Free Speech and LGBTQ Rights Groups Oppose Cancellation of Exhibit at Stonewall National Museum and Archives
Artists and action groups join NCAC in letter to museum. Leave your comment of support!
Mommy Porn & Social Media: Erotic and Mainstream Meet in the Middle
Christian Grey. If you haven’t heard that name uttered dozens times over the last year, it’s safe to say that you may have been living under a rock. While certainly not a literary prose masterpiece, the Fifty Shades trilogy hasn’t done too bad for itself, reaching a sales record of over 31 million copies worldwide...
The FCC and Indecency: The Supreme Court Decides Not to Decide
The potentially momentous case of Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television ended on June 21 not with a bang but a whimper. True, a unanimous Supreme Court vacated the FCC's rulings that the "fleeting expletives" in two TV programs and the fleeting nudity in a third were "indecent." But it did so on the narrow ground that the agency violated [...]
Letter Opposing Fifty Shades Florida Library Ban
UPDATE: New video. NCAC speaks out against the removal of the best-selling Fifty Shades of Grey from the Brevard County Library system in Florida as an affront to First Amendment rights. Read our letter to county officials.
Doonesbury “Abortion” Strips: Who Didn’t Run Them, and How to Contact
With regularity, editors at some papers choose not to run an episode of Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” strip. The latest incident involved satirical commentary on state lawmakers requiring women to undergo invasive and medically unnecessary ultrasounds before abortions. A large number of papers did not run the episode, some ran a substitute “rerun” episode offered by Trudeau, and others shifted it [...]
Forbidden Love (of Reading): Censored and Challenged Books for Valentine’s Day
by Michael O'Neil The book is a romantic thing. From spotting potential sweeties by the books they're reading, to the countless authors who have feverishly committed tales of love to paper for the form, books engage the mind and elicit passion, intrigue and a cozy kind of intimacy perhaps unmatched by any other medium. So to celebrate Valentine's Day, let's [...]
Mayor Cancels Rocky Horror Production, Calls It Too Risque
NCAC participating organization The Dramatists Guild protests the cancellation of a community theater production of The Rocky Horror Show in Carrollton Georgia.
The Fuss over GQ’s ‘Glee’ Photo
The Parents Television Council has done a lot of things bordering on the inane, but this time they’ve outdone themselves by saying that the cover of GQ magazine “borders on pedophilia.” As Frank Bruni pointed out in the New York Times, the women pictured on the cover are 24. Somebody at PTC should check the dictionary before using big words. [...]
Plaid Ribbons for Pornography Awareness
[Dr. Marty Klein – a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, Certified Sex Therapist, and sociologist with a special interest in public policy and sexuality – is our guest blogger today! We post from his great blog, Sexual Intelligence, from October 25.] This week is WRAP Week: White Ribbons Against Pornography. Sponsored by groups including Concerned Women for America (CWA) and [...]
Fact Sheet on Sex and Censorship
"I know it when I see it" - This famous phrase, by former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart,1 nicely summarizes the way that American law defines criminally punishable "obscenity." Yet the First Amendment to the Constitution states unequivocally that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." So where did the exception to the First Amendment for "obscenity" [...]
Teacher fired for pushing for class project on The Laramie Project
Following good news of Steve Martin’s bailout, there’s more bad news on the high school drama front. USA Today reports on the firing of a teacher who led a class project on The Laramie Project – a play and film based on responses from Laramie residents after the murder of Matthew Shepherd. The teacher – Debra Taylor – led a [...]
The trend of pulling high school performances of RENT, need for students to fight for it
In December we covered the depressing situation at Rowlett High School where a teacher pulled a performance of “RENT: School Edition” after controversy about the play’s content. “RENT: School Edition” is a “modified” version of Jonathan Larson’s Tony Award winning musical about “bohemian” life in New York. The play explores the lives of artists struggling to live out a romantic [...]
Homophobic Attacks on Artistic Expression
Attacks on artistic expression are proliferating at a frightening rate, and any connection with lesbian or gay matters brings campaigns for suppression. This censorship is affecting the visual and performing arts, museums and movies, television and art exhibits and it is occurring in small towns and big cities everywhere in the country. Last year in Cincinnati, Ohio, the owner, manager, [...]
Supreme Court Brief of Free Expression Policy Project, ACLU et al. in FCC v. Fox Broadcasting
Read the brief below; click here for a full screen view.
Media Literacy: An Alternative to Censorship
Read the report below; click here for a full screen view.
Free Expression in Arts Funding: A Public Policy Report
Read the report below; click here for a full screen view.
NCAC Reviews Youth Censorship Books
It's fitting that one of the two books we've chosen to inaugurate the Free Expression Policy Project Book Page has itself become a target of censorship pressures.
Kill the Messenger
The American Psychological Association stepped into a hornets' nest when it published an article that compiled and evaluated the results of many studies on the psychological effects of child sexual abuse. Responding to complaints from conservative constituents, a Congressional resolution condemned the study.
Groups and Students Oppose Cancellation of Indigo Girls Concerts at High Schools
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 [...]
Do Teenage Girl Magazines Belong On Middle School Library Shelves?
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.
NCAC Letter to Long Island School District Superintendent About Removal of Three Magazines
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."
Sex-Related Censorship on the Rise
ProChoice IDEA - Summer/Fall 1997 Sex and the Censors Censorship of anything related to sex is on the rise. Here are some recent examples: The police in Oklahoma City seized copies of the Academy-Award winning film, The Tin Drum, after a local group complained about it and a judge called it "obscene." The Wall Street Journal reported that the new [...]
New Hampshire Teacher Fired for Teaching “Unsuitable” Books Reinstated by School Board
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.