Fired over rainbows, she's fighting back

PEN America's Kate Ruane called out the attempt by Republican attorneys general to remove Pride Month merchandise from Target as unconstitutional. “Perhaps the attorneys general don’t want corporations to have First Amendment rights when they are expressing disfavored messages, but the Supreme Court has held otherwise,” she writes in The Hill.

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• PEN America’s Emergency Congress of Writers held in defense of Ukrainian writers was highlighted in a story about writers taking a political stand. (Time)
   
• Book columnist Ron Charles dives into Suzanne Nossel’s claim that free speech “is at grave risk of losing its moorings within our society.” (Don’t miss the photo of Charles, a PEN America member, wearing our swag.) (The Washington Post)
   
• Using PEN America's book banning data and GPS tracking, an initiative providing free access to online copies of removed or restricted books in your area is now live. (School Library Journal)
   
• The University of Tulsa’s Switchyard Festival proceeds in the face of censorship as PEN America finds Oklahoma fifth in the nation for book bans. (Chronicle of Higher Education)

• Florida approves Black history standards saying students should learn that enslaved people “developed skills” that “could be applied for their personal benefit.” (CBS)
   
• North Carolina's new abortion law is a weapon against free speech—restricting what people can say online about abortion as well as criminalizing them at 12 weeks. (Wired)
   
• Booksellers sue over Texas law requiring rating of books for appropriateness. (Texas Tribune)
   
• Human Rights Watch’s Sophie Richardson was disinvited from a congressional hearing about China’s threats to free speech for calling out President Trump’s anti-Chinese racism. (The Hill)
   
• A Smithsonian literary festival canceled programs at the last minute over “potentially sensitive issues.” The topics in question? A book bans panels, and two events featuring queer, trans, and nonbinary writers. (The Washington Post)
   
• Two San Diego residents checked out pride books in protest. It backfired. (The New York Times)