Administrators at a Tennessee high school recently ordered the removal of a student’s LGBTQ-themed artwork from a classroom display case after other students complained about it. Principal Bobby Wines of Volunteer High School in Church Hill cited the complaints as…
Author: Maren Williams
‘Seditious’ Malaysian Artist Encourages Compatriots to Hold Government Accountable
Fahmi Reza, the Malaysian graphic designer and activist who is currently facing sedition charges for depicting Prime Minister Najib Razak as a clown, took his message of resistance to Malaysian expatriates in Australia last week. Even as his case is…
Syrian Cartoonists Persevere Despite Chaos
Six years after Syria’s uprising began, the future of the country is far from certain. But one surprising result of the turbulence is already apparent: an abrupt flowering of cartoons, comic magazines, and animated shorts spreading mostly through rebel-held areas…
Detained Hong Kong Publisher Wins Swedish Press Freedom Award
Hong Kong publisher Gui Minhai, who has been held in an undisclosed location in mainland China since October 2015 as authorities try to extract information about his customers, has been awarded the Swedish Publicists’ Association’s Anna Politkovskaya Memorial Prize for…
CBLDF Leads Defense of Manga in Idaho Middle School
CBLDF this week took the lead in defending the manga volume Sword Art Online 1: Aincrad after it was challenged at a middle school in Jerome, Idaho. Following receipt of a letter from CBLDF and other members of the NCAC’s…
Judge Finds No First Amendment Protection for Congressional Art Contest Painting
A District of Columbia circuit court judge has ruled against Rep. William Lacy Clay and David Pulphus, the 19-year-old Missouri man who sued the federal government after his painting depicting a civil rights demonstration was removed from display in a…
Tell DHS Not to Require Social Media Passwords from Foreign Travelers
A coalition of 29 advocacy organizations called Fly Don’t Spy has launched a new online petition urging Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to reject a proposal requiring refugees, visa holders and other foreign visitors to relinquish information about…
Tamakis React to Top Spot on Frequently Challenged Books List
With Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s graphic novel This One Summer topping the American Library Association’s most recent list of frequently challenged books, the cousins are speaking out on the “honor” and their thoughts on young people’s freedom to read. This…
Newspaper Readers Debate Merits of Beetle Bailey
A war of Letters to the Editor has broken out in the pages of a small Massachusetts newspaper over the content of Mort Walker’s long-running comic Beetle Bailey, with one reader labeling the strip “totally outdated and loaded with unhealthy…
CBLDF Joins Defense of The Kite Runner in Arizona
CBLDF this week joined a coalition of free-speech organizations objecting to the abrupt removal of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner from the curriculum of Higley Unified School District in Gilbert, Arizona. Although students in Honors English 10 have read the…