National Coalition Against Censorship

Reflections of a professor at Wingate University, re: Joan Bertin's visiting Woodrow Wilson Fellowship.

Of course, in discussing how "offensive" the work may be to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the point that the First Amendment protects precisely speech that some people find offensive was somehow missed. And the attorney claiming that the panel was biased against censorship - well, isn't the whole country supposed to be biased against censorship? As in: free speech is part of he constitution! Yes, there are restrictions - but he should know better, these restrictions do not apply to the ideas expressed in a work of art in a gallery - a college gallery to boot.

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."

"The issue - sorry - is not financial: the Star noted that Kansas' budget deficit is $500 million and abolishing the Kansas Arts Commission saves $600,000. Slicing a tenth of one percent of anything isn't about fiscal prudence. It's about ideology - and ideological purification."

From A Clockwork Orange to Life Of Brian, the films that challenged audiences and ratings boards...

Over six months after the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began their "Operation in our Sites" initiative, in which they've seized nearly 100 allegedly copyright infringing web domains without warning or due process, one senator has finally taken notice and begun to question whether the process violates First Amendment free speech rights.