Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, Theodore Taylor's The Cay, and Mildred Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, challenged in Burbank Unified School District.
New resource guides teachers and school administrators navigating book challenges.
The Free Expression Educators Handbook contains practical tools and advice for managing book challenges and censorship controversies in schools and school libraries. The handbook, created by NCAC in collaboration with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), is intended for teachers, librarians, and school administrators. It offers guidance for educators developing inclusive and viewpoint-neutral instructional material policies, including sample [...]
North Carolina lawsuit demands that public schools protect one religious viewpoint above others by banning Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X.
A California school district removed the novel Ghost Boys, which tells the story of a Black boy shot by police, from its curriculum.
Lauded graphic novel Fun Home was removed from high school classrooms by a principal in Nevada, violating district policy and threatening students' right to read.
NCAC, joined by ten organizations, is protesting a Texas school district’s decision to remove from a school website an editorial cartoon that was part of a class assignment because it criticizes the use of violence against Black people over the course of American history, including violence by police. The assignment was canceled after the National Fraternal Order of Police complained [...]
One of the most common complaints of students who come to NCAC for assistance is that they have been threatened with discipline for something that they said on social media. In an important decision that greatly reduced the power of school officials to “reach into a child’s home and control his/her actions” and speech, a panel of the Third Circuit [...]
When a school board in Alaska voted in April to remove five classic books from a high school reading list, it had no idea that it would outrage many in the community as well as several alumni of the school who are now rock stars. Although the Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) Borough School Board reversed its decision a month later, the controversy [...]
On August 3 and 4, two students at North Paulding High School in Dallas, GA, posted pictures to social media showing students in crowded hallways where social distancing was clearly impossible. Most students were not wearing masks. Unsurprisingly, the pictures immediately became a topic of discussion in the national media. In response, the school suspended the students on the grounds [...]
NCAC has joined several free speech organizations in supporting Oberlin College’s appeal of a $44 million libel judgment that threatens the free speech rights of its faculty and students. They filed an amicus brief in an Ohio appeals court on June 5. The case grew out of the arrest of three African American students in 2016 for attempted theft [...]
WINDSOR, VT -- The Mt. Ascutney School District Board has removed Windsor School Principal Tiffany Riley from her position after she stated on her personal Facebook account that she disapproved of some of the tactics used by some Black Lives Matter activists. In response, NCAC has written to the school board urging them to rescind their decision to remove Ms. [...]
NCAC urges Mat-Su school board to reverse decision to remove five classic texts from high school curriculum.
Banned Books Week 2020 declares Censorship is a Dead End: Find Your Freedom to Read. The annual celebration of banned books will be held from September 23-October 3, 2020.
Arizona considers banning sex ed before seventh grade.
Lawmakers challenging introduction of comprehensive sex ed are calling for ban on popular sexual health guide in schools and libraries.
Author Aida Salazar shares her own experience with school visits for her new book, The Moon Within, and the struggles she faces with teachers.
George Washington High School students, Lía Sánchez, Rowan Francis Taylor and Dava Munyon, share their thoughts on the Victor Arnautoff murals.
This list of our best resources on censorship and the First Amendment in schools will help you get ready for the school year.
UPDATE October 4, 2019: The George Washington High School Alumni Association filed a lawsuit in the public interest against the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education, challenging the School Board’s commitment to remove from public view Victor Arnautoff’s 1936 New Deal mural with panels without conducting an environmental review, which is required by California law. UPDATE August 13, [...]
NCAC proposes holding an open forum where GWHS students can talk about how they see and interpret the Arnautoff murals. We invite the San Francisco Board of Education to collaborate with us in presenting the forum.
The New Jersey legislature is considering an education bill that would redefine anti-Semitism so broadly as to infringe on protected speech.
A school in Idaho has banned the popular graphic novel series The Walking Dead and removed all copies of the graphic novel series from their library, despite a review committee recommending the book remain on shelves.
Over 100 teen filmmakers spoke Truth to Power for this year’s YFEP Film Contest. We invited teens to speak directly to those in power to lead change about issues that matter to them. The 12 finalist films tackled a wide range of polarizing, and often taboo, topics including gun violence, immigrant family separation, gender equality, toxic masculinity, shaming and [...]
After intervention from artists, advocates and community groups, a compromise has been reached that will allow the mural to remain with artist Beau Stanton overseeing changes to the work.
NCAC urges the school to consider the serious, irreversible ramifications of destroying thirteen WPA murals at George Washington High School.
School officials have broad discretion to establish curricula and decide what materials to include in their classrooms and libraries. However, parents, special interest groups and others sometimes attempt to impose their personal beliefs on the public school system and demand the removal of educational materials. Listed below are some general considerations school administrators should take into account when such challenges [...]
ALA's Most Challenged Books list for 2018 is dominated by LGBTQ stories and characters, reflecting a growing trend.
An 11-year old student was arrested after lawfully protesting the Pledge of Allegiance in a Florida school.
Maine lawmaker's attempts to label educational material obscene threatens intellectual freedom.
Maine lawmaker's attempts to label educational material obscene threatens intellectual freedom.
The superintendent of a Los Angeles school district has unilaterally decided to remove a mural on display on the exterior wall of RFK Community Schools’ theater after some members of the surrounding community complained that visual elements of the mural resembled the Rising Sun flag of Imperialist Japan.
Shorewood High School canceled the production hours before it was scheduled to debut, to the dismay of both supporters and planned protesters.
A group called the Concerned Parents of San Diego held their children from school to protest the district's Sexual Health Education Program, SHEP. Among the material the group finds objectionable is the award-winning It's Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris.
Student journalists at Prosper High School wrote to their Superintendent to protest the dismissal of their journalism instructor and the repeated censorship of editorial pieces in the student publication, Eagle Nation Online.
As millions of American students assert their First Amendment rights in protests across the country, National Coalition Against Censorship partnered with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund to release a new comic book to help protect students' rights.
After a review committee voted to keep Tanya Lee Stone's novel in Cody Public School libraries, the school board elected to remove it.
The First Amendment doesn't end "at the schoolhouse gates." But students should know their schools' policies when it comes to organizing protests. This is NCAC's quick guide for student protesters.
Sunset Park High School in Brooklyn, NY removed a work of student art last week after complaints that its message was offensive. NCAC opposes allowing a "hecker's veto" to chill this student's right to free expression.
With a Texas school board set to meet on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to determine the fate of an acclaimed young adult novel in district libraries, a local teenager has emerged as a vital voice for freedom of inquiry and expression.
