A new manga series was cancelled last week just days before it was to debut online, apparently because the publisher was concerned it might clash with Tokyo’s Youth Healthy Development Ordinance. Creator Arisa Yamamoto said on her blog that editors…
Author: Maren Williams
INDEPENDENCE DAY: Gear Up for Banned Books Week with CBLDF
It’s Independence Day. In the midst of cookouts and fireworks, it’s a good time to reflect on the liberties we have — and often take for granted — including the right to free speech and the freedom to read anything…
Pasco County Response on Paper Towns Falls Short
Yesterday we told you about the letter from the National Coalition Against Censorship, signed by CBLDF and other anti-censorship organizations, urging Florida’s Pasco County School District to restore Paper Towns by John Green to an eighth grade summer reading list.…
CBLDF Joins Call to Restore Paper Towns in Pasco County
Following last week’s news that John Green’s Paper Towns was removed from a summer reading list in Pasco County, Florida without due process, CBLDF yesterday joined a coalition calling on the school district to restore the book and to follow…
Delaware School Board Removes The Miseducation of Cameron Post From Reading List
Yet another school district, in Delaware this time, has removed a book from a summer reading list without following its own procedure for reviewing challenged materials. The Cape-Gazette newspaper reported today that the Cape Henlopen school board voted on June…
Oregon School Board Overrules Pre-emptive Ban on Absolutely True Diary
Here’s some good news to start the week: The school board in Grants Pass, Oregon has approved Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian for use in 10th-grade English classes after it was initially rejected by the district’s…
Supreme Court Says No to Warrantless Cellphone Searches by Police
As you may have heard, this week the Supreme Court unanimously decided that police must obtain a warrant to search the cellphone of someone they arrest. What does this mean for comics fans and professionals? We’re glad you asked! First,…
Florida School District Removes Paper Towns From Reading List
Florida seems to be the place for unilateral book bans this summer. A few weeks after a Pensacola high school principal cancelled an entire summer reading program rather than let students read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, now a Tampa-area school…
The Sims Prove That LGBT Characters Are Family-Friendly
For a long time, the common wisdom among publishers, movie studios, and other gatekeepers of content has held that LGBT characters are verboten in mainstream all-ages material. LGBT content is a frequent target of censors, and as we saw in…
Pakistani Political Cartoonist Mourns Free Expression
Pakistani political cartoonist Sabir Nazar is lucky. He’s currently in Washington, DC for a six-month fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy, just as extremist attacks against journalists are ramping up in his home country. A few days ago he…