The Arizona Department of Corrections decided to reverse its previous ban on Paul Butler’s autobiography, Chokehold: Policing Black Men after the ACLU threatened to sue. ACLU announced the decision on Twitter, and Butler also tweeted about the decision, calling it…
Tag: arizona
ACLU Explains Banning Book Critical of Prisons Unconstitutional
Last week the ACLU wrote a letter to the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) asking them to overturn their ban on Chokehold by Paul Butler, a book that examines the racial disparities of the prison system and advocates abolition of…
VICTORY: Judge Stops Arizona’s Ban of Mexican-American Studies
Judge A. Wallace Tashima has ruled that the Arizona law targeting Tucson’s lauded Mexican American Studies program is unconstitutional and that the state cannot ban ethnic studies programs. Tashima, who had upheld the law in previous decisions, ruled in Acosta et al…
A Book Ban Closes Out Banned Books Week
We kicked off this Banned Books Week with challenges to two classics, and we’ll be wrapping up the week with news of a ban of another book: Lauren Myracle’s l8r, g8r. The book is being challenged by a parent of a…
Hearings Begin for Tucson’s Embattled Mexican American Studies Program
This week, the U.S. District Court for Arizona began hearing arguments in Acosta et al v. Huppenthal, a case that might determine the fate of Tucson’s embattled Mexican American Studies program. The Mexican American Studies program fell victim to House Bill…
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…
Arizona School District Pulls Kite Runner from Curriculum Mid-School Year
Students at Williams Field High School in Gilbert, Arizona are looking for answers after Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner was abruptly pulled from the curriculum district-wide, just as Honors English 10 classes were to start reading it. Higley Unified School…
Graphic Novelist Leila Abdelrazaq Detained, Questioned by Border Patrol Over Sketchbook
Graphic novelist Leila Abdelrazaq, who recently won critical praise for her book Baddawi, was detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Arizona for three hours last week after they spotted Arabic writing in her sketchbook. Abdelrazaq, a U.S. citizen of…
Ninth Circuit Court Finds Constitutional Problems with AZ Law that Censored Mexican American Studies Program
The students and teachers of Tucson’s now defunct Mexican American Studies program have been fighting against the Arizona state law that led to the dissolution of the program. Recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion that hopefully…
Gilbert School Board Keeps Toni Morrison’s Beloved on the Reading List
Gilbert, Arizona, public school system is once again in the news for a book challenge. This time it is Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer-Prize winning seminal novel Beloved. The Gilbert school board recently received more than 100 letters from members of the…