Intellectual Freedom News 9/12/2025
Highlights
- ALA invites applicants for $3.5 million in grants during round four of the historic Libraries Transforming Communities: Accessible Small and Rural Communities initiative | ALA
- ALA warns FCC Proposed Action Would Cut Off Internet for Library Patrons and Cost Libraries Nationwide | ALA
- As Censorship Escalates, Little Free Library Updates Its Book Ban Map | Publishers Weekly
Censorship
- Who Is Lori the Librarian, The New Idol of The Book Banners? | Well Sourced
- ‘This is how it starts’: Michigan activists unite to push back against far-right censorship | Michigan Advance (MI)
- Free speech group reminds Florida schools they can’t enforce law used to remove books | Tallahassee Democrat (FL)
- Court Blocks Huntington Beach Library Restrictions, Upholding Freedom to Read | Davis Vanguard (CA)
- Jenner & Block Secures Pro Bono Victory in Huntington Beach Library Censorship Case | Jenner & Block (CA)
- How I Ran Afoul of the Air Force Academy | New York Times (CO)
- West Point Alumni Group Cancels Award Honoring Tom Hanks | New York Times (NY)
- ‘Painful to watch’: Are books at Hartland’s Cromaine Library being censored? | Livingston Daily (MI)
- Harford County parents hold ‘read-in’ to protest school board decision to ban book | WBAL (MD)
- Alabama libraries could stop children from seeing books that ‘positively depict’ transgender people | AL.com (AL)
- Rockingham County School Board bans 4 of final 6 books on book ban list | WHSV (VA)
- 2 books banned in unanimous vote across Hillsborough Public Schools | WFLA (FL)
- Hillsborough school board votes to remove more books | Tampa Bay Times (FL)
- Ewell: It Isn’t About Any One Book, It’s About Limits to Government Power | Voice of OC (CA)
- These sex-ed books were removed from kids’ sections at metro Phoenix libraries | AZ Central (AZ)
- Garrett-Keyser-Butler school board votes to ban 6 books | WANE (IN)
Privacy & Cybersecurity
- The New Face of Privacy: Why COPPA’s Expanded Definition of PII Matters | Lexology
- Trump Administration Quietly Seeks to Build National Voter Roll | New York Times
- US tech companies enabled the surveillance and detention of hundreds of thousands in China | Boston Globe
First Amendment & Civil Rights
- Federal Court Grants Temporary Restraining Order Blocking Latest New Hampshire Law Attacking Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion | ACLU (NH)
- Oklahoma law banning critical race theory faces legal challenge | KOCO (OK)
- Arizona Republicans seek to expel lawmaker who reposted Ice raid information | Guardian (AZ)
- Durham leaders pass ‘Fourth Amendment workplace’ to help protect city workers from ICE raids | WTVD (NC)
- Thousands protest for a ‘Free DC’ on the fourth week of federal control in Washington | WFMJ (DC)
- More states guarantee students the right to school-day religious instruction off campus | Stateline
- Arab Student Union Wins D.C. Public School Guideline Changes in Settlement of Pro-Palestinian Speech Censorship Lawsuit | ACLU (DC)
- MAGA darling lawyer who took Biden to Supreme Court now calls Trump ‘way worse’ | Independent
- Trump vows to protect prayer in public schools with new Department of Education guidance | USA Today
- White House Exerts Enormous Influence Over F.B.I., Lawsuit Says | New York Times
- Confederate school name violates Virginia students’ First Amendment rights, judge rules | NBC News (VA)
- Brett Kavanaugh’s Shadow Docket Attack on Your Civil Liberties | New Republic
- Briefs filed in LEARNS lawsuit that challenges state’s prohibition on ‘indoctrination’ in schools | Arkansas Democrat Gazette (AR)
- Florida parents take gender pronoun dispute at school to U.S. Supreme Court | Tallahassee Democrat (FL)
Academic Freedom & Student Speech
- The Victory for Harvard Is a Victory for Democracy | Inside Higher Ed (MA)
- Why Harvard’s faculty union aims to block any ‘backroom deal’ | Politica (MA)
- We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself | New York Times
- Trump says higher ed is too liberal. Tufts launched a center to tackle that issue | MassLive (MA)
- ‘The biggest danger for universities comes from autocrats, wannabe autocrats, anti-scientists, and pseudoscientists’ | LSE
- Indiana University ranked as U.S.’s worst public college for free speech | IndyStar (IN)
- Harvard is back to school for a year that will be a test case in free speech, students and staff say | NBC News (MA)
- The “Secret Weapon” in Right-Wing Attacks on Higher Education | Academe Magazine
- US colleges, universities in a First Amendment ‘free-fall’: Report | Black Mountain News
- Texas A&M University Removes Dean After Viral Video Depicting Trans-Inclusive Education | Them
- 2 Texas A&M Administrators and Professor Out After Viral Video | Inside Higher Ed (TX)
State & Local Governance
- Montana DPHHS will modify sex education curriculum to remove ‘gender ideology’ content | News from the States (MT)
- As local governments struggle with budgets, they discover libraries, museums as new revenue sources | Daily Montanan (MT)
- Interlibrary loan program for Bay, Gulf, Liberty counties ends because of federal funding loss | Panama City News Herald (FL)
Copyright
Net Neutrality & Broadband Access
Social Media & AI
- Meta suppressed research on child safety, employees say | Washington Post
- Anthropic Agrees to Pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Lawsuit With Book Authors | New York Times
- ‘Civil War’ Mentions Surge Online After Kirk Assassination | New York Times
Journalism & Media
- CBS Abruptly Changes Editing Rules After Attacks From Administration | New York Times
Disinformation & Media Literacy
- America Surrenders in the Global Information Wars | Atlantic
- Russia Steps Up Disinformation Efforts as Trump Abandons Resistance | New York Times
- Science is under siege from weaponised disinformation – posing a threat to human civilisation | Guardian
- What Germany Did That America Still Hasn’t | New York Times
- You Might Have Already Fallen for MAHA’s Conspiracy Theories | New York Times
- Russia’s disinformation campaign toward Finland mirrors the buildup to its brutal invasion of Ukraine | Milwaukee Independent
- The Dual Assault of Drones and Disinformation on Poland | Visegrad Insight
International
- Police in Nepal open fire on protesters outside parliament, killing 17 | CNN (Nepal)
- Library bodies wrangle censorship question but warn of deeper issues | Bookseller (United Kingdom)
- Alberta revises school book ban policy to focus on sexual images | Global News (Canada)
- EDITORIAL: Restricting books is a no-win situation | Summerland Review (Canada)
- British Courts Service Destroys Banksy Mural Depicting Attack by Judge | New York Times (United Kingdom)
- Leak reveals China is exporting internet censorship technology | Globe and Mail (China)
- China pilots village surveillance in Solomon Islands, seeks stability | Reuters (Solomon Islands)
Around the Web
- Reading Skills of 12th Graders Hit a New Low | New York Times
- An Open Letter to UVA President Teresa Sullivan | Los Angeles Review of Books
- Punta Gorda Charlotte Library displays ‘banned books’ | Gulf Coast News
- Readerlink Buying Baker & Taylor | Shelf Awareness
- Trump’s war on his perceived enemies is escalating: faster, broader, harsher | Diving into Data & Decision making
- ‘The Librarians,’ Awards Hopeful Doc About Texas Book Bans From Sarah Jessica Parker, Drops First Trailer and Global Release Plans | Variety
- Library celebrates Banned Books Week with author Jason Reynolds | Herald Democrat
- San Diego Public Library cuts slash Monday hours, prompt ‘great reshuffling’ of librarians citywide | San Diego Union-Tribune
- Stop Acting Like This Is Normal | New York Times
- State libraries facing challenges of aging infrastructure, underfunding and politics | CBS6 Albany
- In a Lifetime of Causes, Eleanor Roosevelt Stood for the Freedom to Read | PEN America
- River Valley City Elders beat subpoena after Monday court hearing in Crawford County library director lawsuit | Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette
- Charlie Kirk Assassination Raises Fear of Surging Political Violence | New York Times
- The War for the Imagination | Meditations in an Emergency
ALA News
- Core Webinar: Rebooting Complex, Intractable Library Services
- Empowering student volunteers in the school library
- American Library Association announces 2026 Youth Media Awards Public Announcement Date and Location
- Core Webinar: Retroactive Addition of Homosaurus: An Evaluation (November 2025)
- Carnegie-Whitney Grant awards up to $5,000 for guides to library resources
- American Library Association’s Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table Establishes Islamic Information Committee
- 2026 Jason Reynolds / Simon & Schuster Travel Grant Application Now Open
- AI-powered cataloging
- Crafting ethical narratives for advocacy and impact
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