Mediaboss Marketing

Fights about free speech can feel rhetorical until they are not. Heres what censorship looks like in practice: A student newspaper and journalism program in Nebraska shuttered for writing about pride month. The state of Oklahoma seeking to revoke the teaching certificate of an English teacher who shared a QR code that directed students to the Brooklyn Public Librarys online collection of banned books. A newly elected district attorney in Tennessee musing openly about jailing teachers and librarians.

In Florida today it may even be illegal for teachers to even talk about who they love or marry thanks to the states Dont Say Gay law. Of course, it goes far beyond sex: The sunshine states Republican commissioner of education rejected 28 different math textbooks this year for including verboten content.

Acts of censorship are often tacit admissions of weakness masquerading as strength. This weakness is on full display with the imposition of so-called educational gag orders, laws which restrict the discussions of race, gender, sexuality and American history in K-12 and higher education. A political project convinced of the superiority of its ideas doesnt need the power of the state to shield people from competing ideas. Censorship is the desperate rear-guard action of a movement that has already lost the fight for hearts and minds.

This year alone, 137 gag order bills like these have been introduced in 36 state legislatures. Thats a sharp increase from 2021 when 54 bills were introduced in 22 states, according to a report released last month by PEN America, a free speech organization. Only seven of those bills became law in 2022, but they are some of the strictest to date, and the sheer number of bills introduced reflects a growing enthusiasm on the right for censorship as a political weapon and instrument of social control.

These new measures are far more punitive than past efforts, with heavy fines or loss of state funding for institutions that dare to offer courses covering the forbidden content. Teachers can be fired and even face criminal charges. Lawsuits have already started to trickle through the courts asking for broad interpretations of the new statutes. For the first time, the PEN report noted, some bills have also targeted private schools and universities in addition to public schools.

It wasnt all that long ago that Republican lawmakers around the country were introducing laws designed to protect free speech on college campuses. Now, theyre using the coercive power of the state to restrict what people can talk about, learn about or discuss in public, and exposing them to lawsuits for doing so. Thats a clear threat to the ideals of a pluralistic political culture, in which challenging ideas are welcomed and discussed.

How and what to teach American students has been contested ground since the earliest days of public education. The content of that instruction is something about which Americans of good will can respectfully disagree.

The Supreme Court has also recognized limits on the censorship of school libraries, if not curriculums. Local school boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, a plurality of justices wrote in a 1982 decision.

Despite the moral panic over teaching about gender and race, American parents say they are overwhelmingly satisfied with the instruction their children receive. A poll from National Public Radio and Ipsos earlier this year found that just 18 percent of parents said their childs school taught about gender and sexuality in a way that clashed with their familys values, while 19 percent said the same about race and racism. Only 14 percent felt that way about American history.

And yet, some Republican candidates are using the threat of censorship as a show of strength, evidence of their power to muzzle political opponents. Last year in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin won the governorship of that state after a campaign in which he demagogued the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Beloved by the Nobel Prize-winning Toni Morrison. Other candidates are looking to make it a centerpiece of their pitch to voters in the midterm elections in races from Texas to New Jersey.

Some want to extend censorship far beyond the classroom. In Virginia, a Republican state representative tried to get a court to declare as obscene two young adult books frequently banned in schools, Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe and A Court of Mist and Fury, by Sarah Mass. The case was dismissed this month, but if it had been successful, it could have made it illegal for bookstores, libraries to carry the books or for private citizens to sell or share them everywhere in the state.

Right-wing lawmakers are also looking to restrict what Americans can say about abortion. Model legislation from the National Right to Life Committee, which is circulating in state legislatures, aims to ban Americans from giving instructions over the telephone, the internet, or any other medium of communication regarding self-administered abortions or means to obtain an illegal abortion. That prohibition extends to hosting websites that contain such information.

Even when such bills fail to censor they can easily cascade into vigilantism. Across the country, libraries in small towns are being closed and library staff are being harassed and intimidated. The Times reports that librarians have been labeled pedophiles on social media, called out by local politicians and reported to law enforcement officials. Some librarians have quit after being harassed online. Others have been fired for refusing to remove books from circulation. The American Library Association has documented more than 1,600 books in 700 different libraries or library systems that have faced attempted censorship.

Political factions on both the left and the right are insecure enough in their ideas that theyve tried to muzzle those with whom they disagree. But only right-wing legislators are currently writing censorship into law and enforcing it with the power of the state.

For a vocal minority to ban discussion of certain facts or topics because they make some people uncomfortable or simply to score political points is deeply undemocratic, particularly in a nation founded on a commitment to free speech and the open exchange of ideas. Free expression isnt just a feature of democracy; it is a necessary prerequisite.

Originally posted here:
Other voices: Government censorship? Weakness masquerading as strength - St. Paul Pioneer Press

New numbers show increasing efforts to ban books

Attempts to ban books in schools and public libraries are surging this year, according to preliminary data from the American Library Association. National "Banned Books Week" begins Sunday. Some local libraries, including in the District, will be taking part.

Attempts to ban books in schools and public libraries are surging this year, according to preliminary data from the American Library Association (ALA).

"Were seeing an unprecedented and unremitting wave of book censorship in schools and libraries across the country," said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of ALAs Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Through August of this year, the group said theyve documented 681 attempts to ban or restrict books, with 1,651 unique titles being targeted. Both numbers are on pace to exceed record-highs set in 2021.

Caldwell-Stone said most of the efforts target marginalized or historically underrepresented voices.

"Now were seeing individuals at school board meetings, library board meetings, with a list of 25, 35, 50 books and demanding that they all be removed en masse," she explained.

Similar efforts to ban books have been made in recent years in Fairfax County, Spotsylvania County, and just this week in Fauquier County, to name a few.

"I guess we live in a world now that public schools would rather have kids read about gay pornography than Christ," Spotsylvania County School Board member Rabih Abduismail said at a public meeting in November 2021.

"Its perfectly fine for a parent to guide their childs reading," Caldwell-Stone told FOX 5 Friday. "Everyone should have the ability to make choices about what they read and about what their family reads. I dont think that they should be able to impose those choices on other families."

National "Banned Books Week" begins Sunday. Some local libraries, including in the District, will be taking part.

See the original post here:
Banned books: Parents push for censorship on the rise - FOX 5 DC

Los Angeles school officials on Friday rescinded a suspension they had levied against a journalism advisor at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School who had refused to censor an article naming an unvaccinated campus librarian.

Adriana Chavira was facing a suspension of three days without pay over the article about employees who declined to follow the L.A. Unified School Districts COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

In LAUSD, about 240 teachers opted out of getting the vaccine, which led to them not showing up to school on Oct. 18, reported the schools student-run news website, the Pearl Post. Among them was teacher-librarian Greta Enszer from Daniel Pearl Magnet High School.

For several months after the article was published in November, Enszer and the Lake Balboa schools principal had demanded that the name be removed.

But Chavira, a former journalist who has taught at Pearl Magnet High for 14 years, stood behind her students reporting and refused to change the story, citing a California law that protects student journalists from censorship.

She appealed the suspension and won, with a district official rescinding the discipline Friday at an after-school meeting, Chavira said.

It was definitely a sigh of relief, a huge load off my back, Chavira told The Times. Itll be almost a year since this has been going on, and so it was definitely putting on some stress on myself and obviously my students as well, knowing something that they wrote could potentially get me fired.

At the meeting, Chaviras representative from United Teachers Los Angeles read a letter from union lawyers in her defense, much of which cited California Education Code 48907. The law protects public school students right to exercise freedom of speech and of the press and shields school employees from disciplinary action for protecting that right.

A district official considered the matter for a few minutes before rescinding the suspension without comment, Chavira said.

Chavira said Friday that she had no indication from the district that there was a willingness to rescind it until today at the meeting.

The issue had galvanized the journalism community, as Chavira and her students received support from the Student Press Law Center, the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists. They were also backed by Judea Pearl, whose son the schools namesake was kidnapped and killed by Al Qaeda extremists while reporting for the Wall Street Journal in Pakistan in 2002.

I dont want [Chavira] to face any disciplinary action for allowing her students to tell the truth, Pearl said in a statement issued by the Los Angeles Press Club. I only want whats best for the students and the school, which is why I hope they will reconsider this decision.

Chaviras students also backed her and the story on social media and in the press.

Were not going to let them intimidate us, Pearl Post editor in chief Delilah Brumer told The Times this month.

Im very proud of them, Chavira said. It definitely is not easy to get out there talking about your school or your school administration, but they believe in journalism.

Chavira said she was glad that the situation has shed light on Californias protections for journalism advisors and student reporters.

They do have the 1st Amendment on campus, and they should not bow down to administrators to take down their stories if the stories are reported well, she said.

Read more:
Suspension rescinded for L.A. journalism teacher who refused to censor student article - Los Angeles Times

The must-reads

Ive combed the internet to find you todays most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Social medias biggest companies appeared before the US SenatePast and present Meta, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube employees answered questions on social media's impact on homeland security. (TechCrunch)+ Retaining user attention is their algorithms primary purpose. (Protocol)+ TikToks representative avoided committing to cutting off Chinas access to US data. (Bloomberg $)

2 China wants to reduce its reliance on Western techInvesting heavily in native firms is just one part of its multi-year plan. (FT $)+ Cybercriminals are increasingly interested in Chinese citizens personal data. (Bloomberg $)+ The FBI accused him of spying for China. It ruined his life. (MIT Technology Review)

3 California is suing AmazonAccusing it of triggering price rises across the state. (WSJ $)+ The two-year fight to stop Amazon from selling face recognition to the police. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Russia is waging a surveillance war on its own citizensIts authorities are increasingly targeting ordinary people, not known dissidents or journalists. (Slate $)+ Russian troops are still fleeing northern Ukraine. (The Guardian)

5 Dozens of AIs debated 100 years of climate negotiations in secondsTheyre evaluating which policies are most likely to be well-received globally. (New Scientist $)+ Patagonias owner has given the company away to fight climate change. (The Guardian)

6 Iranian hackers hijacked their victims printers to deliver ransom notesThe three men have been accused of targeting people in the US, UK and Iran. (Motherboard)

7 DARPAs tiny plane could spy from almost anywhereThe unmanned vehicle could also carry small bombs. (WP $)+ The Taliban have crashed a helicopter left behind by the US military. (Motherboard)

8 Listening to stars helps astronomers to assess whats inside themThe spooky-sounding acoustic waves transmit a lot of data. (Economist $)+ The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted newborn stars. (Space)+ The next Space Force chief thinks the US needs a satellite constellation to combat China.(Nikkei Asia)

9 Well never be able to flip and turn like a catBut the best divers and gymnasts are the closest we can get. (The Atlantic $)+ The best robotic jumpers are inspired by nature. (Quanta)

10 This robot is having a laughEven if its not terribly convincing. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

Tesla has yet to produce anything even remotely approaching a fully self-driving car."

Briggs Matsko, a Tesla owner, explains his rationale for suing the company over the deceptive way it marketed its driver-assistance systems, according to Reuters.

Continued here:
The Download: The Merge arrives, and Chinas AI image censorship - MIT Technology Review

(Updated 9.15.22, 7:50 p.m. for typos.)

An East Coweta High School sophomore is pushing back against a year-long campaign to remove certain books from school libraries.

Ill be frank, I don't believe that censorship is the correct option, Natalie Zern told the Coweta County Board of Education Tuesday. Historically, when books get banned, it doesn't end up well for the people or for the leadership.

A nationwide crusade to eliminate a particular batch of objectionable books in public schools made its way into the Coweta boardroom last fall, resulting in near-monthly tirades and a few lewd read-alouds from local activists who say they want to protect students from exposure to inappropriate materials.

Its been a long, contentious back-and-forth, further complicated by a Georgia General Assembly-mandated policy clarification that effectively excludes those activists from the decision-making process for evaluating objectionable materials unless they are doing so at a school their children attend.

An important voice missing from those tense exchanges, Zern said, has been that of the Coweta County School System students themselves.

Weve had teachers, parents, guardians and concerned citizens with nothing to do with the school system share their opinions, Zern said. However, we've got to hear from someone whom this censorship will actually affect someone you as teachers, parents, citizens and school board members are supposed to be representing.

Zerns parents, both educators, helped her understand that literacy is not only the ability to read and write, she said, but also knowledge or competence in a specific area.

While some speakers may have been able to read, they do not have literacy skills in areas such as childhood education, juvenile and adolescent development or political ideology, Zern told board members.

She recited part of the Coweta County School Systems Mission, Vision and Beliefs statement (www.cowetaschools.com): We believe, as leaders of learners, we must empower students to be active and accountable participants in their learning.

Zern told board members that, as leaders of 23,000 students, you must give us the tools to empower and educate ourselves on matters we deem important to us.

We are not active if we do not get to choose the materials we wish to read in an already very rigid curriculum, she said. We are not accountable if we aren't taught the freedom of media and the freedom to choose. We are not participating if our curriculum is being left in the hands of representatives who are going to take away our books. We are not learning if all media we ingest is tailored to fit the specific wants and wishes of people in the county. And we are not empowered if you refuse to dignify us with the right to learn about different cultures, ideas and things we're interested in.

She said she recently studied censorship in an advanced placement history class taught by Jennifer Sandlin at ECHS, where she learned that banned books throughout history have included any version of the New Testament that was not written in Latin, the works of Galileo, Voltaire, Copernicus and Victor Hugo, and George Orwells anti-authoritarian 1984.

When leaders censor books, they aren't looking out for the good of the people they're looking to forward an agenda that they believe in, Zern said.

They often do so with weak evidence and claims, she said, citing the reading of an isolated passage from Sarah J. Maas Court of Mist and Fury last December. The speaker chose a sexually explicit excerpt to make the point that the book should not be available to students, Zern said, but missed its wider purpose.

Had the speaker exercised their literacy skills, they would have found out that the book is a social commentary with focus on mental health, the main characters severe depression and the abusive relationship the main character undergoes, she said, noting that several areas of the Bible also include sexually explicit or inappropriate content.

Im not trying to bring religion into issues for the sake of controversy, she said. Im simply trying to illustrate that the inclusion of these passages does not undermine the influence or message of the Bible.

Zern also emphasized the importance of reading for fun as well as for school, citing a Scholastic study conducted in 2013 that indicated the practice can increase students Lexile scores and comprehension skills.

Both forms of reading are necessary to fully develop literacy skills and are needed to completely develop a childs reading process, so children should have equal opportunities to read the books they want, she said.

The practice of removing so-called objectionable materials from classrooms robs students of important educational opportunities, Zern said.

A child who is not permitted to read a book in class a book that's being taught by an educator that has been reading and studying it for years is missing out on the lessons, analysis and literacy development that goes along with it, she said. It may seem like a few angry adults now, and one or two censored texts, but before long, it's sure to become a systemic problem.

Convincing students to hate certain books will teach them to hate reading, Zern said.

You're teaching them that the happiness and the lessons found in literature don't exist, she told board members. You're telling them that you value your own personal comfort over their development into a functioning, intelligent and well-read adult. You're telling them that you want them to be treated like a 5-year-old.

Zern was not the only student speaker at Tuesdays meeting.

Seventh grader Colby Wilson also took to the lectern to make the board aware of her objections to the outdated dress code at Arnall Middle School.

Wilson said she has been pulled for dress code violations several times once when she was wearing sweatpants and a sweater.

I would never wear anything inappropriate anywhere, she said.

Shorts have been a particular issue, Wilson said. She was pulled for a violation recently while walking to class, surrounded by her friends and peers.

Not only was this embarrassing, but the situation was handled horribly, Wilson said. The administrator should have pulled me aside to speak about whatever they thought was the problem.

Wilson said she is tall and has trouble finding clothes to fit the dress code.

The teachers and staff say that girls thighs and legs are inappropriate and distracting, she said. But if anyone is distracted, then that person should be punished, not the girls. It is not that you can see my thighs. When girls wear jeans with holes in the thigh area, putting tape over the hole (a fix accepted by many schools) only makes people stare at the area.

Wilson said she thinks its unfair that boys also are allowed to wear shorts but never seem to get violations.

Administrators should be focused on girls education, not our clothing, she said. We are 14 and younger. We should not have to worry about this. When girls get punished for others actions, it makes us feel like it's our fault, and it is not. I hope you take all this into consideration and update Arnalls dress code.

While all seven elected board members were present at the meeting, only six appeared to have been supportive of the students who came before them.

During Zerns comments, Board Chair Beth Barnett gaveled down an interruption from board member Buzz Glover, reminding the board that it was the publics time to speak. Glover explained his outburst later, during board comments.

Ive been on this board a year and nine months, and I heard the most disgusting thing that I have heard said in this room tonight. And no, it was not from the speaker it was from my colleague to the right, Glover said, referring to District 4 representative Linda Menk. I heard my colleague say, What a dimwit. I don't know if she intended for me to hear it or not, but I did.

Glover said hes known Zern for several years and is proud of her. He apologized for Menks alleged comment, which was not picked up on audio.

I hope you didnt hear that, Glover said to Zern.

He went on to issue an open invitation for other Coweta students to speak at future meetings.

I invite all 23,000 of you that are out there to come speak on whatever subject you like, and I never and I hope nobody on this board would think anything less of any student whether I agree with them or not. Or any other speaker, he said. Im looking forward to January 2023.

Menk, an embattled two-termer, was unseated by challenger Rob DuBose in June after he earned nearly 80 percent of the runoff election vote.

DuBose takes office in January 2023.

See the rest here:
Student tells BOE censorship is not the 'correct option' - Newnan Times-Herald