September 22, 2017 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Interns

Intellectual Freedom Highlights

• Celebrate September 24-30; Posters, Buttons and Totes in the ALA Store, Free Downloads, Rebel Reader Twitter Tournament, Thunderclap, and Stand for the Banned. #BannedBooksWeek
• On Diversity and Banned Books Week | Intellectual Freedom Blog
• Read about intellectual freedom advocates in “The Interview Project” series on the Intellectual Freedom blog, including conversations with artist Karen Fiorito, historian Ibram X. Kendi, and teacher Aisha M. King
• Controversial speaker coming to campus? Free webinar on disinvited speakers and academic freedom (Tue, Sep 26, 2017 11:00 AM CST) | SAGE and OIF

Censorship

• Jefferson County administrators consider banning classic novel | Idaho Education News
  • A classic novel causing controversy | Local News 8
• In Foxboro, library exhibit on censorship is censored | The Sun Chronicle (MA)
• Nazi flags, swastika armbands: history or hate speech? | Star Tribune (MN); “A month after white supremacists took to the streets in Charlottesville, Va., organizers of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Military Relic and Weapon Collector show are banning World War II German artifacts marked with Nazi symbols and other images co-opted by hate groups.”
• Rocklin charter schools OK transgender books in elementary school | Sacramento Bee (CA)
  • Amid Transgender Book Controversy, Rocklin Academy Votes To Keep Literature Policy | CBS Sacramento
  • Here’s why 1,000 people are expected at a Rocklin charter school board meeting | The Sacramento Bee; “Administrators at a Rocklin charter school system are asking their school board to stand by policies that allowed a book about a transgender child to be read during a kindergarten story time.”
  • California School District Reaffirms Support for Teacher Who Read Transgender Books | CBLDF

Banned Books Week

• Getting Ready for Banned Books Week | ALSC blog (Association for Library Services to Children)
• Why Banning Books Doesn’t Work | NCTE
• Getting ready for Banned Books Week? Check out SLJ’s updated Pinterest board | School Library Journal
• Banned Books Week: More than the Freedom to Read | Tchers’ Voice
• Why Your Kid Should Read Banned Books | Common Sense Media
• Downtown book hunt explores the freedom to read | Frederick News Post
• Iowa City Public Library’s Intellectual Freedom Festival highlights banned children’s books | The Gazette
• Celebrate Banned Books Week with ACLU’s Yolo chapter | Davis Enterprise
• Join the Banned Books Readout Sept. 26 | Webster University
• Alameda calendar: Support library’s Banned Books Week | East Bay Times (CA); Banned Book Crafts and Reading Marathon
• Protecting the freedom of speech by opposing book banning | Fosters.com (ME)
• Banned Books Week planned at the Dickinson County Library | MI
• Membership Has Its Privileges: Putting the Kibosh on Banned Books | American Society of Journalists and Authors
• Music for the banned: S.F. concert with anticensorship theme | SF Gate
• We like banned books and we cannot lie | Nuvo (IN)
• Banned Books Week highlights McCoy Collection, buffet | SIU News (IL)
• Dark Arts and Other Wicked Ideas: Harry Potter, Banned Books and Intellectual Freedom | Eastern Illinois University
• Check it out: Librarians star in Alternative Truth Project reading of ‘Alabama Story’ | LaCrosse Tribune
• Teens argue controversial books at Debate Night at Suisun library | Daily Republic
• We like banned books and we cannot lie | Nuvo
• Opinion: Banned Books Week is important | The Maroon

Privacy

• Institutional Lack of Candor | Demand Progress  “A primer on recent unauthorized activity by the intelligence community.”
• The Evolution of Privacy within the American Library Association, 1906-2002 | Library Trends
• Protecting Patron Privacy | Choice (Podcast series
• Regulators without borders | Politico; “The borderless web allowed US tech giants to expand across the world. It’s also left them vulnerable to Europe’s ever-expanding online rules.”
• How one of Apple’s key privacy safeguards falls short | Wired
• ISPs can keep sharing your browsing history after California no-vote | Ars Technica
• California’s privacy proposal failed, but it probably violated the Constitution anyway | American Enterprise Institute
• The library and privacy of analog | The Murray State News (KY)
• Study: EU-US privacy shield essential to leading European companies | Future of Privacy Forum
• Shutterfly must face privacy suit over ‘faceprints’ | MediaPost
• See this week’s additional privacy news and updates on the Choose Privacy Week blog.

Access

• Books for 8th grade only: Reasonable or infringing on accessibility? | Knowledge Quest
• Google search lets readers find e-books at their local libraries | Search Engine Land
• The grad student who wants to bring down Trump | Chronicle of Higher Education; “Ryan Shapiro takes his crusade against government secrecy to the steps of the White House”
• ALA Disaster Relief Fund to support Caribbean islands, Mexico, Puerto Rico, library rebuilding efforts | ALA
• Disaster recovery for school libraries | Knowledge Quest
• Justice Sonia Sotomayor aims to expand scope of civics education efforts | Education Week

Net Neutrality

• Why is Net Neutrality so important to kids, libraries, consumers? | ALSC Blog (Association for Library Services to Children)
• Ajit Pai’s plan to lower broadband standards is “crazy,” FCC Democrat says | Ars Technica
• “Fake” net neutrality comments at heart of lawsuit filed against FCC| Ars Technica

Academic Freedom/ Campus Speech

• Is Retraction the New Rebuttal? | Inside Higher Ed; “Controversy over paper in favor of colonialism sparks calls for retraction as well as worries that academics are relying more on erasure than counterargument to challenge unpopular scholarship.”
  • Editorial Board of ‘Third World Quarterly’ Resigns | Chronicle of Higher Education
• A professor called students ‘future dead cops.’ Now he’s suspended. | Washington Post
• Who Is blocking campus speakers now? Inside Higher Ed
• Views among college students regarding the First Amendment: Results from a new survey | Brookings Institution
  • A chilling study shows how hostile college students are toward free speech | Washington Post
• UW-Madison’s Go Big Read book proves controversial | The Daily Cardinal (WI)
• Giving students the finger | Huffington Post; “Does academic freedom protect giving students the finger?“
• A Free-Speech divide | Chronicle of Higher Education; “Why students and professors may think differently about free expression”
• Milo Yiannopoulos and student group say Berkeley is trying to derail ‘Free Speech Week’ | Chronicle of Higher Education
  • Speaking at Berkeley with Milo Yiannopoulos? It’s news to them | Chronicle of Higher Education
• The free-speech stronghold | Chronicle of Higher Education; “Purdue U. has won praise for embracing all expression. What risk does that posture bring in an era of violence?”
• Free speech, campus safety, or both | Chronicle of Higher Education
• How to be political | Chronicle of Higher Education
• Dust-up involving conservative student sparks political uproar in Nebraska | Chronicle of Higher Education

First Amendment Issues

• Views among college students regarding the First Amendment: Results from a new survey | Brookings Institution
  • A chilling study shows how hostile college students are toward free speech | Washington Post
• Google sued by Gab, the Twitter for people banned from Twitter| Fortune
• The sex trafficking fight could take down a bedrock tech law | Wired
• How Google’s ‘free speech’ ideology facilitates sex trafficking and online censorship | Forbes
• NCAC calls Trump administration’s travel ban a violation of core free speech principles | NCAC Blog
• Speaking your mind, when free speech has consequences | Newseum Institute
• Author of key Internet freedom law opposes new sex trafficking bill | Ars Technica

Hate Speech

• Noose found hanging from tree outside Brooklyn Public Library | New York Daily News
• When hate speech isn’t a crime: Small-town football team faces this issue| Yahoo Sports

Around the Web

• The Richard Pryor Show: A master class of innovation vs. censorship | The Root
• Reclaiming the Native American swastika symbol: An interview with Steven Leyba | NCAC Blog
• . . . H-I-J-K . . . I is for “I Love My Librarian” award winner Courtney Kincaid! | The Active Voice

International Issues

• Will Germany’s new law kill free speech online? | BBC
• Political cartoonist held without charge in Equatorial Guinea | CBLDF
• China’s ‘most beautiful’ library ordered to shut over claims it provided pirated material and obscene content | South China Morning Post
• New plan to police porn at Ottawa Public Library | CTV News Ottawa
• Saudi lifting ban on Skype, WhatsApp calls, but will monitor them | Reuters
• ‘Violent Orwellian censorship’: Brussels exhibition rejects caricatures of EU leaders & policies | RT
• Publisher of school exercise book apologizes for racially charged language| CBC News
• Strasbourg Court enhances employer’s obligation to respect privacy | Lexology
• Turkish Authorities Lead In Twitter Censorship | Forbes
• Lesotho govt accused of media censorship | SABC
• European leaders ask social media companies to censor extremist speech | Christian Science Monitor

ALA News

• Your Efforts Are Helping to #saveIMLS | American Libraries
• Nation celebrates the power of words during Banned Books Week, Sept. 24 – 30, 2017
• Webinar (United for Libraries): Troubled Library Boards: Prevention and Survival | Tuesday, October 17, 2017 @ 2 pm EST

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