After coming across one instance of pixelated genitals in the YA graphic novel Mangaman, a mother in Issaquah, Washington, plans to formally request that the book be removed and/or restricted in the library at her 14-year-old son’s high school. In…
Tag: united states
Parent Complaint Leads to Censorship of Student Mural
A recent high school graduate in Scotts Valley, California is hoping to “spark a conversation about art and censorship” at her alma mater after a parent complained about nudity in her senior art project and she was given the choice…
New Jersey Parent Objects to “One-Way Thinking” in Supplemental Text
A parent in Chatham, New Jersey, is asking the local school district to remove excerpts of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States from the high school curriculum, claiming that the book encourages “one-way thinking” rather than critical…
Twenty Years Later, Walmart Regrets Pulling ‘Woman President’ Shirt
Twenty years and a political generation ago, a psychologist who studied children’s perceptions of women leaders marketed a t-shirt through her local Walmart with an empowering message: a panel from Dennis the Menace with the character Margaret proclaiming that “Someday…
CBLDF Joins Defense of Freedom to Read in Chesterfield County
CBLDF yesterday signed on to a letter from the National Coalition Against Censorship to the superintendent and school board in Chesterfield County, Virginia, defending several summer reading books that were challenged for “sexually explicit” content and urging the school district…
Virginia Lawmaker Demands Warning Labels on Summer Reading Lists
Virginia state senator Amanda Chase is continuing a censorship crusade against certain books in her local school district, now pushing for future summer reading lists to include warnings for parents on books that may be controversial. The concept is similar…
NC Legislature Confirms Would-be Censor for State Board of Education
A North Carolina lawyer who has previously advocated for censorship in his local school district was last week approved by the legislature to serve a four-year term on the State Board of Education. Most notably, J. Todd Chasteen was involved…
CBLDF’s Charles Brownstein Examines Representation and Free Expression in Comics
Earlier this year, CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein toured the exhibit Our Comics, Ourselves: Identity, Expression, and Representation in Comic Art at Brooklyn’s Interference Archive. The physical exhibit packed up in April, but it lives on as a Tumblr blog…
West Allegheny Students Petition for Freedom to Read
About 200 students of West Allegheny High School in western Pennsylvania have signed a petition asking that the full text of Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle be restored to the ninth grade reading list, after the assignment was modified…
Sedition Laws a Legacy of Colonialism Worldwide
For many Americans, the criminal offense of sedition–that is, criticism of the government–probably conjures up the notorious but short-lived Sedition Act of 1798, which played an important role in the election of 1800 but was allowed to expire the following…