censorship

• 
• SOURCE: PEN America
  12/13/2021
  

  Scope, Speed of Educational Gag Order Laws Increasing Nationwide

  by Jeffrey Sachs

  Under the South Carolina bill, racism, fascism, and homophobia can all be understood as cultural or political beliefs. Educators would be prohibited from describing those who hold such beliefs as bigoted or oppressive. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  12/8/2021
  

  10 Books Texas Doesn't Want You to Read

  "The subjectivity involved in defining inappropriate, obscene, or distressing—and the danger of politicizing such definitions—is at the center of Krause’s challenge, and it shows in the books on his ban list."

• 
• SOURCE: Mississippi Free Press
  11/15/2021
  

  The Hate They Censor: Burying Lessons of History

  The editor of the Mississippi Free Press compares today's national wave of book banning to the efforts to control information that established the "Lost Cause" narrative in early 20th century Mississippi. 

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  11/16/2021
  

  ‘We’re Preparing For a Long Battle.’ Librarians Grapple With Conservatives’ Latest Efforts to Ban Books

  by Olivia B. Waxman

  “We’re seeing an unprecedented volume of challenges,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Executive Director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “I’ve worked for ALA for 20 years, and I can’t recall a time when we had multiple challenges coming in on a daily basis.”

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  10/15/2021
  

  Books Briefing: Fights Over What Kids Read Continue

  More than half of the books banned from or challenged in school libraries and classrooms deal with issues of diversity including race, gender and disability. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/13/2021
  

  Has BYU Canceled a Leading Historian of Mormonism?

  The Neal A. Maxwell Institute appears to be disavowing its previous connections to historian Benjamin Park. Is it because of his objections to some LDS leaders' positions on LGBTQ issues and masking and vaccination in response to COVID? 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  8/27/2021
  

  EBay Deletes the Queer Past

  The online auction company's decision may make it difficult for historians of LGBTQ cultures and of sexuality to build archives of historically signicant erotica. 

• 
• SOURCE: Forbes
  8/6/2021
  

  Filmmaker Greg Mitchell on the Government's Suppression of Scientists' Film about A-Bombs

  "I’ve always wanted to promote an honest debate about what happened. I want all of the facts out there. I want Americans to have conversations and examine moral issues."

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/28/2021
  

  Before the Anti-CRT Activists, there were White Citizens’ Councils

  by David A. Love

  "Employing the techniques of the White Citizens’ Council, a 21st-century White resistance movement threatens to turn back the clock on civil rights and racial justice and create a new future built on erasing the past."

• 
• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  7/22/2021
  

  Today It’s Critical Race Theory. 200 Years Ago It Was Abolitionist Literature

  In 1829, South Carolina and Georgia responded to a series of fires they assumed were set by enslaved people by banning both the abolitionist literature they blamed for inciting rebellion and the teaching of literacy to slaves. Today's battles over curriculum are likewise about ideas deemed threatening to social hierarchies.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/5/2021
  

  Texas Republicans Rush to Guard the Alamo from the Facts

  by Jason Stanford

  "The Alamo myth leaves much out, most notably that Texians opposed Mexican laws that would free the enslaved workers they needed to farm cotton."

• 
• SOURCE: The Week
  7/2/2021
  

  Texas State History Museum Abruptly Cancels Speech by Authors of New Book on The Alamo

  Chris Tomlinson tweeted Thursday night that he presumes the event was canceled because "we don't regurgitate the propaganda that [Governor Greg] Abbott's Texas 1836 Project wants to promote." 

• 
• SOURCE: Jerusalem Post
  6/29/2021
  

  Does Banning Holocaust Denial on Social Media also Block Education?

  Incidents where social media algorithms take down articles that explore legitimate controversies about the Holocaust suggest that the work of controlling denialism and hate speech needs more refinement. 

• 
• 6/6/2021
  

  Why a Culture War Over Critical Race Theory? Consider the Pro-Slavery Congressional "Gag Rule"

  by Frank Palmeri and Ted Wendelin

  Like the Southern delegations who opposed discussion of slavery, opponents of Critical Race Theory believe that any discussion of persistent racial inequities in legal and other institutions is unacceptable because it is “divisive.”

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/2/2021
  

  Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Gets New French Edition, With Each Lie Annotated

  The publishers, who will donate proceeds to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, argue that with other versions of Hitler's manifesto circulating widely, a translation that preserves the incoherence and paranoia of the original with extensive debunking commentary is a positive contribution to efforts to fight the far right. 

• 
• 5/30/2021
  

  Review: Lesley Blume's “Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World”

  by Lawrence Wittner

  Journalist Lesley Blume's book "Fallout" ably tells the story about how John Hersey and the New Yorker navigated government censorship and political opposition to publish Hersey's "Hiroshima," a foundational work in later movements to prevent nuclear war.

• 
• 5/23/2021
  

  The Age of Reason and the Restless Masses: Censoring Class Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century

  by Eric Berkowitz

  The ruling classes of nineteenth century Europe were gravely concerned about the potential of mass media to help upend the class structure or incite workers to revolution. Their actions didn't seek to expunge taboo ideas, but to restrict their circulation to the elites. 

• 
• SOURCE: Oprah Daily
  3/25/2021
  

  Editors Refused to Publish Richard Wright's Most Important Novel—Until Now

  "Though Wright himself considered The Man Who Lived Underground his finest work, its depiction of police brutality was so graphic, his publishers believed that it shouldn't see the light of day. When Wright submitted the work to his editor, it was turned down."

• 
• 3/21/2021
  

  The Same Mistakes Twice? Teaching Dr. Seuss

  by Walter Kamphoefner

  Step back from the current media controversy and consider how Theodor Geisel's cartooning illustrate the contradictory nature of America's posture toward foreign and domestic racism in the World War II era, a pivotal moment for the nation that must be understood in all its complication. 

• 
• SOURCE: Iowa Capital Dispatch
  3/16/2021
  

  Iowa House Passes Controversial Bill to Ban ‘Divisive Concepts’ from School Training, Curriculum

  “This bill is a denial of history,” Rep. Marti Anderson, D-Des Moines, said. “The bill doesn’t want our next generations to receive complete American history education that includes the facts of our darkest hours.”