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High school newspaper in Colorado shut down over baseless "budget concerns" by principal

Under the guise of "academic freedom" creationists are co-opting some old heroes of the fight to teach evolution in the classroom for their anti-science campaign.

Blume's character explores things that might have been off-limits. She doubts, she gets angry at God. This displeased some fundamentalist Christian groups, as well as parents who were not happy Blume was exposing children to sensitive issues. In the early 1980s these groups tried to censor her books and in some states they were indeed removed from libraries. And even though things have changed considerably there, she says, every year some of her books appear on a list of "challenged books" - works that some people want to have censored.

Groups of parents are getting together and organizing in their communities to ban books," adds Joan Bertin of the National Coalition Against Censorship. "I think what's happening is once a book is challenged in one town, people on the same wavelength, it will flag that book for them. For example, we've seen three challenges to Sherman Alexie's teen novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, all within the past three months, two in Missouri, one in Montana."

Works by censored authors available again in wake of revolutions

To the extent that a Wisconsin public university faculty member's emails are connected to a "government function," they may be covered under the state's Open Records law. But whether Cronon's emails meet this criterion is not presently clear. And even then, the court held in Schill that if the emails are in fact records, "then the court must undertake a balancing test to decide whether the statutory presumption favoring disclosure of public records is outweighed by any other public interest."