Lately, most of the books being attacked by censors are meant for young adult audiences. Many adults argue that the books meant for teens facilitate unsavory behaviors — teenage drinking, underage sex, and more. But teens have proven to be…
Category: Legal
Ban on Ralph Ellison’s Invisble Man Rescinded in North Carolina
Earlier this week, CBLDF protested the ban of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man by the Randolph County Board of Education in North Carolina. After the protest that erupted in response to the ban, the school board staged a special meeting on…
Banned Books Week: CBLDF Defends Banned Books and Authors
This week may be Banned Books Week, but last week was all about banning books, from the ban of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man in North Carolina, to a challenge against Eleanor & Park that led to the cancellation of a…
Banned Books Week: Challenged and Banned Comics
Because of their visual nature, comic books are an easy target for a would-be censor. What might be acceptable in a prose paragraph is not necessarily accepted in a static image. Let’s take a look at some of the titles…
Video Game Blame Game Draws Attention From Capitol Hill
Seemingly within minutes of the tragic D.C. Navy Yard shooting, video games became part of the conversation. Shooter Aaron Alexis’s friends and family mentioned Alexis’s frequent video game play, some calling it obsessive, and foreign news outlets translated this to…
Ten Years of CIPA: Free Speech and Library Internet Filters
The issue of Internet filtering in school and public libraries has been getting a lot of attention lately, as we mark ten years since the Children’s Internet Protection Act was instituted. Unfortunately, the news is not good: Filtering software remains…
Obscenity Case Files: Stanley v. Georgia
In previous editions of Obscenity Case Files we looked at cases involving mailing obscene circulars and stores selling obscene books, but we have yet to explore the private possession of obscene materials in one’s own home. In Stanley v. Georgia…
Alabama Lawmaker, Board of Ed Members Call for Ban on Bluest Eye
Only a few months after Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye was challenged in an Adams County, Colorado, school district, an Alabama state senator is calling the book “just completely objectionable” and says that it should be removed from classrooms…
Finland Censors Anti-Censorship Site
On August 28, the Supreme Administrative Court in Finland ruled that Finnish police adding a prominent anti-censorship website to its blacklist was a perfectly reasonable, not in any way illegal thing to do. Except was it? The site in question,…
Russian Artist Seeks Asylum After Authorities Shut Down His Exhibition
Russian authorities confiscated politically-charged paintings on Monday from a newly opened art gallery in St. Petersburg. As a result of the seizure, the artist fled the country and the exhibit was shut down. The paintings — one of which depicts…