAC in 2017, Finan was president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and executive director of Media Coalition, a trade association that [...]
New York – The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) is now accepting applications for Student Advocates for Speech (SAS), a project for high school students, for the 2023 - 2024 school year. NCAC assists SAS student leaders in creating school clubs where they can learn about the importance of free speech and advocate for their rights and the rights [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship has written to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in Charlotte, North Carolina, to object to the district's removal of the books Let’s Talk About It and Sex Plus: Learning, Loving and Enjoying Your Body from school libraries without submitting them to a review as required by district policy. We urge the district to return the books to [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship has written a letter to the School Board of Northwest Allen County Schools in Indiana to protest the cancellation of the high school's production of Marian: The True Tale of Robin Hood. According to news reports, the play was canceled after parental complaints due to concerns of harassment or heckling if the play continued. [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship has issued the following statement of support for Texas HB 1945 The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) is an alliance of more than 50 national non-profit literary, artistic, religious, educational, professional, labor, and civil liberties groups that are united in their commitment to freedom of expression. NCAC is writing in support of Texas House [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship has written a letter to St. Johns County School District in St. Augustine, Florida. Under their current policy, books are being removed during the review process, a practice we have long opposed. We encourage the District to adopt better policies for addressing book challenges in their schools. Read our full letter below, or click [...]
The AAUP, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) issued the following statement condemning the introduction of Florida HB 999. With the introduction of HB 999, the Florida legislature—at Governor DeSantis’s urging—has doubled down on its attacks on academic freedom with a bill that would effectively silence faculty and students across the ideological [...]
NCAC has released a statement in support of the Student Journalist Free Speech Act and applauding New York student activists' efforts to support student free press rights. The act provides that, "a student journalist shall have the right to exercise free speech and of the press in school-sponsored media," and adds necessary protections for educators who advise and support [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has shared a letter with the School Board of Broward County Public Schools in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, concerning a potential violation of district policy and the improper temporary removal of Erika Moen's and Matthew Nolan's book Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human from library shelves. After [...]
NEW YORK - On February 17, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) delivered a letter to the Forest Hills Public School Board in Grand Rapids, Michigan, identifying 10 books that were secretly removed by Superintendent Dan Behm in violation of the school district’s reconsideration policy. In a previous letter, NCAC had alerted the board to the existence of a [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship objects to Kutztown Area School District's Superintendent’s unilateral decision to cancel the One-Book Project following complaints about the climate change themes of the selected book. We urge the district to reinstate the project and adjudicate any challenges pursuant to the district's policy. Read NCAC's full letter to the Kutztown Area School District here: Click here [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has contacted the Florida Department of Corrections to express its concern regarding reports that The Militant was removed from several prisons due to the ideas expressed in the newspaper. The confiscation of First Amendment-protected material affects inmates' constitutional rights. Prisoners have the right to read and must be allowed unfettered access to various informational [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship has written to Madison County School Board in Madison, Virginia, to express our concern with recent district policy changes requiring books that include "explicit sexual content" to be removed even if they have substantial educational value for students. It's our understanding that this policy has already led to the removal of over 20 books [...]
NEW YORK, February 8, 2023 - The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) today demanded that officials in a western Michigan school district investigate whether their superintendent secretly ordered the removal of books, violating a policy that requires a formal review before a book is banned. They also pointed officials to an audio recording in which a man who has [...]
Updated 2/14/23 – According to the Geauga County Maple Leaf, the Cardinal School District Board of Education has reversed their decision to cancel the spring production. The play will go on as previously scheduled with minor revisions. On 2/8/23 – The National Coalition Against Censorship has written a letter to express our deep concerns over the cancellation of the high school [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has written to McKinney Independent School District in McKinney, Texas, concerning a recent change to district policy. The District has amended Board Policy EFB Local to exclude books from school libraries that contain material that appeals to "the prurient interest of a minor in sex, nudity, or excretion" or describes sexual activity in [...]
NEW YORK - Student journalists play an essential role in their schools by covering complex and, at times, controversial issues that aim to broaden interest in contemporary issues among their peers and community members. The National Coalition Against Censorship's (NCAC) Student Advocates for Speech (SAS) project and the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) will host Fighting for Press Freedom: [...]
NEW YORK, January 30, 2023 - The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), an alliance of 59 national literary, artistic, religious, educational, professional, labor, and civil liberties groups, is alarmed by the introduction of two bills in the North Dakota legislature that would make it a crime for booksellers to display a wide range of books and ban libraries from [...]
NEW YORK – The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) today released a new resource that provides practical advice for authors whose books are being challenged and banned in K – 12 schools and libraries. Prepared in collaboration with writers who have faced censorship, it is available on the NCAC website. Book challenges can be exasperating, demoralizing, and deeply painful for [...]
NCAC contacts Hernando School District in Brooksville, Florida, to express its concerns about the removal of 13 books by Ellen Hopkins from its libraries. A district administrator claimed that the materials are "harmful to minors" under Florida Statute 847, which makes it illegal to provide minors with access to "obscene" materials. This is problematic because, under Florida law, a book [...]
Updated 01/24/2023— On Friday, January 20, the Florida Department of Education released a list of reasons for rejecting the Advanced Placement course. This document makes it clear that what the state officials really object to is not a lack of educational value but some of the ideas discussed in the course. For example, they reject the discussion of Black [...]
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 [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) contacted Wilson County Schools Board in Lebanon, Tennessee, in regards to the School Board's decision to remove Tricks by Ellen Hopkins and Lev A.C. Rosen's Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) despite the book review committee's recommendations to retain the books. NCAC expressed concern that the board may have removed the titles due to disagreement with the [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) wrote more than 46 letters responding to book challenges and bans in 17 states in 2022. Below are summaries of letters from October 14 – November 28, 2022, that were not individually highlighted on our website but were instrumental in advocating for students' First Amendment rights and fighting censorship in U.S. schools. NCAC worked to bring [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has written to Batesburg-Leesville Middle School in South Carolina regarding the removal of Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism, and You from the school library. As we understand it, the school removed the book from the library in order to be compliant with South Carolina State Proviso 1.93, which prohibits certain school spending on ideas often [...]
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 [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has written to Spotsylvania County Public Schools in Virginia, regarding the removal of district library books without following their established review policy. As we understand the situation, in response to a local parent challenging 13 district library books, four were removed by district personnel without following Board Policy IIA*-R. This policy explicitly states [...]
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 [...]
A high school English teacher at Norman School District in Norman, Oklahoma, was recently admonished for sharing a QR Code with students that led to book recommendations from the Brooklyn Public Library. A parent filed a complaint and claimed that recommended materials supported critical race theory, which is against the law in Oklahoma under HB 1775. HB 1775 has put [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) has written to the Madison County School Board in Ridgeland, Mississippi, regarding recent restrictions on 10 books, requiring students to obtain parental permission in order to read them. The 10 books in question address race-related or LQBTQ+ themes, and we are concerned that the district may have unconstitutionally targeted these books for the [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship has written to the School Board of the Collier County Public Schools in Naples, Florida, after District libraries recently added an “Advisory Notice” to hundreds of library books—raising censorship concerns. Placing advisory notices, or “red-flagging” books often misleadingly reduces complex literary works to a few isolated elements—those that some individuals may find objectionable—rather than [...]
Updated 11/28/2022— NCAC has written an additional letter to the Conroe ISD Board of Trustees. Originally published 8/22/2022— The National Coalition Against Censorship has written to the Conroe Independent School District in Conroe, Texas, regarding recently adopted policies which require parental permission to check out allegedly obscene books from libraries while they are under review. Under the new policies, [...]
The National Coalition Against Censorship and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression have cowritten a letter to the Pennridge School District in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, demanding changes to a proposed policy that would unconstitutionally restrict the communications that students can distribute both on and off school grounds. The proposed policy is shockingly broad and impermissibly vague. If implemented it [...]
