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…
Tag: united states
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over the content of Mort Walker’s long-running comic Beetle Bailey, with one reader labeling the strip “totally outdated and loaded with unhealthy…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…
Bradbury Biographer Warns of Dystopian Future Without School Librarians
Few would disagree that in the current context of rampant misinformation, students in public schools must be trained to seek out reliable facts and assess sources. Nevertheless, every year more and more school librarians–the professionals who teach those exact skills–are…
New Jersey Parents Accuse School District of ‘Islamic Indoctrination’ via Animated Video
Two parents of public school students in Chatham, New Jersey have hired lawyers to represent them in a fight against what they label “Islamic indoctrination” in a middle school geography unit on world religions. In particular, Libby Hilsenrath and Nancy…
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…
Proposed Federal Budget Cuts Funding to Local Libraries and Museums
Media coverage of cuts in the proposed federal budget unveiled by President Trump last week has focused on several well-known and important programs: the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the federal funds…
Arkansas Bill Would Ban Howard Zinn Books from Classrooms Statewide
A state legislator in Arkansas earlier this month introduced a bill with a very specific and highly unconstitutional goal: to ban all books by or about historian Howard Zinn from public school classrooms in the state. The bill is scheduled…
Florida Classroom Censorship Bills Return for Second Year
Much like Virginia, the state of Florida now has its own set of “zombie bills” that have returned to the legislature for the second year running, in an attempt to weaken education standards and allow any taxpayer–not just parents–to raise…
Parent Group Demands Changes or Cancellation for Illinois High School’s Civil Rights Seminar Day
Some parents in the northern suburbs of Chicago are complaining that an innovative all-day seminar on civil rights at New Trier High School will be “biased, unbalanced, [and] divisive.” Award-winning authors Andrew Aydin and Colson Whitehead are scheduled to speak…