Texas

Texas Banned Books: Questions & Answers, a panel on censorship

By |2020-01-02T15:08:20-05:00September 26th, 2013|Events|

TXBBQ&A will be an interactive roundtable discussion about the real, relevant state of censorship in Texas. The conversation will center on Texas schools and values, books in prison, freedom of the press and the right to read. 9/26, free and open to the public. Part of Banned Books Week 2013!

Ta-Ta to Texas Ethnic Studies Bills, May We Never Meet Again

By |2019-03-07T21:45:55-05:00May 13th, 2013|Blog|

Librotraficantes and their allies are dancing over the legislative grave of Texas HB1938, which sought to limit which courses university students could take to fulfill state history requirements. After impressive advocacy efforts on the part of Tony Diaz and Los Librotraficantes, the bill is indefinitely stalled in the Calendars committee. HB1938 and its Senate counterpart, SB1128, were the more subtle [...]

NCAC Talks Textbook Censorship on Pacifica Radio

By |2019-03-07T21:45:42-05:00August 11th, 2012|Blog|

NCAC was invited to join Thresholds, a show on KPFT Pacifica radio out of Houston Texas in a conversation about textbook censorship and Texas and beyond. Kids' Right to Read Project Coordinator Acacia O'Connor spoke about the dangers of the censoring impulse alongside Rene Bellwied, Theoretical Physicist and member of the National STEM Committee. Texas is notorious for its desire [...]

Book censorship round-up for this week

By |2020-01-03T13:38:45-05:00October 20th, 2010|Blog|

Suzanne Collins's young adult novel The Hunger Games is challenged in New Hampshire by a parent whose 11-year old said the book gave her nightmares. The parent has yet to file a formal complaint or read the book. Regardless, the Superintendent is gathering a committee to review the book while it remains in the classroom. A Texas school district in [...]

NCAC Protests Cancellation of Ellen Hopkins Appearance at Teen Lit Fest in Texas

By |2019-03-20T13:24:54-04:00August 27th, 2010|Blog|

An invitation to young adult novelist Ellen Hopkins to speak about her experiences as a writer was rescinded by the Superintendent of the Humble (Texas) Independent School District after some parents complained about the content of her books. NCAC coordinated a letter of protest with five other national organizations. After Hopkins was disinvited to Teen Lit Fest 2011, five other [...]

Free speech Surrendered: Corpus Christi at Tarleton State

By |2019-03-15T15:31:28-04:00March 29th, 2010|Blog|

The cancellation of Terrence McNally’s play Corpus Christi by Tarleton State University, under pressure from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and others, is an affront to academic freedom and First Amendment principles of free speech. The play was denounced by Tarleton’s president, Dominic Dottavio, who called it “crude and irreverent.”  Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst opined that [...]

A Textbook Case of Censorship

By |2020-01-03T13:37:34-05:00March 19th, 2010|Blog|

Last Friday the Texas Board of Education voted along party lines to approve a new school curriculum that will, in effect, rewrite history. The new social studies curriculum will address what one board member referred to as a “skewed” history with a “liberal bias.” Although the proposed changes may individually seem relatively minor, they are not innocuous. For example, the [...]

Political Opinions: “A good enough reason” to ban books?

By |2019-03-14T18:07:41-04:00February 9th, 2010|Blog|

In the children’s book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, the title character answers the question of the title with, “I see a red bird looking at me.” For one member of the elected Texas Board of Education, the bird’s color could have been confirmation of her suspicion that the picture book promoted Communism.  But then again, Board [...]

Supreme Court Rejects Dress Code Case

By |2019-03-14T17:36:16-04:00January 14th, 2010|Blog|

Earlier this week the Supreme Court denied petition to review a high school student’s challenge to his school’s dress code. In denying review, the Supreme Court has chosen to leave the lower court’s holding intact — a holding that serves as a dangerous curtailment of students’ rights of freedom of expression. Paul “Pete” Palmer was found to be in violation [...]

The fight over Texas science policy continues…

By |2020-01-05T23:16:21-05:00April 13th, 2009|Blog|

On Friday, March 26, the Texas Board of Education struck down a bill that required evolution be taught with consideration of the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory. The new bill, however, is not a striking victory for advocates of depolicized, science-based education. According to the NCSE: ...the revised biology standard (7B) reflects two discredited creationist ideas — that "sudden [...]

Why Texas matters: Evolution education in “one of the nation’s biggest buyers of textbooks”

By |2020-01-05T23:16:18-05:00January 22nd, 2009|Blog|

The New York Times reported yesterday on the fight in Texas over science standards. The standards for 20 years have required that science be taught in a way that show the “strengths and weaknesses” of Darwin’s theory of evolution.  The third draft, passed in December 2008 didn’t include this phrase, but this year 7 of the 15 members of the [...]

Antievolution bills die in committee, Texas science standards change

By |2020-01-05T23:16:17-05:00December 30th, 2008|Blog|

Two antievolution bills in Michigan died in committee on December 19th. The Michigan bills were modeled after the Louisiana Science Education Act which passed in June 2008. According to the National Center for Science Education: If enacted, the [Michigan] bills would have required state and local administrators “to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages pupils [...]

Reform Jewish leaders testify against adding creationism/intelligent design

By |2019-03-12T18:31:02-04:00November 23rd, 2008|Blog|

by Sarah Falcon On Wednesday, three Reform Jewish leaders testified in Austin, Texas against a language change in the school curriculum which would require teaching "strengths and limitations" of scientific theories. Texas' current curriculum requires teaching the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. Testimonies from two of the rabbis is excerpted below:

Science Textbook Rejected by Texas School Commissioners

By |2019-03-15T17:19:39-04:00December 16th, 2004|Incidents|

A federal district court in Dallas dismissed a lawsuit against the state for rejecting an environmental science textbook the commissioners didn't like. The case, Chiras v. Miller, brought by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, charged that the textbook was rejected for "illegitimate, unconstitutional reasons." The commissioners had turned the book down for failing to adequately present the oil and gas [...]

Science Textbook Publishers Revise Text to Please Texas Schools

By |2019-03-15T17:19:35-04:00November 5th, 2003|Incidents|

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 [...]

NCAC Letter to the Texas State Board of Education Protesting Biology Textbook Changes

By |2016-01-15T12:27:11-05:00September 30th, 2003|Incidents|

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 [...]

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