Intellectual Freedom News 2/17/17
February 17, 2017 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Interns
Intellectual Freedom Highlights
- Two ALA committees that worked for you and your students at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting | Knowledge Quest; “The actions of [The ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee and the IFC Privacy Subcommittee] affect school librarians and their students’ right to freely access information, read books of their choice, and be assured of privacy when using their school libraries.”
- Trigger Warnings and Emotional Distress | School Library Journal; “Supporters say that advance warning about certain types of content serve to protect students from trauma they may experience while absorbing passages involving violence, sexual situations, or other content. Opponents claim that a warning amounts to the same thing as labeling a book, leading down a slippery slope to censorship. Such warnings, they say, fail to take into account the whole book, including its literary quality and approach to a topic.”
- College is too late to teach free speech | Chronicle of Higher Education “Not only do public schools fail to teach the principles underlying free expression and dissent, but they also often censor and punish controversial constitutionally protected speech of all sorts. Whether inadvertently or by design, they teach that students should be insulated from upsetting ideas, intellectual conflict, and wounding words and images.
News You Can Use
- A guide to getting past customs with your digital privacy intact | Wired
- What are your rights if border agents want to search your phone? | New York Times
- How to legally cross a US (or other) border without surrendering your data and passwords | BoingBoing
- What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border? | Ars Technica
- Immigration Officers’ Authority to Apprehend and Remove Aliens: Questions & Answers in Brief | Congressional Research Service
Censorship
- ‘Eleanor & Park’ still out, but book will go to reconsideration committee | Yamhill Valley News Register (OR)
- School district backtracks on hasty decision over controversial book | KATU News (OR)
- Without review, Oregon middle school removes Eleanor & Park after parents complain | NCAC Blogging Censorship
- Jay High School’s book ban sets ‘dangerous precedent’ | Santa Rosa’s Press Gazette (FL)
- Marshfield school officials to review ‘explicit’ book | WSAU News; Frances Bohon chairs the district’s Curriculum and Instruction Committee and says, use of the book “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls will be re-examined. “We actually had a formal complaint, and the issue was language and ideas put forth in the book by someone with addictions and mental illness. That book has been forwarded on to the instructional materials complaint process, which is the materials reconsideration committee that will be convened to actually read the book and decide on that, and then make a recommendation to the superintendent,” Bohon explained.
- Wisconsin Supreme Court wrestles over open meetings law | Star Tribune (WI); “The committee met for five months and forwarded a recommended list of 23 books that could be taught in the course. The school board adopted that list in 2012. The issue before the Supreme Court is whether a formal committee, created by school district officials and not the school board, is a “governmental body” subject to the open meetings law. That law refers only to “governmental bodies” created by the constitution, law, local ordinance or “rule or order.”
- Freedom of the student press: Bill would limit administrator’s ability to censor school publications | News and Tribune (IN)
- Does Siouxland libraries ban books? | Argus Leader (SD)
- Mom declines to testify at censorship hearing about boy who took drugs to school| The Trentonian
- 10 years after a challenge: An interview with Johanna Freivalds | Intellectual Freedom Blog
- History proves censoring free speech is ineffective | The Daily Californian
- Censorship versus free speech at a very local level | San Francisco Chronicle
- UCLA banned my book on Islam from a free speech event | The Hill
Hate Speech and Libraries
- Hijab cultural event hits a nerve in Northfield | The Current (NJ); “Hiers said some of the comments were so inflammatory that she turned them over to the Northfield Police Department for review.”
Access
- Trump White House takes down website pages about disabilities | Washington Post
- DIY Usability: First-Click Testing | The User Experience| Library Journal
- Resources for resettlement: How libraries can help refugees and asylum seekers adjust to their new country | American Libraries
- Trump administration court filing may signal shift on transgender rights | Education Week
Privacy
- The Future of Digital Rights is a Library Card | New America
- Encryption apps help White House staffers leak—and maybe break the law | Wired
- House members: EPA officials may be using Signal to “spread their goals covertly” | Ars Technica
- Tech groups gear up for FISA surveillance fight | PC World
- Now sites can fingerprint you online even when you use multiple browsers | Ars Technica
- Privacy groups claim FBI hacking operation went too far | PC World
- Edward Snowden’s new job: Protecting reporters from spies | Wired
- Why is a university’s top lawyer seeking an outspoken professor’s emails? | Chronicle of Higher Education
Filters
- Florida bill would create mandatory filter for obscene material on mobile devices | Action News Jax (FL)
- A court order blocked pirate sites that weren’t supposed to be blocked | Ars Technica
Net Neutrality
- Net neutrality is in danger. Tell the FCC why we need it | The Nation
- Net neutrality fix faces hard sell | The Hill
Academic Freedom
- Trump travel ban limits academic freedom | The Missoulian (MT)
First Amendment Issues
- Library a free speech flashpoint: Petition drive leads county to explore policy on rights | Mohave Valley Daily News (AZ)
- Protest rights under threat | On the Media
- Free speech arguments prevail in Tobinick v. Novella/ |CBLDF
- Washington Supreme Court denies constitutional claims of florist in same-sex wedding refusal | Constitutional Law Prof Blog
- Eighth Circuit says restrictions on university trademark for student NORML group violate free speech | Constitutional Law Prof Blog
- Judge Gorsuch shows sensitivity to First Amendment issues | Newseum Institute
- State lawmakers seek to force public colleges to protect speech rights | Chronicle of Higher Education
- Virginia House OKs bill on campus free speech| The Daily Progress (VA)
- Campus free speech bill moves forward in state Senate | The Journal (CO)
- Scott Walker wants law requiring UW officials to protect offensive speech | The Cap Times (WI)
- Don’t prohibit Milo Yiannopolous from returning to UC Berkeley | The Daily Californian
- The law and you: Hate speech protected by Constitution | Press-Republican (NY)
- First Amendment needs protecting from liberals, say Republican legislators | Nashville Scene (TN)
- Talking it out | Inside Higher Ed; “Brown U’s series on campus speech faces its first test, with a scholar using racial and religious slurs to make a point during a talk. Some students were offended, and one challenged him — but not his right to speak.”
Around the Web
- Washington Supreme Court rules against florist in same-sex wedding case | CBS News
- My Valentine to the Office of Intellectual Freedom | Intellectual Freedom Blog
- Neither App nor Algorithm | Intellectual Freedom Blog; “One of the ways that libraries and librarians help nourish the idea of intellectual freedom is by maintaining integrity in both our collections and our interactions with patrons. That integrity, in part, devolves from a clear-eyed perspective of classifying content in an appropriate fashion.”
- Introducing Thomas Paine to your library
- An inside look at librarians, schools, and the political climate | School Library Journal
- The Macedonian teens who mastered fake news | Wired
- The fight against fake news is putting librarians on the front line – and they say they’re ready | Christian Science Monitor
- Schools Study How To Avoid Fake | TV News Check
- Beyond Fake News | Peer to Peer Review | Library Journal
- Trump satire book causing quite a stir at VCPL/ | WTHITV (IN)
- South Park to Sesame Street: the TV censorship hall of fame | The Guardian
- What To Read (and Watch) After “1984” | Library Journal
- Fox censor almost stopped the Simpsons from airing gay episode | The Advocate
International Issues
- Barcelona explores censorship | Intellectual Freedom Blog
- Ukrainian librarian under Russian house arrest takes case to court of human rights | The Guardian
- Mother is shocked after her daughter, 12, brought a book home from school containing a ‘graphic’ glossary of sex terms |Daily Mail (UK)
- School cancels visit from award-winning trans author as it’s ‘inappropriate’ | Pink News (UK)
- Prevent is not a safety net – it is a programme designed to censor academic freedom | The Telegraph (UK)
- Spiked: nine out of 10 UK universities ‘restrict free speech’ | Times Higher Education (UK)
- Google wins ‘Right to be Forgotten’ case in Japanese Supreme Court Public’s right to know -v- Individual’s right to privacy | Lexology
Office for Intellectual Freedom News
ALA News
- ALA to launch Book Club Central with Sarah Jessica Parker
- A scalable guide to getting started with digital collections
- New resolution addresses accurate information and media manipulation
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