Intellectual Freedom News 6/30/17
June 30, 2017 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Interns
Intellectual Freedom Highlights
Conejo school board hesitation sparks book ban fears | Ventura County Star (CA)
- Don’t ban books | Ventura County Star (CA)
- Conejo board will consider controversial book in August, so it likely won’t be used in fall | Ventura County Star (CA)
- “If People Don’t Read It Here, It Doesn’t Help Much” | American Libraries; “On Monday, June 26, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), the Association of American Publishers, and the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative brought together for the program “Banned Abroad: Stories of International Censorship” panelists who have worked as publishers, translators, editors, and researchers to discuss their experiences with works that have been censored or banned in their original languages.”
- 20 Years of Online Free Speech | OIF Blog; “On this day 20 years ago, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion striking down the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”). This statute constituted the first attempt by Congress to regulate the content of material on the Internet.”
Censorship
- The Line Between Speech and Censorship at Bookstores | Publisher’s Weekly
- Facebook’s secret censorship rules protect white men from hate speech but not black children | Pro Publica
- Should government ‘outsource’ censorship to Facebook and Twitter? | The Hill
- Fight Over Mexican-American Studies Ban Is Back, But So Is Arizona’s Beloved Banned Book Smuggler | Remezcla
Access
Intellectual freedom and open access: Working toward a common goal? | American Libraries- Millennials are the most likely generation of Americans to use public libraries | Pew Research Center
- Why teaching girls to code will change the workforce … and the culture | American Libraries
- Trump will continue DACA for now, though immigrant students still wonder about its future| Chronicle for Higher Education
- For homeless students, ‘education was the only way out’| Chronicle for Higher Education
- AASL Inspire Collection Development Grant: Expanding our library collection to bring together our community of learners | Knowledge Quest
- Librarians Go to Juvie | American Libraries
- Lessons From Strong Girls School | American Libraries; “How to run a gender-based library program that addresses inequality and self-esteem”
Privacy
- New TSA policy may lead to increased scrutiny of reading material | ACLU
- Remove your shoes … and your books | Times Higher Education
- Security pros, librarians holding digital privacy clinics across U.S. | Consumer Reports
- Omaha libraries loosen security footage policy for police | Omaha World-Herald
- Google purges private medical records from search | Engadget
- Nursing home workers still posting nude and vulgar photos of residents on Snapchat | ProPublica
- Presidential commission demands massive amounts of state voter data |ProPublica
- Illinois “Geolocation Privacy Protection Act” Passes Both Houses, Headed to Governor’s Desk | Lexology
See more privacy updates on the Choose Privacy Week blog.
Net Neutrality
Academic Freedom
- Protect scholars against attacks from the right | Inside Higher Ed
- No Academic Freedom for Teachers | Education Week
- Trinity College of Conn. closes over threats after conservative website targets professor | Chronicle for Higher Education
- Trinity Community Debates Placing Professor On Leave | Hartford Courant
- More questions for UNC about academic freedom and cancellation of sports history course | Courier-Tribune (NC)
First Amendment Issues
- As a free-speech bill advances in Wisconsin, some fear a chilling effect | Chronicle for Higher Education
- Symposium: Is Free Speech Under Threat in the United States? | Commentary
- Supreme Court unanimously reaffirms: There is no ‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment | Washington Post
- Supreme Court rules the government can’t refuse to register trademarks considered offensive| Politico
- The case for restricting hate speech| Los Angeles Times
- Dueling alt-right rallies, separated by anti-Semitism, face off in DC despite calls to “unite the Right” | Southern Poverty Law Center
- 30 years after Edwards v. Aguillard: Why creationism lingers in public schools| San Francisco Chronicle
- Can words kill? Guilty verdict in texting suicide trial raises questions | ABC News
- Can speech be a murder weapon? | Newseum Institute
- A conservative defense of free speech for a black activist | Chronicle for Higher Education
- There’s a constitutional right to use social media, Supreme Court says | Ars Technica
- Results of the 2017 state of the first amendment survey released| Newseum Institute
- Justice Alito and the government speech doctrine| Newseum Institute
- Why protect speech we don’t want to hear? Because we need to hear it. | Newseum Institute
Around the Web
- Ala. high school class pulls conservative reading list after backlash | The Hill
- Happy Birthday, Harry Potter | American Libraries
- SCOTUS turns Trump’s travel ban into a de facto refugee ban| Wired
- With new books coming out, Hillary Clinton pays homage to librarians in Chicago speech | Chicago Tribune
- The Tougaloo Nine Remembered | American Libraries; “Geraldine Edwards Hollis was one of nine young African American students at the historically black Tougaloo College in Mississippi who were arrested for entering the whites-only public library in Jackson on March 27, 1961. In a Sunday program titled “Desegregating Public Libraries,” Hollis told what happened that day, when they requested books not held by the “colored” branch of the library and were arrested by police because they did not belong there. ”
- More than 100 federal agencies fail to report hate crimes to the FBI’s national database | ProPublica
- Justices ask lower courts to reconsider rulings blocking religious school aid | Education Week
- The president just praised students whose pro-Trump messages were edited out of their yearbook | Washington Post
- Librarian offers tips for handling ugly book challenges | Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
- ISTE participants respond to spike in fake news websites | THE Journal
- In defense of cultural appropriation | New York Times; “What is cultural appropriation, and why is it so controversial? Susan Scafidi, a law professor at Fordham University, defines it as “taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission.”
- Nominations invited for annual Downs Intellectual Freedom Award | iSchool at Illinois
- NCAC’s executive director honored for free speech advocacy by the Freedom to Read Foundation | NCAC
- Judd Apatow on ‘The Big Sick’ and clean movies censorship: ‘It’s pretty sleazy’ | 9 News (CO)
- SLJ’s guide to pride: 20 titles spotlighting LGBTQA+ experience| School Library Journal
- First amendment center launches podcast| Newseum Institute
International Issues
- Germany raids homes of 36 people accused of hateful postings over social media | New York Times
- Top Canadian court permits worldwide internet censorship| Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Teenagers will have the right to wipe their Facebook profiles when they turn 18 under new UK data protection bill | Mirror (UK)
- German court criticizes Google’s right-to-be-forgotten procedures | IAPP
- Tycoon’s claims reverberate in China despite censorship and thin evidence | New York Times
- Chinese censorship of Weibo creates an opportunity | Forbes
- Moves against Polish museum and Hungarian university stir fears of censorship | Christian Science Monitor
- New Berkman Klein Center study examines global internet censorship | Harvard Law Today
- Kenya censorship board bans six “pro-gay” cartoons | Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
- Daughter of detained bookseller asks foreign governments to pressure China | Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
ALA News
- Open call for submissions to Journal of Intellectual Freedom & Privacy
- Every child has a right to read; “Reading by Right” available in the ALA Store
- New Session: Creating Inclusive Storytimes for ALL Children; August 17
- New Workshop: Cyber Security and Privacy: Protecting Yourself and Your Users; July 6
- Nominate a librarian for 2017 I Love My Librarian Award
- ALISE Awards, Grants, and Competitions: The Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) sponsors several funding opportunities, including the the
- Fight for Libraries! Include #SaveIMLS on Twitter when you advocate for libraries.
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