The National Coalition Against Censorship is deeply concerned about efforts to punish an adjunct professor at Columbia University for not censoring a racial slur out of a quotation she used in class.
A breakdown of protected versus unprotected speech in the wake of the riot on Capitol Hill. Can free expression advocates support punishment for incitement to violence while still supporting the legal protections for “hate speech” or other offensive speech? And why do we protect offensive speech in the first place?
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is considering legislation intended to combat anti-Semitism that poses a serious threat to the free speech rights of Floridians. NCAC and PEN America are gravely concerned.
Support for free speech is not a dogma never to be questioned. When white supremacists violently march in Charlottesville under the banner of “free speech” while NFL players are penalized for protesting the murder of unarmed black people, can one still insist that those of us standing up against racism and working towards a more equitable society should engage politely with racist ideologues?
Removals of Alex Jones's content from online platforms raise questions about content regulation, censorship and who chooses what we can see, and shine a harsh light on the challenges tech companies face in applying their own content guidelines.
Nadine Strossen's new book, HATE, is a clear and forceful polemic that deserves a wide audience. The book brilliantly revitalizes a classical liberal argument about the importance of countering hate speech with more speech, not enforced silence.
NCAC is urging a Maryland school district to allow its teachers to display a series of posters promoting diversity and inclusion in America after administrators ordered their removal over concerns of political bias.
The posters were deemed to break the school's policy that forbids classroom materials that attempt to sway the political opinions of students.
A group of parents claim the New Trier High School's Seminar Day does not include a fair balance of perspective.
The American Bar Association's vaguely worded harassment policy has wide-reaching implications on speech limitations of lawyers
After the death of Philando Castile, Facebook delineated it's policy on posts containing violence. It should do the same for all content deemed controversial.
Does art that offends belong in a government building? That's the debate unfolding in Denver, after a student's painting that likens police to the Ku Klux Klan was displayed in the city's Webb Building.
According to black students, the problems they face on campus — like poor retention and graduation rates and less financial aid — existed before the video surfaced. Perhaps there’s a problem at OU that goes beyond the reprehensible acts of some students on a party bus.
The right-wing provocateur has the right to say what she wants. Does she think Arabs and Muslims have the same rights?
The University of Oklahoma's decision to expel two students over a racist fraternity video violates the First Amendment. But what are the deeper lessons about this incident?
In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, there are plenty of serious questions to ask about the state of free speech in France--and everywhere else.
Many US media outlets are reporting on the Charlie Hebdo massacre--but pointedly avoiding showing the images at the center of the story.
To outsiders, 21st century Britain must look like a pretty liberal country. We don’t imprison people for their political opinions. We no longer seek to ban so-called “obscene” novels, as the authorities tried to do with D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” when the unexpurgated version was first published in 1960. We got rid of our blasphemy laws in 2008. The British Board of Film Classification now okays the cinematic release [...]
In the coming weeks we will be featuring posts from our smart and savvy summer interns. This post is by programs intern Eli Siems. Eli is a recent graduate of SUNY New Paltz with a degree in English. He is passionate about literature in all forms, particularly poetry, and his love of letters has led him to join the fight to protect [...]
The staff at The Visceglia Gallery were very much looking forward to the opening of its GET IT ON THE RECORD exhibit, a collection of works by twenty-one African-American artists investigating the "collective history of Black America." As part of the exhibit, poet Amiri Baraka had been invited to speak. That invitation was rescinded, however, because the College President and others [...]
In July, 2010, NCAC joins The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, The Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project, and The Pennsylvania Center for The First Amendment in a friend of the court brief in the Supreme Court in support of the right to protest.
Last week, two public universities struggled with how to respond to student outrage. Eleven students were arrested at the University of California at Irvine for disrupting the speech of Israeli ambassador Michael Oren. Meanwhile, the University of Oregon has been exploring ways of expelling Pacifica Forum, a “hate group” (according to the Southern Law Poverty Center) that has upset many [...]
In an impassioned speech at the Newseum in Washington on January 21, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attacked countries who limit the free circulation of peaceful dissent and religious ideas on the Internet and those who use the Internet for the "darker purposes" of promoting violence and making sexual advances on minors. She also spoke about the increasing concern over [...]
It started with an invitation and ended with pepper spray and Tasers. This past April, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill chapter of Youth for Western Civilization, a student group dedicated to the survival of Western civilization, invited former Colorado state congressman Tom Tancredo to come offer his opinions on tuition assistance for undocumented immigrant students. Tancredo, honorary chair of [...]
"That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" -- William Shakespeare The day JuicyCampus shuttered, the website (juicycampus.com) began redirecting to College ACB (Anonymous Confession Board). With the same promise of anonymity, College ACB now provides us with the same gems JuicyCampus used to. Select any of the colleges in the drop bar, and [...]
An art installation, sponsored by the new Czeck EU Presidency, and displayed in the European Council building in Brussels has become a litmus test for EU sensitivities. The conceptual artist David ?erný was commisssioned to invite 27 artists from EU member states to represent their country as they see it. The idea was to gather specifically personal, non-government approved and possibly [...]
David Marchese at Spin has a thoughtful piece about the distribution of hate music, and how the marketplace of ideas is better at tamping down hate speech than censorship.
An incident at North Carolina State University in early November involving hateful words directed at President-elect Obama has sparked debate on campus about the extent to which Hate Speech is Free Speech. The debate has apparently spread to the UNC campus as well. ABC News, Chapel Hill reports: After the controversy over racist comments spray-painted in the Free Expression Tunnel [...]
And yet not without consequences. After the November 4th election of Barack Obama, 4 North Carolina State students hit the “Free Expression Tunnel” to spray paint messages that have now sparked a fierce debate on campus about how to respond to hate speech. The messages, including one that read “let’s shoot that Nigger in the head”, have prompted strong response [...]
Walla Walla, WA. A high school student is suspended for a bumper sticker on her car. Its contents: “I fucked your boyfriend” Camp Lejeune, NC. Civilian employee and Marine Corps veteran, Jesse Nieto, is ordered to remove stickers from his vehicle of a slightly more political charged nature: (AP) The messages displayed at least a half-dozen anti-Muslim decals including “ISLAM [...]
The victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election has shown us signs of improving race relations in this country. Sadly this isn't the case some areas of the south where the election of the United States first black president have increased already high racial tensions. In North Carolina State University, four students spray-painted threatening and racist graffiti aimed at the [...]
