PEN Points: Advocacy groups are helping drive a rise in book bans

Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools

Advocacy Groups Are Helping Drive a Rise in Book Bans

At least 50 advocacy groups pushed to ban books during the last school year, according to a report that PEN America released on Monday, highlighting how challenges to reading material have become a political issue across the country.

“This is a concerted, organized, well-resourced push at censorship,” said Suzanne Nossel, PEN America's CEO. The effort, she said, “is ideologically motivated and politically expedient, and it needs to be understood as such in order to be confronted and addressed properly.” Read PEN America’s report, Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools, and learn more about what you can do to #FreeTheBooks. See more coverage of our report, including on how teachers can use our findings to talk to students about book bans and censorship.

U.S. Free Expression Stories

The power of words and the need to protect free speech
PEN America marked its centennial with a symposium at the New-York Historical Society. The event turned out to have a stark and somber symbolism no one had anticipated: The original list of speakers included Salman Rushdie, the controversial author of The Satanic Verses. Still, no one could have been more present in spirit: Rushdie was the subject of warm tributes from several speakers.
THE xxxxxx

Inside the civil rights campaign to get Big Tech to fight the “big lie”
A coalition of five dozen civil rights organizations is blasting Silicon Valley’s biggest social media companies for not taking more aggressive measures to counter election misinformation on their platforms in the months leading up to November’s midterm elections.
THE WASHINGTON POST

Florida appeals to Supreme Court over controversial social media law
Florida filed a brief Wednesday asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a decision against its controversial social media law (which could prevent platforms from removing content from news outlets, allow individuals to sue platforms if they believe content rules aren’t consistently applied and could fine social media services that ban political candidates in the state) after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit struck it down in May, deeming it unconstitutional.
AXIOS

The Latest from PEN America

PEN America Applauds Congressional Resolutions Condemning Book Bans

With free expression and the freedom to read being undermined in America’s schools, Congressman Jamie Raskin on Thursday introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives condemning the spread of book bans in schools nationwide, as Senator Brian Schatz leads a companion resolution in the U.S. Senate. PEN America commends the lawmakers’ efforts, which reaffirm Congress’ commitment to upholding free expression in the classroom and beyond. Read our statement.

Take Action: Right to Read in American Prisons Project

Over the course of the past year, PEN America’s Right to Read in American Prisons Project has focused on ways prisons and jails across the country restrict access to literature and educational materials through book censorship and state book ban lists. Check out our series of essays, reflections, and interviews on the impact of book censorship in prisons, from a range of writers who have been impacted by the carceral system. Learn how to support access to literature in prisons.

“Heckler’s Veto” Has No Place in Interrupting Speakers on College Campuses

Protestors at the University of New Mexico last week interrupted a speech by conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, who appeared at the invitation of conservative student group Turning Point USA. “The heckler’s veto has no place on a college campus, no matter how controversial the speaker is,” said Jeremy C. Young, senior manager of free expression and education at PEN America. “Students have a right to protest speakers they disagree with, but they ought not to go so far as to drown a speaker out. . . . That said, allegations that event organizers denied entry to student ticket-holders on the basis of their race are deeply alarming.” Read the full statement.

Global Free Expression Stories

Iran protests spread, death toll rises as internet curbed
Iranian authorities and a Kurdish rights group reported rising death tolls on Wednesday as anger at the death of a woman detained by the morality police fueled protests for a fifth day and fresh restrictions were placed on social media. Read the joint letter that PEN America has signed on to calling on the International Telecommunication Union to denounce the shutdown.
REUTERS

U.S. non-profits have supported more than 130 Ukrainian artists impacted by Russia’s war with emergency and resiliency grants
PEN America’s Artists at Risk Connection, with funds from the Frankenthaler and Warhol foundations, has given more than $180,000 in grants to help affected artists with emergency needs and to keep practicing. Learn more.
THE ART NEWSPAPER

Putin's plans for escalation spark protests across Russia
More than 1,300 people were detained across Russia as demonstrators protested President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilization of military reservists. Video of a protest outside a St. Petersburg church showed officers in helmets and tactical gear striking protesters with batons. In another video outside the church, authorities could be seen leading people away from the group one by one.
NBC NEWS

Spotlight: Ilham Tohti

Ilham Tohti, our 2014 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Awardee, is a Uyghur economist, writer, and professor who is a co-founder of the website Uyghur Online, also known as Uyghurbiz, which aimed to promote understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. His powerful defense of human rights has made him a longtime target of the Chinese state.

In February 2014, Tohti was charged with separatism and held incommunicado under inhumane treatment for months before he could meet his lawyer. On September 23, 2014, he was found guilty of “separatism,” and is currently serving a life sentence. This Friday marked the eighth anniversary of his sentencing. He has been incarcerated incommunicado since 2017, with no access to his family or his lawyers.

“I have relied only on pen and paper…to appeal for equality.”
—Ilham Tohti

“My father, Ilham Tohti, has used only one weapon in his struggle for the basic rights of the Uyghurs of Xinjiang: words. Spoken, written, distributed and posted: this is all that he has ever had at his disposal, and all that he has ever needed.”
—Jewher Tohti, Ilham’s daughter, while accepting the 2014 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on his behalf.

Learn more about Ilham Tohti’s case and listen to our 2020 interview with Jewher.

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