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Removing books from library shelves is not what America is supposed to be about.

Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are two of our countrys core ideals. Writers are free to express themselves as they so desire. Readers are free to read a book, or not.

Yet every year, we read or hear the news that parents or citizens somewhere earlier this week, in west suburban Downers Grove are clamoring to have a book they deem offensive taken off the shelves of their childs school library or their local public library.

It happens scores of times every year, when words or stories make people uncomfortable and Americas culture wars flare up. The American Library Association publishes an annual list of the top 10 Most Challenged Books those most likely to be condemned and targeted for removal. In 2020, 273 books were targeted and among the top 10 were three acknowledged literary classics: John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men, Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird and Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye.

In case readers are not aware: Morrison and Steinbeck both won the Nobel Prize for literature. To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961.

On Monday, as the Sun-Times Nader Issa reported, the issue flared up in Downers Grove when about 200 people packed a school auditorium to demand that the book Gender Queer: A Memoir be removed from the libraries at Downers Grove North and Downers Grove South high schools. According to protesters, the book exposes children to homoerotic or pornographic content.

The book is the story of author Maia Kobabes journey of gender identity and sexuality as a teenager and young adult. A few pages include illustrations of sex acts, but the books publisher says it is appropriate for high school-aged students.

Gender Queer: A Memoir has come under fire elsewhere too. Virginias largest school district removed it from its high school libraries earlier this fall while it considers parents concerns. A Florida district banned it altogether. Schools in New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Washington have had the book challenged. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster told the states education department to investigate the book, which he considers sexually explicit and pornographic.

Its worth noting that Gender Queer is not mandatory reading at either Downers Grove high school. In fact, theres only one copy available for students to check out at each schools library at Downers North and Downers South high schools.

Lauren Pierret, a senior at Downers Grove North, said at the meeting that she didnt even know Gender Queer existed until last week.

This isnt being forced upon your kids, Pierret said, but it gives kids who would be interested in this story a choice to read it.

It is not the job of this editorial board to judge whether a book is too sexually explicit, profane, violent or otherwise unfit for a child, teenager or another adult to read.

Nor is it the job of conservative culture warriors or anyone else.

Some of the past attacks on Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird, it should be noted, came from people who were bothered by racial stereotypes and slurs they said would have a negative impact on students, according to the ALA.

Good literature can sometimes make us uncomfortable, for any number of reasons. Censorship is never the right response.

Besides, once it starts, where does it end?

Consider the case of Texas Rep. Matt Krause, who is running for attorney general in his state and made headlines when he compiled a list of about 850 books that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex, as the Texas Tribune first reported. Most of the books on his list were written by women, people of color and LGBTQ authors.

Weve got to ask: Did Krause bother to read all 850 books? Or is his list just for political theater?

Books in our schools and libraries must be protected. Even when we dont approve of them.

Send letters to letters@suntimes.com.

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We need to protect books at our schools and libraries | Editorial - Chicago Sun-Times

A Sandown Town councillor has accused the Mayor, Cllr Paddy Lightfoot, of censorship and an unreasonable response to effective councillor scrutiny.

Cllr Emily Brothers says that at Mondays Town Council meeting the Mayor prevented her from making a statement, and also refused to allow for a hard copy of her statement to be circulated to fellow town councillors, as well as members of the public or press who attended.

Reason for investigation unknownCllr Brothers told News OnTheWight,

This is a form of censorship.

During the meeting the Mayor confirmed that an investigation into me is underway, but to date I have not been informed as to the terms of the investigation, why it has been initiated and who will be conducting the investigation.

News OnTheWight has emailed the Mayor and the Clerks of Sandown Town Council a series of questions in relation to the incident and will update once we hear back.

Brothers: Willing to co-operate with a fair and transparent investigationCllr Brothers went on to say,

I am willing to co-operate with a fair and transparent investigation, enabling me to move forward in representing residents and ensure accountability for the electorate of Sandown.

Thats why I would like to make my statement clear and available for them to read.

Cllr Brothers statementThe statement that Cllr Brothers had intended to share at the meeting reads:

I received an e-mail on 10/11/21 from the Town Clerk notifying that I would be subject: to have 2 members of staff present at any future meeting, and a note taken of any discussion and future action, and this note shared with the mayor.

What power is being applied by the Town Clerk?

No apparent process has been applied in reaching this decision.

This is an unreasonable response to effective Councillor scrutiny.

I am grateful to the Mayor and Deputy Mayor agreeing to meet me on 11/11/21 despite no resolution being reached.

The Mayor agreed to clarify by 15/11/21 the status and authority for the Town Clerks decision, which he endorses. No clarification has been received, so I now ask for clarification. Therefore, I will not adhere to the sanctions as no justification has been given for this action and I do not believe them to be lawfullyimposed.

I referred the matter to the Monitoring Officer, who advises that his powers are limited to member conduct not the process applied by a Town Council. Thus, no intervention is offered.

I will continue to observe the Members Code of Conduct, whilst not accepting the Town Clerks unfair restriction.

I remain determined to speak up for positive change in Sandown and will not be silenced by bullying and intimidation.

Image: Google Maps/Streetview and Sandown Town Council Website

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Sandown Town council accused of censorship and unreasonable response to effective councillor scruti ... - On The Wight

Viennas museums are putting their works on view in a place where few world-class institutions have ever shown their art:OnlyFans. On that site, visitors can now see an account set up by the citys tourism board where suggestive works from Viennese institutions like theAlbertinaand theLeopold Museumare being posted.

The Viennese are very open-minded, Helena Hartlauer, head of media relations at the Vienna Tourist Board, said of the unusual move.

OnlyFansis an app where viewers can pay a subscription fee to access exclusiveand often eroticcontent from a creator. Now, for $4.99 a month, people can view painted nudes and risqu statues culled from the collections of Viennas finest museums, which maintain that these artworks are not necessarily sexual in nature. The citys tourism board said the move to post artworks on the platform came after repeated censorship on other social media platforms.

In July, the Albertinas TikTok account was suspended and then blocked for displaying the art of Nobuyoshi Araki, whose photographs often feature sexually explicit images of nude women. Then in September, when the Leopold Museum promoted its 20th anniversary by posting a work by Art Nouveau illustrator Koloman Moser, the campaign was flagged as potentially pornographic by Facebooks algorithms. To avoid any repercussions, the museum switched out that image for a less objectionable work. That warning recalled Faceboooks deletionof a post by the Natural History Museum of Vienna showing the Venus of Willendorf, an ancient fertility talisman depicting a naked woman with enlarged breasts.

In migrating these offerings to OnlyFans, Hartlauer claimed that Viennas museums were enacting more than just a publicity stuntthey were also aiming to start a conversation about the necessity of social media and the problems associated with it. According to Hartlauer, while some might argue that these museums could use other pieces to promote themselves, the matter is not quite so simple, given that it is growing harder and harder to tell what will be labeled explicit. These platforms arent transparent at all, Hartlauer said.

Museums, of course, arent alone in this frustrating struggle with social media platformsartists have also voiced concerns about the guidelines for social media like Instagram. In a recentop-edforARTnews, artist Clarity Haynes described repeatedly trying to post nude self-portraits by photographer Laura Aguilar, only to have them deleted each time. This kind of censorship does not exist in a digital vacuum, Haynes wrote, describing the deletions as homophobic, racist, fatphobic and misogynistic.

The Viennese museums new OnlyFans recalls another attempt at launching a platform for sexually suggestive art. This past summer, Pornhub started theClassic Nudes guide, an app that allowed users to find images of nudes in the worlds most renowned art institutions. Museums didnt respond well to that initiative. The Louvre in Paris, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid all threatened to suePornhub for its recreations of famous paintings in their holdings, among them TitiansVenus of Urbino(1538), which is held by the Uffizi.

By contrast, Viennas tourism board said it was making no pretensions about the sexuality and nudity of artworks in its collection. We also wanted to do this to show solidarity with artists who are censored, Hartlauer said. If you cant show your artwork on social media this can really be an obstacle to your communications efforts, and even to your career.

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A new private university in the states capital will be dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth in response to the culture of censorship that its founders say is plaguing higher education.

But leaders for the University of Austin are still working towards getting the school accredited, creating an undergraduate program and securing land for its campus.

Scholars, activists and entrepreneurs teamed up to start the university, to be known as UATX, because they were alarmed by the illiberalism and censoriousness prevalent in Americas most prestigious universities and what it augurs for the country, according to the schools website.

So much is broken in America. But higher education might be the most fractured institution of all, said Pano Kanelos, the incoming president of the University of Austin.

He announced the nonprofit universitys creation Monday in former New York Times journalist Bari Weiss newsletter, who is also one of its founders. Kanelos is the former president of St. Johns College in Annapolis, a small, private liberal arts school.

Self-censorship is pervasive across colleges and universities because the institutions chill speech and ostracize those with unpopular viewpoints and lead scholars to avoid entire topics out of fear, Kanelos wrote.

The universitys announcement garnered national attention for its team of journalists, artists, philanthropists, researchers and higher education leaders involved in the project.

Its founders also include former Harvard President Lawrence Summers; David Mamet, a playwright; former American Civil Liberties Union President Nadine Strossen; academics and other former university leaders.

The universitys headquarters are located in central Austin, just a short walk away from the University of Texas nearest building.

Unlike several new universities that opt for teaching courses virtually, school administrators plan on having a physical campus with as few screens as possible. But land for a campus has not been secured.

The schools founders chose Texas because of the states boom in talent and capital and Austin, in particular, because it is a hub for the kind of people our university aims to attract and from whom we want to receive guidance, according to the universitys website.

The school which will focus on humanities, social sciences and natural sciences is seeking initial accreditation through the Higher Learning Commission and authorization from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Heather Berg, a spokesperson for the commission, said the accreditation process can take between one and seven years.

But the University of Austins website says it will not wait for accreditation to get started on its programming.

The institution will offer a Forbidden Courses summer program in the coming year for college students to discuss the most provocative questions that often lead to censorship or self-censorship in many universities.

Next fall, it will begin offering a masters program on entrepreneurship and leadership with plans to launch its undergraduate programs in 2024.

Its not easy for a new university to compete for undergraduate students who are often seeking well established schools based on reputations, Niall Ferguson, a historian, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote in an essay for Bloomberg.

(Students) go to college as much for the high-prestige credentials and the peer networks as for the education. Thats why a new university cant start by offering bachelors degrees, Ferguson said.

University leaders have secured the seed money necessary to launch the institution but are in the process of securing $250 million.

A new financial model that streamlines administrative costs will allow the school to have a tuition rate thats about half of the average cost for a private university, Kanelos told The Texas Tribune. The average annual tuition for a private, four-year university is about $28,500, according to the latest federal data.

The university is not taking student applications yet.

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Labs journalism.

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University of Austin launched by college critics in response to a culture of censorship - The Dallas Morning News

The Turkish Warrior, human rights fighter, and Boston Celtics star, Enes Kanter, has only been allowed to set foot on the court twice this season in 13 games, for a total of 10 minutes, while China has banned video streaming of Celtics games to prevent citizens from getting a glimpse of his dissident shoe collection.

Many fans are speculating that Kanter is benched because he spoke out against brutal dictator Xi Jinping and in support of Taiwanese, Tibetans, Hongkongers, and Uyghurs. On Nov. 10th, Kanter told CNN that during the first game of the season, NBA officials threatened to ban and fine him if he didnt remove his Free Tibet shoes, though they later backed off after realizing that he wasnt breaking any rules.

On Nov. 14th, Kanter apparently confirmed his fans suspicions when he posted a flipbook animation on social media showing him slam dunk a basketball into Xi Jinpings face. He wrote, Keep limiting me on the court, I will expose you off the court.

The NBA and the Celtics have remained completely silent, offering no explanation for why Kanter is sitting on the bench. All we know for sure is that his lack of playing time is disappointing to all of his new fans, which includes the president of Taiwan, who recorded a video in which she personally thanked him for his strong support.

Pro-Beijing keyboard warriors have been peppering social media with propaganda, suggesting that Kanter is not playing because he lacks skill and provides little value to the Celtics.

Such arguments are unconvincing.

Last season, the 610 big man put up respectable numbers playing for the Portland Trailblazers, a team that made the playoffs, finishing with a record of 40 wins and 32 losses. Kanter played every game and averaged a double-double: 11 rebounds (the 7th highest in the NBA) and 11.2 points.

Most impressively, he set an NBA season record by pulling down 30 rebounds in a single game. He is only the fourth player in the last two decades to accomplish this feat.

At 29 years old, Kanter has a lot of good years left in his career. However, he is courageously putting it all on the line by speaking up for victims of the most powerful authoritarian regime on the planet.

Kanter told CNN:

I believe that God gave me this platform to be the voice of all those innocent people out there who dont have a voice. So I was like, you know what, I understand that this could affect a lot, but Im just going to be the one, the first one to step up and bring all the human rights violations that China is doing [into the spotlight], and like I said in my tweet, I dont care about your endorsement deals, I dont care about your money, or I dont care about any kind of businesses that you are doing. If you are abusing peoples rights, Im going to say something. To me, human rights are way more important than your money, your endorsement deals, or everything you can give me.

Critics, such as Chinas foreign minister, have argued that Kanter is an opportunist just trying to get attention.

However, Kanter has been speaking out against human rights abuses committed by the authoritarian government of his home country, Turkey, for a decade. His persistent activism has cost him dearly. Four years ago, the Turkish government canceled his passport, accused him of being a terrorist involved in a failed military coup attempt, and has since issued 10 warrants for his arrest.

Kanter denies the terrorism allegations, saying, The only thing I terrorize is the basketball rim. He points out that I dont even have a parking ticket in the U.S. I have always been a law-abiding resident.

Because of his outspokenness, Kanter has received death threats and cannot travel overseas with his team due to fears that he could be assassinated. His family in Turkey was pressured to publicly disown him, and he has been unable to speak with them for several years out of concern that they would be immediately arrested. His father has already served time in prison, and, according to Kanter, it is just because he is my dad.

Kanter has clearly demonstrated that he cannot be intimidated into silence. The best that the Chinese government can hope for is to weaponize its financial power to destroy Kanters NBA career, de-platform him, and thus make an example out of him.

In China, this is called killing the chicken to scare the monkey (). The aim would be to frighten other potential critics into silence, a deliberate attempt to undermine free speech.

By censoring every game that Kanter appears in, the Chinese government will be able to turn Kanter into a financial liability for any team that he plays for. When his contract expires at the end of this season, any team that signs him will risk losing whatever revenue it was previously earning from Chinas market of 1.4 billion people, a sum which is likely far greater than whatever financial value that Kanter alone can bring to the table. If no team signs him next year, Kanter would be forced into retirement.

The NBA consequently faces a moral dilemma. It can quietly take Chinas money and throw Kanter under the bus (along with Taiwanese, Tibetans, Hongkongers, and Uyghurs), or it can stand in solidarity with Kanter by expressing robust support for human rights, democracy, and freedom of speech including for people who live under the shadow of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The right thing to do ought to be self-evident to every player, coach, manager, and owner.

Last year, the NBA enthusiastically supported the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement by allowing players to put social justice messages not only on their shoes but also on the backs of their jerseys. The phrase Black Lives Matter was even painted on the courts.

Messages that the NBA approved for jerseys included Say Their Names, How Many More, I Cant Breathe, Vote, Justice, Liberation, Equality, and Freedom. On shoes, some players wrote the names of victims of police violence while others wrote messages such as Ready for Change.

In the same way that the NBA embraced the BLM movement, it can and should join Kanter in standing up for the rights of people who are oppressed by the Chinese government. With the Beijing Winter Olympics approaching, now is a better time than ever. Players from all 30 teams could write slogans on their shoes such as Uyghur Lives Matter, Free Tibet, Liberate Hong Kong, Stand With Taiwan, and No Beijing 2022.

Undoubtedly, all NBA games would immediately be censored in China, and it would be costly. However, the NBA can afford to have ethics, as the average players salary is more than US$8 million (NT$222 million).

Chinas authoritarian government should not be allowed to buy the NBAs silence, and the NBA should not be complicit in a CCP-orchestrated attack on the career of one of its players a naked attempt to undermine free speech and cover up its ongoing industrial-scale human rights abuses.

Until the NBA gathers the organizational will to take a principled stand, fans should call out its hypocrisy and continue supporting the MVP of human rights advocacy, Enes Kanter.

Lindell Lucy is an American based in Tokyo, where he teaches high school economics. He has a B.A. in philosophy from Stanford University and is currently studying international relations at the Harvard Extension School.

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Stand with Kanter: Eject Chinese censorship from the NBA - Taiwan News