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The ACLU has been fighting against censorship for nearly a century. April is National Poetry Month, so weve been thinking about a free speech case from sixty years ago that involved a small but powerful book of poetry.

Sixty years ago,ACLU of Northern California staff attorney Al Bendich defended City Lights Books publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who was accused of obscenity for publishing Allen Ginsbergs poem Howl.

Over 500 freshly-printed copies of Howl and Other Poems were seized by the government, rather than allowed to exist as thought-provoking literature. The trial against City Lights Books made its way to the California State Superior Court in 1957, where Judge Clayton Horn ruled in favor of Ferlinghetti and the ACLU.

Judge Horn found that the poem was not obscene for referencing sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and instead held redeeming social importance.

Excerpt from Howl by Allen Ginsberg

Howl and other free speech cases like it laid the groundwork for the rights we exercise today. But we still need to stay vigilant against attempts to stifle free expression through censorship.

Last month,The ACLU of Northern California advocated on behalf of high school students who were censored by their school after writing an article on Black Lives Matter for their high school yearbook. The principal, fearing controversy, removed every reference to Black Lives Matter and edited their article beyond recognition. We sent a demand letter to the school district, and the students won.

Just as its illegal for the government to censor a poem because some might find it offensive, its illegal for a school to remove Black Lives Matter references from school publications because the school is afraid of robust conversation.

Gigi Harney is the Creative Strategist at the ACLU of Northern California.

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Fighting Censorship: Victories in 1957 & 2017 #ACLUTimeMachine - ACLU of Northern California (blog)

The annual list from the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom tends to include a broad range of titles with the potential to offend. Repeat "honorees" include Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" for depictions of rape and incest, transgender reality TV star Jazz Jenning's coming out story, "Fifty Shades of Grey" for obvious reasons, and the "Harry Potter" books because of witchcraft.

But the embattled comedian's "Little Bill" books are believed to the first time a title has been targeted solely for its author and not its content, ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom Director James LaRue said.

"I think it's our fascination with celebrity. If we love the person we love everything about him. If we hate the person we hate everything about him. We don't seem to be able to separate the message from the messenger."

The "Little Bill" books follow the adventures and life lessons of Bill Jr., a 5-year-old Philadelphia boy. The series became an Emmy Award-winning Saturday morning cartoon series that ran on and off from 1999 to 2006.

The ranking is based on 323 challenges reported to the office in 2016 by school librarians across the country, the ALA said. The ALA's list does not specify where any of the challenges occurred.

Challenges tend to come from parents or students who choose a book for some reason or another and bring it to the principal to try to remove it permanently.

But LaRue said successful challenges tend never to get reported and the real number is likely much higher.

Books featuring "diverse" characters, such as racial minorities or gay, lesbian and transgender people, have become targets of challenges with increasing frequency this year.

Five of the 10 books on this year's list included LGBT characters, including Jazz Jennings' picture book. All five books were successfully removed from library shelves, or, in other words, banned, according to the ALA.

"Critics of this list say no book is banned in America and I beg to differ," LaRue said. "If a book is removed it's been banned."

The complete list includes:

-- "This One Summer," by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki

The ALA says this young adult graphic novel, winner of a Printz and a Caldecott Honor Award, was "restricted, relocated and banned" because it includes LGBT characters, drug use and profanity, and it was considered sexually explicit with mature themes.

-- "Drama," written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier

Parents, librarians and administrators banned this Stonewall Honor Award-winning graphic novel for young adults because it includes LGBT characters, was deemed sexually explicit and was considered to have an offensive political viewpoint, the ALA said.

--"George," by Alex Gino

Despite winning a Stonewall Award and a Lambda Literary Award, administrators removed this children's novel because it includes a transgender child and the "sexuality was not appropriate at elementary levels," according to the ALA.

-- "I Am Jazz," by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas

This children's picture book memoir was challenged and removed because it portrays a transgender child and because of language, sex education, and offensive viewpoints, the ALA said.

-- "Two Boys Kissing," by David Levithan

This young adult novel, a National Book Award longlist and Stonewall Honor Book, was challenged because its cover has an image of two boys kissing and it was considered to include sexually explicit LGBT content.

-- "Looking for Alaska," by John Green

This 2006 Printz Award winner is a young adult novel that was challenged and restricted for a sexually explicit scene that may lead a student to "sexual experimentation."

-- "Big Hard Sex Criminals," by Matt Fraction, illustrated by Chip Zdarsky

This compilation of adult comic books by two award-winning artists was challenged and banned for being considered sexually explicit by library staff and administrators.

-- "Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread," by Chuck Palahniuk

This collection of adult short stories was challenged for profanity, sexual explicitness, and being "disgusting and all around offensive," according to the ALA.

-- "Little Bill Books" series, by Bill Cosby, illustrated by Varnette P. Honeywood

This children's book series was challenged because of criminal sexual allegations against the author, the ALA said.

--' "Eleanor & Park," by Rainbow Rowell

A New York Times Notable Children's Books and a Printz Honor recipient, this young adult novel was challenged for offensive language, the ALA said.

Read more from the original source:
Bill Cosby's 'Little Bill' books targeted for censorship - CNN.com - CNN

A profile in The College Voice, the student newspaper of Connecticut College,ofan activist-turned-artist named Mike Alewitz details his radical, politically charged career that is characterizedas muchbythe provocative works heproduced as bythe incidents of censorship theworks inspired.

Alewitz, aformer professor atCentral CT State University,who earned his MFA from theMassachusetts College of Art in 1983, is best known for his murals depicting the American labor movement. According to the profile author, his "stories are a routine of acceptance and decline, of struggle and movement. His pieces are vibrant, loud, colorful. They declare to be acknowledged."

In the profile, Alewitz, now in his 60s, tellsthe story of his life's work through a tour of his Connecticut home, identified "by its fiery red exterior and vibrant pink detail," where he sits at his dining table accompanied bya make-up smeared mannequin and a "large, plastic bunny with long white ears."

His story begins as an undergraduate at Kent State University, where his witnessing of the Kent State massacrefurthered his motivationas an anti-warorganizer. At the time of the massacrehe was the university'sChairman of the Student Mobilization Committee Against the War (SMC). After the shooting,

he left to become an organizer for anti-war movements, traveling to Austin, Los Angeles, Cleveland, New Orleans, Virginia, Boston, New Jersey. At the time he began working for the union movement, he was in industry as a railroad worker and machinist. He even laid some of the railroad tracks in New London, Connecticut that remain about half a mile from his house. While working, Alewitz picked up sign painting and billboard painting before going to the Massachusetts School of Art in his late thirties. He considers this the beginning of his art career. I had the background, he tells me. I could render.

As an MFA student, Alewitz had his first encounter with the censorship of his work. A column he painted in tribute to a local back man killed by the police was subsequently graffitied by the police and then painted over by the authorities. Since then, the profile explains, "Alewitz has been devoted to agitprop work, a combination of agitation and propaganda, which he also refers to as 'high grade street art'."

Alewitz garnereda reputation for works that paid tribute to labor groups, such as the International Confederation of Energy and Mine Workers and UNITE The Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees, murals that reflected his political perspective;his sense of antipathy toward the capitalist system. The author notes that an adjacent room in his house is lined with booksKarl Marx, Frederick Engels, and Lenin.

Yeah, hetells the profile writer,Im the real deal.

According to the profile, Alewitz keeps boxes of press articles about incidents of censorship his works have produced. In 1999, for example, he was funded to produce a series of muralscalled Dreams of Harriet Tubman. The central mural he painted "shows Harriet Tubman holding a gun and on either side of her are red swirling waves. Silhouettes of people cluster and crowd at her feet." The mural was never made public, however:

Youre in a place where there are statues with white men with guns everywhere and they cant his voice trails off as he tells me the story. I painted the only image of a womana Black womanwith a gun. After the mural was rejected, Alewitz issued an offer for a free mural but no one would provide a wall. Everybodys afraid, he says. It was censorship and not the kind that helps your career.

Alewitzs history with censorship iswell known to NCAC.In 2014, for example, the Museum of the City of New Yorkrefused to display his mural at the inaugural exhibition of the museums Puffin Gallery for Social Activism.Despite the overtly left-leaning politics of the Puffin Foundation,which commissioned the mural for theireponymous gallery, the museum was reluctant to be associated with the murals unvarnished, left-wing, pro-labor views.NCAC urged the museum and the foundation to open a dialogue about how this mural, which depicts the struggles of radical labor and civil rights movements in our society, can be presented to the public.

Read the rest of the interview withThe College Voice, which takes the readerthrough Alewitzs house and studio, floor by floor, mural by mural, story by story. As the profile writer comments:

There is a book in every one of these stories, he says. [] There are novels behind his paintings and behind those novels are history books. His house is a time capsule.

Summer Wrobels interview with Mike Alewitz, The House on Federal Street: Meet New Londons Resident Censored Artist, appeared in The College Voice on April 4, 2017. Read the full piece here.Take a tour through one of Alewitzs mural proposals here.

Read this article:
An Art Career Intertwined with Censorship: The Murals of Mike Alewitz - Blogging Censorship (blog)

Pictures are powerful. What we see (and what we dont) shapes our worldview. So whos controlling the filter? How do mediaoutlets decide what to show, and what to blur out? And how doyou know if what youre seeing is real?

Amanda St. Hilaire, Dennis Owens, and guest-host Amanda Peterson discuss these issuesand how they affect families (especially children). They also talk about a new effort to showcase the hidden gems in your neighborhood, and read the comments and questions you sent in during the week.

Subscribe to On Deadline in iTunes or Google Play Music to get episodes automatically delivered to your electronic device each week. You can also listen on Stitcher, TuneIn,or in the player below:

Write a review, send us an email, or message us on Facebook to share your thoughts or suggest a topic for discussion.

Below are links and references from this weeks episode:

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Getting the real story: Censorship in the digital age - ABC27

All who cherish free expression, especially on campuses, must combat the growing zeal for censorship.

By Heather Mac Donald, The City Journal

Where are the faculty? American college students are increasingly resorting to brute force, and sometimes criminal violence, to shut down ideas they dont like. Yet when such travesties occur, the faculty are, with few exceptions, missing in action, though they have themselves been given the extraordinary privilege of tenure to protect their own liberty of thought and speech. It is time for them to take their heads out of the sand.

I was the target of such silencing tactics two days in a row last week, the more serious incident at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, and a less virulent one at UCLA.

The Rose Institute for State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna had invited me to meet with students and to give a talk about my book, The War on Cops, on April 6. Several calls went out on Facebook to shut down this notorious white supremacist fascist Heather Mac Donald. A Facebook post from we, students of color at the Claremont Colleges announced grandiosely that as a community, we CANNOT and WILL NOT allow fascism to have a platform. We stand against all forms of oppression and we refuse to have Mac Donald speak. A Facebook event titled Shut Down Anti-Black Fascist Heather Mac Donald and hosted by Shut Down Anti-Black Fascists encouraged students to protest the event because Mac Donald condemns [the] Black Lives Matter movement, supports racist police officers, and supports increasing fascist law and order. (My supposed fascism consists in trying to give voice to the thousands of law-abiding minority residents of high-crime areas who support the police and are desperate for more law-enforcement protection.)

The event organizers notified me a day before the speech that a protest was planned and that they were considering changing the venue from CMCs Athenaeum to one with fewer glass windows and easier egress. When I arrived on campus, I was shuttled to what was in effect a safe house: a guest suite for campus visitors, with blinds drawn.

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Mac Donald: Time to Fight Alt-Left Censorship on Campus - Fox News