Intellectual Freedom News 3/15/19
March 15, 2019 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Editors
Highlight
- Jim Duncan Receives Immroth Award; Martin Garnar writes that Duncan is “an outspoken defender of intellectual freedom for his role in fighting an ongoing challenge to the statewide EBSCO subscription package, and he has become an advocate for proactive responses to potential challenges. Jim took the initiative to develop a guide for librarians called Libraries Under Attack that provides clear guidance on how to get ahead of these challenges to EBSCO.”
- ALA #FundLibraries Campaign Kicks Off for FY2020 | American Libraries
- Humble Bundle launches pay-what-you-want Linux book deal to benefit the Freedom to Read Foundation | BetaNews
Censorship
- Drag Queen Storytime at the Louisville library canceled for Derby City Sisters | Louisville Courier-Journal (KY)
- Louisville library union condemns LGBTQ ‘intolerance’ after canceled Drag Queen event | Louisville Courier-Journal (KY)
- Lawsuit alleging Colorado libraries pushed porn is dismissed | Denver Post
- Anne Arundel library board puts 16 LGBTQ, women’s health programs ‘in limbo’ | Capital Gazette (MD)
- Teen fiction and the perils of cancel culture | New York Times
- 4th Grader’s LGBTQ rights essay rejected by school as inappropriate | Pride
- Trump administration ‘censorship’ tracker shows how LGBT rights and climate change information is being wiped | Newsweek
- Wando principal recognized for standing her ground on ‘The Hate U Give’ assignment | Post & Courier (SC)
Privacy
- ‘Privacy is becoming a luxury’: What data leaks are like for the poor | Vice
- On Disability and on Facebook? Uncle Sam Wants to Watch What You Post | New York Times
- These Senators Want Homeland Security To “Pause” Its Airport Facial Recognition Program | BuzzFeed
- US uses vast license plate database to track undocumented immigrants | The Guardian
- When tax prep is free, you may be paying with your privacy | The Washington Post
- A ‘creepy’ assignment: Pay attention to what strangers reveal in public | New York Times
- A growing majority now views our online privacy as a crisis | Axios
- Breaking down proposals for privacy legislation: How do they regulate? | Brookings
- Facebook’s Data Deals Are Under Criminal Investigation | New York Times
- Facebook’s new move isn’t about privacy. It’s about domination | The Guardian
- We need a national privacy law that respects the First Amendment | The Hill
- Ajit Pai’s plan for phone location data never mentions the word “privacy” | Ars Technica
Access
- How Automated Tools Discriminate Against Black Language | Medium
- Congress wants to fund WiFi on school buses | THE Journal
- The public domain grows in 2019 | OIF Blog
Net Neutrality and Broadband Access
- Save the Internet bill introduced | American Libraries
- Democrats want to ‘save the internet.’ They’ll need Republicans’ help. | Washington Post
- ‘Net Neutrality’ remain fighting words on hill | Broadcasting & Cable
- Some Democrats are ready to water down their own net neutrality bill | Motherboard
- Why Minnesota’s broadband push is crucial to rural residents | Government Technology
- 7 key findings about mobile phone and social media use in emerging economies | Pew Research Center
Fake News, Free Press, Social Media
- Dem lawmakers unveil Journalist Protection Act amid Trump attacks on media | The Hill
- Life in a News Desert | Columbia Journalism Review
- Decline in readers, ads leads hundreds of newspapers to fold | Associated Press
- The Making of the Fox News White House | The New Yorker
- Teachings students to evaluate online information | OIF Blog
Academic Freedom & Campus Speech
- China’s Confucius Institutes have spy agencies and governments increasingly alarmed | ABC
- When students want to review a tenured professor | Inside Higher Education
- Kentucky legislature passes college free speech bill opposed by ACLU | Courier-Journal (KY)
First Amendment and Free Speech
- Hip-hop wants Supreme Court to rule, again, on when threatening to kill constitutes art | CNN
- Flipping the bird is protected by First Amendment, federal appeals court says in cop-stop case | ABA Journal
- Why the ACLU defends white nationalists’ free speech | CBS News
- Elon Musk says tweeting is free speech in his SEC battle | Wired
- Nancy Pelosi’s threat to free speech | National Review
- Compelled speech doctrine should apply in challenges to sex registration laws | Freedom Forum Institute
- Censoring students for pro-Trump clothing is problematic | Freedom Forum Institute
Around the Web
- Print books still much more popular than e-books, audiobooks | Pew Research Center
- I’m not dirty: Why calling books ‘clean’ is a problem | Book Riot
- Why I am keeping Seuss books | OIF Blog
- CCBC releases annual statistics for multicultural children’s books | School Library Journal
- 20 years after ‘Speak,’ Laurie Halse Anderson is ready to ‘Shout’ | Boston Globe
- How streaming is bringing us closer to 1984’s memory hole | Forbes
- An ABC of controversy: The Kerlan Collection tweaks exhibit in response to concerns about racist content | Publishers Weekly
- Comic book with Jesus as a character finds a new publisher | New York Times
- 30 years on and the internet is in crisis | Information Age
- Amazon pulls 2 books that promote unscientific autism ‘cures’ | New York Times
International Issues
- Moscow protesters rally against Russia’s ‘online Iron Curtain’ | DW
- Memes could be filtered out by EU copyright law | DW
- ECHR: Cancellation of passports of Turkish academics threaten academic freedoms | Amnesty International
- New law In Turkey has people in film, TV industries worried about censorship | NPR
- Academic freedom: Why do protections not apply to university leaders? | Times Higher Education
ALA News
- Freedom to Read Foundation offers 2019 Banned Books Week grants
- ALA seeks candidates for endowment fund trustee openings
- Learn how your library can fight fake news at the 2019 ALA Annual Conference
- New workshop: Active Shooter Training for Library Employees
- Hateful conduct in libraries: A new ALA resource
Subscribe to future issues of Intellectual Freedom News, a free weekly compilation of news delivered to your inbox by the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, including
- current book challenges in libraries and schools
- articles about privacy, internet filtering and censorship
- ALA activities, conferences and institutes, products, online learning opportunities, awards and grants, international exchanges, and more
- how to get involved and make the most of what ALA offers
You can also find us at Facebook, Twitter, and online. Or email us at oif@ala.org