May 11, 2018 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Editors

Intellectual Freedom Highlights

• Win literary prizes, support intellectual freedom at ALA Annual Conference
• Librarians Cannot Self-Censor or Capitulate To “George” Complaints | School Library Journal

Censorship

• ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ survives school board challenge | WSAU News (Monona, WI)
  • ‘Mockingbird’ appeal denied by board | The Herald-Independent (WI)
• Book about transgender child sparks controversy in elementary schools | Education Week
  • Lake Oswego School District stands behind book at center of state ‘battle’ | Portland Tribune
• School board member in O’Fallon, Ill., calls kids’ book ‘social indoctrination.’ Parents want him out | St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Group voices concern over new science textbooks in Collier County schools | WINK (FL)
• PETA sues Texas A&M over Facebook comments the university removed | Dallas News
• Why Spotify’s decision to censor artists opens a bottomless rabbit hole | The Federalist
• PETA sues Texas A&M over Facebook comments the university removed | Dallas News
• Gender bias lesson leads to policy changes–and questions for school librarians | OIF Blog

Privacy

• Supreme Court upholds privacy rights for unauthorized rental car drivers in search and seizure case | CNN
• School Officials Urge Congress to Update Student-Data Privacy Law | Education Week
• IBM executives press U.S. lawmakers not to adopt EU privacy law | Bloomberg
• Bill Introduced To Prevent Government Agencies From Demanding Encryption Backdoors | Techdirt
• Facebook suspends 200 apps as part of investigation into data misuse | The Guardian
• Huge new Facebook data leak exposed intimate details of 3m users | New Scientist
• World map of encryption laws and policies |  Global Partners Digital
• Google’s File on Me Was Huge. Here’s Why It Wasn’t as Creepy as My Facebook Data. | New York Times

See this week’s additional privacy news and updates on the Choose Privacy Week blog.

Net Neutrality and Broadband Access

• Senate votes to save net neutrality; resolution faces uphill battle in the House | ABA Journal
• Senate approves bipartisan resolution to restore FCC net neutrality rules | Washington Post
• This is Ajit Pai, nemesis of net neutrality | Wired
• After senate vote on net neutrality, DC responds | Benton Foundation
• The rise of the free urban internet | Axios

Access

• A student’s perspective: Accessibility improvements your college might consider| Chronicle of Higher Education
• Accessibility Awareness | The User Experience | Library Journal
• Sweden cancels Elsevier contract as open-access dispute spreads | Times Higher Education
• 64 years after Brown v. Board, many schools are separate and unequal | Education Week; “Sixty-four years since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the principle of “separate but equal” education, public schools in many communities remain highly segregated and schools where students of color are the majority usually lag behind those with majority white student bodies on things like access to rigorous courses and school-based librarians.”

Filters

• Databite No. 109: Safiya Umoja Noble on Algorithms of Oppression | Data & Society
• Boulder Valley school board talks technology, internet filtering at work session | Daily Camera (CO)
• Which Businesses (or Which Filter Manufacturers) Are Blocking Our Blog? | Reason

Free Press, Social Media, and Fake News

• Twitter announces global change to algorithm in effort to tackle harassment | The Guardian
• Searching for alternative facts | Data and Society
• Digital journalism’s disappearing public record, and what to do about it | Columbia Journalism Review

Academic Freedom and Campus Speech

• Turkish government targets thousands of academics | IFEX
• If you’re worried about free speech on campus, don’t fear students–fear the Koch brothers | Pacific Standard
• Letter: George Mason University and the Charles Koch Foundation are protecting academic freedom | Washington Post
• How George Mason will take the controversy out of its gift agreements | Chronicle of Higher Education
• ‘Speak freely’ and ‘hate’ Reviews: Teaching tolerance | Wall Street Journal

First Amendment and Free Speech

• Mount Pleasant village officials threaten and censor Foxconn area residents | Urban Milwaukee
• Aurora Public Library poem controversy: A matter of free speech or common sense? | OIF Blog
• Free Speech Or A Threat? Vermont Supreme Court Decision Highlights Continuing Tension | Vermont Public Radio
• Big Sky High School student suspended for repeatedly wearing Confederate flag sweatshirt | The Missoulian (MT)
  • MCPS lawyer: Schools can ban Confederate flags | The Missoulian (MT)
• Parole officer is garcettized, loses First Amendment retaliation case | Freedom Forum Institute
• President’s press credential threat will be ‘trumped’ by First Amendment | Freedom Forum Institute

Around the Web

• The Other Infrastructure Crisis: Inequality and the Chronic Problems of American Democracy | Knight First Amendment Institute
• “Stand” Radio Hour drama explores political and intellectual freedom | OIF Blog
• Parents & intellectual curiosity | OIF Blog
• Librarians, youth reading and intellectual freedom: Historical and contemporary views | Knowledge Quest
• I don’t censor the books my children read. I think they’ll be stronger for it. | Washington Post
• The Librarian Identity Crisis | American Libraries
• Resistance, far from futile, is an an artistic triumph that spans cultures | Los Angeles Times
• HBO’s Fahrenheit 451 is one of the key pop culture works of the Trump era | Vulture
• Fahrenheit 451 makes old-fashioned book burning new again | Toronto Star
• ’13 Reasons Why’ wades deeper into controversial territory in Season 2 | Los Angeles Times
• As Childish Gambino shows, pop music can be powerfully political – despite censorship | The Conversation
• Junot Díaz steps down as Pulitzer chairman amid review of misconduct allegations | New York Times
• Justice Owen Roberts’ most memorable First Amendment passages| Freedom Forum Institute

International Issues

• Hong Kong, mainland China, and the banned booksellers’ Plight | OIF Blog
• Vatican’s Inquisition, index of banned books open for study | ABC News
• There is a crisis of free speech in university – and the govt implemented it | Politics.co.uk
• Chinese broadcaster censors LGBT symbols at Eurovision | BBC
• Iran expands its war on messaging apps and social media | Arab News
• Civil liberties group unveils Repeal mural, calls out ‘chilling effect’ of censorship | Irish Times
• Leading Israeli playwright faces ‘censorship’ at home | The Medialine
• A mother wants the internet to forget Italy’s most viral sex tape | The Atlantic
• Reporters without borders Germany brilliantly bypasses government censorship | German Pulse
• Turkey suspends French studies over Koran criticism | Times Higher Education

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