UPDATE:April 22nd, 2006: after winning a restraining order in federal court — so that administrators at Coral Academy of Science could not prevent him from reciting the poem of his choice — Jacob Behymer-Smith won 2nd place in the Nevada state finals of the "Poetry Out Loud" contest with his recitation of W.H. Auden's "The More Loving One." His performance [...]
Every new technology brings with it both excitement and anxiety. No sooner was the Internet upon us in the 1990s than anxiety arose over the ease of accessing pornography and other controversial content. In response, entrepreneurs soon developed filtering products. By the end of the decade, a new industry had emerged to create and market Internet filters.
The book Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher, has become controversial in Grand Rapids, Michigan, because one of the stories contains the word "nigger." After a parent complained, the teacher was suspended and the book was removed from the schools, including the libraries. Controversy over racially sensitive themes and language is not new. For example, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is [...]
Although Texas policies were revised to limit grounds for rejection to "factual inaccuracy" in 1995, censorship still flourishes in the Lone Star State. Publishers still revise textbooks in order to sell to the nation's second largest buyer. Last November, a science book was altered to appease anti-environmentalists. "Destruction of the rain forest could affect weather over the entire planet" was [...]
Dear Member of Texas State Board of Education, We write to express our concern about the proposed changes to the Biology Textbook under consideration for adoption by the Texas State Board of Education. We urge you not to adopt the changes proposed by the Discovery Institute, because doing so will undermine the presentation of information about evolution. At the public [...]
Dear Member of Texas State Board of Education, We write to express our concern about the proposed changes to the Biology Textbook under consideration for adoption by the Texas State Board of Education. We urge you not to adopt the changes proposed by the Discovery Institute, because doing so will undermine the presentation of information about evolution. At the public [...]
Dear Commissioner Mills, Chancellor Bennett, Senator Kuhl, and Assemblyman Sanders: We have previously written to object to the routine censorship of literary passages on New York State English Language Arts Regents exams, which is questionable on pedagogical, intellectual and legal grounds. In our earlier correspondence, we documented numerous examples in which material was deleted apparently to eliminate any reference to [...]
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Free expression won out when school superintendent Gary Feenstra withdrew most of the restrictions he had imposed on the use of Harry Potter books. Following the advice of an advisory committee, Feenstra agreed to put the books back in the elementary and middle school libraries and to permit students to borrow them without restrictions. He also agreed to permit classroom readings of [...]
In a new twist in the battle against evolution, creationists in Kansas hope to convince the Board of Education to drop evolution from the curriculum. Since it is unconstitutional to teach religious theory in the schools, creationists argue, evolution must also go. Shades of Isaac Asimov, who punned: "I'd let them teach creationism in the schools if they let us [...]
Dr. Marvin E. Edwards Superintendent School District U-46 355 East Chicago Street Elgin, IL 60120 Dear Dr. Edwards, We write to urge you to reinstate Judy Blume’s novel, Forever, in the middle school libraries in District 46. According to recent news reports, the decision to remove the book, and the desire to keep it out now, are based on disapproval [...]
Seven organizations dedicated to upholding the right of freedom of expression today declared their strong objection to the cancellation by high school principals of three free concerts by acclaimed folk-rock artists, the Indigo Girls. The organizations also praised the many students who are protesting their schools' censorship. A concert at Irmo High School in Columbia, South Carolina was canceled because of [...]
Most Americans - 93 percent according to a recent Freedom Forum poll - say they believe in the First Amendment. A recent incident in Hauppauge illustrates something else the poll revealed: Many Americans really don't understand it.
I write to express my serious concerns about your decision to remove three magazines from the Hauppauge Middle School Library. If press reports are accurate, as our inquiries suggest they are, removal of the magazines was precipated, in whole or in part, by a local religious figure who urged parishioners to object to them because they contain "information that goes against what we believe is the truth about sex as Catholic Christians."
Penny Culliton, a New Hampshire teacher who fought back against attempts to smear and ultimately fire her, has been reinstated by the Mascenic School Board following a decision of the state's Public Employee Labor Relations Board. The Labor Board upheld an arbitrator's previous award that had turned Culliton's dismissal into a one-year suspension.
