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Dear Friends,
At this week’s Democratic debate, Sen. Kamala Harris, who’s proposed booting President Trump from Twitter, challenged Sen. Elizabeth Warren to take that same position. While it might be satisfying for some to see Trump kicked off the platform, my colleague Summer Lopez and I wrote in the Washington Post this month that silencing the president is neither achievable nor wise.
It was yet another instance of how debates over free expression will continue to move to the center of our politics as we gear up for 2020. The threats of misinformation and fraudulent news – not to mention the violent threats against journalists entertained at a Trump resort – mean that we’re working harder than ever to defend open, fact-based exchange.
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| A PEN America event in Birmingham, home to one of our newest Member-led chapters |
As part of that effort, we are launching a new initiative to strengthen our Membership network nationwide. This week, we debuted six new PEN America chapters in key regions. These new chapters – in Austin, Birmingham, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, the Piedmont Region of North Carolina, and Tulsa – are led by PEN America Members and extend the reach of PEN America’s New York headquarters and offices in Washington and Los Angeles. At a time when our discourse is under threat, these chapters will bring our work organizing readers and writers to the next level.
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| PEN America, the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, and the Chair of the U.S. Federal Election Commission Ellen L. Weintraub convened a half-day symposium in Washington, D.C., on digital disinformation |
On the digital side, we have been at the forefront of efforts to get the government and tech giants to come to grips with the power of disinformation to pollute our discourse and impair the search for truth. In mid-September, we joined forces with Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub and Stanford’s Digital Policy Incubator to host a symposium on the risks that disinformation poses for the 2020 campaign. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Recode’s Kara Swisher, and representatives from Twitter, Facebook, and Google joined us for bracing conversations. You can read a recap here.
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| PEN America’s report "Secret Sources: Whistleblowers, National Security, and Free Expression" reveals massive holes in the laws and regulations covering whistleblowing by intelligence workers |
We’ve also been actively commenting on the free expression issues surfaced amid the impeachment inquiry in Washington. Four years ago, we wrote a now-prescient study on gaps in protections for national security whistleblowers. We’ve been spotlighting that issue in the press and will work to ensure that these holes are plugged in the future now that lawmakers and the public are waking up to the threats whistleblowers face.
As the president continues to retaliate against journalists he dislikes, we marked one year since filing suit against him for using the mechanisms of the White House to punish the press. We also supported PEN Member Brian Karem in his First Amendment case against the president; the White House revoked his press credential only to later be forced by a federal judge to restore it. We launched national efforts to defend press access to migrant detention centers and to fight back against government surveillance of journalists reporting on the immigration crisis. We hosted a panel discussion on those restrictions at a spotlight event for the inaugural Los Angeles Press Freedom Week.
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| PEN America’s Suzanne Nossel at the Brooklyn Book Festival with Joy-Ann Reid, Jami Floyd, and Jim Acosta |
As part of this year’s Brooklyn Book Festival, in addition to recruiting new Members, we hosted a panel discussion “Breaking the News,” where I joined PEN America Member Jim Acosta of CNN, MSNBC's Joy-Ann Reid, and Jami Floyd of WNYC for a lively discussion about protecting press freedom.
We’ve also been ensuring that journalists and others are prepared for the harassment they may face online with our Online Harassment Field Manual.
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| The Online Harassment Field Manual contains effective strategies and resources that writers, journalists, their allies, and their employers can use to defend against cyber hate and fight online abuse |
PEN America held online harassment self-defense trainings for staff at the San Diego Union Tribune and for attendees of the Online News Association’s annual conference, and we participated in panel discussions on “Building Resilience to Online Violence” at the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual conference. Responding to doxxing allegations levied against Rep. Joaquin Castro (brother of presidential candidate Julian Castro), I penned this piece in The New York Times expanding on what’s a real threat and what’s just a red herring.
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| The Campus Free Speech Guide offers principled, practical advice on free speech and inclusion on U.S. college campuses |
We know the coming debates over free speech won’t just play out on cable news and on opinion pages. They’re also flaring up on college campuses. That’s why we launched the PEN America Campus Free Speech Guide. Even if it’s been a while since you set foot on campus, please take a moment to explore this first-of-its-kind digital guide that offers principled, practical guidance to administrators, faculty, and students navigating thorny issues of free speech and inclusion. The Campus Free Speech Guide features case studies; a detailed summary of relevant law; and a resource library stocked with advice, sample policies, and sample statements. Our campus speech director Jonathan Friedman has been hitting the road, crisscrossing the country and offering guidance to universities nationwide (I joined him at the University of Mississippi, a campus struggling with the legacy of its own fraught past).
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| DREAMing Out Loud: Voices of Undocumented Students |
Working to address the larger landscape of threats to free expression, we continued to nurture the work of young DREAMers through writing workshops with young people who arrived in the country as children – and whose right to be here is imperiled.
We published our workshop participants’ writings in an anthology, DREAMing Out Loud - get your copy here (and also check out our writers’ reactions to the border crisis more generally). While you’re at it, also grab the breathtaking collection of work from our annual prison writing fellows, As I Hear the Rain, which received a ringing photographic endorsement from former Attorney General Eric Holder.
The launch of our prison writing anthology came as PEN America marked annual Banned Books Week. Taking a cue from America’s burgeoning incarceration crisis, we decided to focus our efforts this year on prison book bans.
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| In September, PEN America launched a petition campaign urging Congress to convene immediate hearings on book restriction practices in prisons |
We held events in eight cities and numerous venues across the country, curated an LA-based book drive for migrant children, published a reading list of books (and songs) banned in the country’s prisons and jails, and facilitated public readings of incarcerated authors’ work. We also published a landmark study on book bans in prisons, warranting a full writeup in The New York Times, and helping inspire more than 40,000 people to sign a petition calling for Congress to investigate what effectively constitutes the nation’s largest book banning practice.
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| Salman Rushdie and Booker Prize winner Marlon James |
Alongside that activism, we celebrated some of the most vaunted names in American literature. We joined our friends at the Brooklyn Museum for a second year of Summer Salons, featuring Nicole Dennis-Benn reading from her novel Patsy and T Kira Madden reading from her electrifying memoir, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. We marked the launch of former PEN America president Salman Rushdie’s latest novel Quichotte in a PEN Out Loud conversation with fellow Booker Prize winner Marlon James. Rion Amilcar Scott, a PEN Literary Awards honoree, launched his sophomore collection of short stories, The World Doesn’t Require You, with a dialogue alongside fellow writer Vinson Cunningham. In addition to more established writers, we celebrated another class of our Emerging Voices fellows, capped by a public reading of their new works at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum.
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| PEN America Member and honoree Toni Morrison |
Amid the celebration, we also mourned the loss of celebrated author and PEN America Member and honoree Toni Morrison, one of the nation’s best-loved writers and an indefatigable supporter of PEN America. Writers from across the spectrum offered their reminiscences, including a very special essay from Zadie Smith. Toni’s is a voice sorely missed, especially as the U.S. goes through such an intense period of division.
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| Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov |
Finally, good news came in September as Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov was released from a Russian prison. He was detained for five years for speaking out against the Russian government. In 2017, we gave Oleg our PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, unsure if he’d ever know freedom again. Then, on September 7, as he walked down the steps of a plane and into the arms of his friends and family, I knew that our work advocating for Oleg – and for free expression globally – was having an impact.
We savored this all-too-rare victory. You helped us elevate his case for the past two years, and we’re eternally grateful for everyone who signed petitions, marched, and took part in a global campaign to secure Oleg’s freedom. And if you didn’t catch it already, here’s a short thank you video from Oleg to all of you.
Thanks for your support and fellowship during these challenging but also inspiring times.
Yours in solidarity,
Suzanne Nossel
Chief Executive Officer
PEN America
PS – If you are in Los Angeles (or can get there) please join us at our LitFest Gala on November 1. We'll honor writer and director Ava DuVernay, First Amendment lawyer Ted Boutrous, songwriter Diane Warren, and many more, plus the event will feature appearances by Kathy Griffin and LeVar Burton. It will be an amazing night – get tickets here.
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