December 17, 2016

Intellectual Freedom Highlights

• Trespassing accusation: Not “for” or “by” the library | Intellectual Freedom Blog; “If removing patrons without library agreement becomes a new political policy or strategy, it would greatly harm intellectual freedom and the safe spaces that library workers have tirelessly worked to create. The Kansas City Public Library case from May could become a new tactic for suppression of ‘dangerous’ talk.”

Censorship

• Reading racism: Don’t let books become victims of our discourse on race | The Root; “Attempting to ban books with offensive but realistic language is wrong. Historical books inform our children of how racism existed within our society.”
• Dubuque board is asked to adopt policy on obscene materials | Quad-City Times
• Accomack School District, VA
  • Holden: Accomack book policy was approved, not updated | Delmarva Now (VA)
  • Anti-censorship group urges Accomack schools to revise challenged book policy | Wavy
  • Book Banning: coming to a school district near you | Times Union
  • It All Could Have Been Avoided | Eastern Shore Post

Access

• Wireless hotspot lending program offers free internet to Santa Barbara Public Library cardholders | Noozhawk (Santa Barbara, CA)

Academic Freedom

• Orange Coast College, CA
  • Don’t Smile (You’re on Camera) | Inside Higher Ed
  • Professor leaves California due to threats | Inside Higher Ed; “The professor of psychology who was secretly videotaped talking about Donald Trump has left the state of California following a series of physical threats, The Orange County Register reported. Hundreds of people demonstrated at Orange Coast College for and against Olga Perez Stable Cox, the professor, this week, as her faculty union said her classes will be covered by someone else through the end of the semester. “Someone emailed her a picture of her house, with her address,” Rob Schneiderman, president of the campus’s faculty union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, told the Register. Another email read, ‘You want communism, go to Cuba … try to bring it to America and we’ll put a [expletive] bullet in your face,’ the newspaper reported.”

Privacy

• Tor at the Heart: Library Freedom Project | Tor Project
• The FBI’s battle against encryption puts Americans at risk | Time
• Trump, tech leaders avoided encryption and surveillance talk at summit | PC World

Hate Crimes & Libraries

• Kansas City Public Library says patron drew swastikas on window, portrait at Central Library | KHSB-41 (Kansas)
• Vandal defaces Kansas City Public Library with swastikas, hateful graffiti | The Kansas City Star; “The Kansas City Public Library condemns both the vandalism to a public institution and the sentiment behind the graffiti,” the library said in a prepared statement. “While we respect an individual’s right to free speech, we are strongly against the manner in which it was expressed.”

Net Neutrality

• Resignation of FCC chair Tom Wheeler paves the way for net neutrality battle | The Guardian; “Wheeler, who championed strong net neutrality rules, will likely be replaced by a more conservative FCC chairman under Donald Trump.”
• FCC taking hard look at ‘free’ data for video services | San Francisco Chronicle

First Amendment Issues

• Fake News May Not Be Protected Speech | Bloomberg
• Free speech on the quad | The Wall Street Journal
• Advocacy group says campus speech codes are getting less restrictive | Chronicle of Higher Education
• Prior restraint: New Jersey says judge was right to censor newspaper | The Wall Street Journal
• Unbuckling expression: A history of free speech policies at Yale | The Politic

Around the Web

• How can students be taught to detect fake news and dubious claims? | Chronicle of Higher Education
• The great American controversy: Dinner and a book ban debate | The Michigan Daily; “I’d like Vonnegut to stand and make the champagne toast, saying “I hate it that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they were diseases.” Stephen Chbosky, author of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” could stand after, saying “Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.”
• Facebook finally gets real about fighting fake news | Wired
• Are librarians the key to a Future Ready school? | eSchool News
• After Uptick, ALA Office Now Tracking Hate Crimes in Libraries | CBLDF
• A Wave of Harassment After Trump’s Victory | New York Times
• Teen Vogue’s Fiery Trump Takedown Shouldn’t Be a Surprise. Teen Vogue Rocks. | Slate; “This inclusion of diverse voices pushes the magazine in bold editorial directions. Writers are clearly encouraged to pursue their passions, which include pressing, topical issues like the Black Lives Matter movement. Of course, writers everywhere like to pursue their passions. But when you hire a diverse crew of smart people—rather than, say, a stable of mostly straight white men—you’ll wind up with a fiery denunciation of Mike Pence rather than a tedious entreaty begging minorities to be nicer to racists.”
• Why quiet-loving librarians can’t shut up about politics | New York Post

International Issues

• The silencing of writers in Turkey | The New Yorker
• Censoring Israel’s professors | Haaretz
• Ministers lead fight back against library closures as 10 out of 15 to close by August next year in Swindon | The Telegraph (UK)
• Beijing adds veneer of legal legitimacy on censorship | Human Rights Watch (China)
• Ethiopia: Government block of websites during protests widespread, systematic and illegal | Amnesty International

Office for Intellectual Freedom

• Intellectual Freedom Sale: OIF marked down dozens of intellectual freedom products! Banned book posters, T-shirts and bookmarks make the best gifts.
• Call for nominations for the Gerald Hodges IF Chapter Relations Award

ALA News

• Top 10 lobbying victories of 2016
• ALA offers libraries training in dialogue facilitation
• PLA offers post-election resources for public libraries

 

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