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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. Im Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonzlez.

We turn now to the acclaimed Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. In November, he had an exhibit in London canceled after he wrote a social media post where he criticized the United States for its longtime financial support of Israel. Ai Weiwei has previously expressed support for Palestinians. He made a 2016 documentary, that includes Gaza in the global refugee crisis, called Human Flow.

Ai Weiwei is one of the worlds most acclaimed artists. In 2011, he was arrested at the Beijing airport, held for 81 days without charge. Hes been living in exile since 2015. Hes joining us here in New York City ahead of his event tonight at Town Hall thats part of PEN Americas PEN Out Loud series, when hell discuss his new graphic memoir, Zodiac.

Ai Weiwei, welcome back to Democracy Now! Lets start with that canceled London exhibit. What happened?

AI WEIWEI: Well, after I post, you know, a single line on Twitter, I never noticed people really become so sensitive or so crazy about my posts. Basically, post described the situation about the Israelis relations with U.S., and which is very, very you know, its very subjective. Its not from my point of view, but its really general facts.

So, then, you know, the galleries actually, not one gallery, but galleries in Paris and in London they got very worried. And I still dont know exactly the reason why they have to worry about an artists single line, you know, but, rather, they said they want to avoid this kind of argument, and theyre trying to protect my interest, so they postponed my shows not one, but altogether four shows.

So, I guess that proved what Im saying on Twitter is correct, because there is all over the world, you know, this strong censorship about different voices towards these kind of conflicts, and the conflict continues getting so massive and also seems its not going to stop. So, by doing that, yes, many of my shows have been canceled, so

JUAN GONZLEZ: Were you surprised by the reaction, given that youve been not only are you one of the most celebrated artists from China in the West, but also youve been a vocal supporter of the Palestinians for years?

AI WEIWEI: I am surprised. I think we are should live in a more free society and which carry a lot of different opinions and voice. But to have this kind of devastating case in dealing with the art community, not only art community, but also films or literature, I think it shows a really very bad and a backwards in terms of freedom of expression, human rights and, you know, all those issues.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, there are not many Chinese artists as celebrated and embraced by the West as you are, Ai Weiwei. Were you surprised by the swift retaliation against your position, which is really critiquing the West, in London, Britain and the U.S., when it comes to supporting the Israeli government, when it comes to the assault on Gaza?

AI WEIWEI: I think maybe I was celebrated for the wrong reason. But still, as the artist, I have to fight for the human dignity and also basic human rights, freedom of speech. And thats why Im here, so

AMY GOODMAN: Can I ask about your graphic novel, Ai Weiwei? Talk about Zodiac and the message youre conveying in this graphic memoir.

AI WEIWEI: Well, thanks for asking that. I came to New York to be part of this graphic novel how do you say? the promotion. And the novel take us about two, three years, with two other persons involved. And so, we made the drawing and the storyline, and, you know, its very I think its pretty unique and also charming in telling my personal stories in relating to Chinese classic stories, but also in relating to current events both in China and in the West. So, its very detailed and, you know, very visual narratives about the stories.

AMY GOODMAN: Ai Weiwei, your message to the world right now? You are a dissident when it comes to China. You cannot live inside China. Youre in exile. And now, when you come and are embraced by the West, you find yourself canceled again and again. Your thoughts?

AI WEIWEI: Well, I think we are living in a very crucial time globally. We have to rethink about our values or what we are really defending for. Its not only a challenge for individual artists, but also for the states. And we are gradually losing the ground of democracy or personal freedom, or even we are still facing crisis economic crisis, immigration crisis. Also, we are possibly at the edge of the World War III. You know, this is not an exaggeration. It can happen. And Im afraid this is the facts. But that would calling for every individual to defend the humanity and human rights.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us, Ai Weiwei, world-renowned Chinese artist and activist, has a new graphic memoir called Zodiac. Hell be speaking tonight at Town Hall in New York.

Next up, its primary day in New Hampshire. As Donald Trump and Nikki Haley square off in the Republican race, well speak to a Democratic presidential candidate, Marianne Williamson, about her campaign against President Biden. Her name is on todays ballot in New Hampshire, though Bidens is not. Back in 20 seconds.

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Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei on Israel, Gaza & Censorship - Democracy Now!

This past weekend, the nomination data from the 2023 Hugo Awards was released. One of the biggest awards for fantasy and science fiction books, the Hugos are given out at Worldcon, which is a large sci-fi and fantasy convention which occurs in a different city each year. In essence, every year cities bid for the right to hold Wolrdcon in their neck of the woods, and are then responsible for facilitating the Hugo Award ceremony at that year's convention.

In 2023, Worldcon was held in Chengdu, China, which marked only the second time in its 84-year history that the event has taken place in an East Asian country (the other being the 2007 Worldcon in Yokohama, Japan). China has an enormous science fiction community, so to many this seemed like a potentially exciting way to include fans from a part of the world which hasn't been well represented at past cons. However, there were also some concerns voiced about holding Worldcon in Chengdu when the city was bidding on the convention back in 2021; namely, China's ongoing treatment of its Uyghur population and the potential for the country's strict censorship laws to interfere with the con. Those arguments got pretty complicated, but when the dust settled, Chengdu had won the bid.

Fast forward to October 2023, and the convention went off seemingly without a hitch...but now that the Hugo Awards nomination data has been released, it's raising some serious questions in the fantasy and science fiction community. Some works and authors were mysteriously deemed "ineligible" for awards with no reason given, despite being clearly shown to have received enough nominations to nab them finalist slots. The stats themselves also seem questionable; in a few instances the numbers listed exceed the total number of ballots cast, and there is an abnormal "cliff" in the data between the frontrunners in each category and the rest of the pack that is markedly different than previous Hugo voting years.

Perhaps most tellingly of all, these statistics were released on the last possible day that the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) rules allowed, 90 days after the convention. For context, the nomination stats for the Hugo Awards typically come out a few days or even hours after the event. For them to come out at the last possible moment they're allowed to, while displaying such massive irregularities, is more than a bit suspicious. It's led to demands for answers from the organizing committee of Chengdu Worldcon (each Worldcon is its own discreet entity, run independently but expected to adhere to the WSFS rules for the Hugo Awards).

That's the broad strokes of what went down. Now let's get into some of the specific red flags from the data:

R.F. Kuang's novel Babel was deemed "ineligible" for the Best Novel award. Babel won both the Nebula and Locus Awards last year, and seemed like an obvious choice to at least be in the running for the Hugo. No explanation has been given for why Kuang's novel was knocked out of the Hugos. Babel editor David Pomerico expressed confusion on Twitter about why the book was deemed "ineligible." Kuang later followed up with her own statement on Instagram:

"I initially planned to say nothing about Babel's inexplicable disqualification from the Hugo Awards. But I believe that these cases thrive on ambiguities, the lingering question marks, the answers that aren't answers. I wish to clarify that no reason for Babel's ineligibility was given to me or my team. I did not decline a nomination, as no nomination was offered.

Until one is provided that explains why the book was eligible for the Nebula and Locus awards, which it won, and not the Hugos, I assume this was a matter of undesirability rather than ineligibility. Excluding "undesirable" work is not only embarrassing for all involved parties, but renders the entire process and organization illegitimate. Pity.

That's all from me. I have books to write."

Another piece of work which was mysteriously deemed ineligible was The Sandman Episode 6, "The Sound of Her Wings." The Sandman was up for both Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form as a series, and Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form for its sixth episode. It was knocked out of the Long Form running due to Rule 3.8.3 of the WSFS Constitution, which states that "if any series and a subset series thereof both receive sufficient nominations to appear on the final ballot, only the version which received more nominations shall appear."

In other words, if a series receives more votes for an individual episode or novel from that series in another category, it will only be nominated in the category for which it received the most votes. So because the episode "The Sound of Her Wings" received more votes than The Sandman did as a series, the Short Form category was the one where the show's nomination went through. (This was also the case for Andor, which was dropped from the Long Form category since it's prison break episode "One Way Out" received more votes.)

However, "The Sound of Her Wings" was then deemed "ineligible" for the Short Form category. The Sandman author and co-showrunner Neil Gaiman shared R.F. Kuang's post on Bluesky and threw in his own two cents about the matter, saying, "This is how I feel about Sandman Episode 6, with the addition that it wouldn't have been my award, but an award for everyone who made it. That the episode was deemed mysteriously ineligible just makes the 2023 Hugo Awards feel shady."

Another shocker from the nomination data was that Iron Widow author Xiran Jay Zhao was deemed "ineligible" for the Astounding Award. That's the award given out to new authors, and they're only eligible for it during their first two years after publishing their first story. Zhao's debut book Iron Widow released in 2021, which means she should have been eligible for the Astounding Award at the 2022 and 2023 Hugos. And per the official Astounding Award's website, she was supposed to be eligible for it at Chengdu's Worldcon. As with Kuang, Zhao had not been contacted and had no idea she was deemed "ineligible" until the nomination data was released publicly over the weekend.

There are other, similar examples. Writer Paul Weimer was deemed "ineligible" for Best Fan Writer despite having the third highest number of votes; Weimer has since demanded answers of the Chengdu Worldcon team, and has been posting regular updates about his progress.

Beyond the shady stuff, there were some other interesting take aways from last year's Hugo nomination data. For instance, Prey, the Emmy-winning prequel to the Predator franchise directed by Dan Trachtenberg, received enough nominations in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form category to secure a finalist spot, but declined the nomination. As of this writing, it's not publicly known why the team behind Prey declined the nomination, though the Hugo Book Club Twitter account said that they were "told that the communication from the makers of the movie were brief and did not offer a reason for declining."

We reached out to Hulu for comment about Prey declining the nomination, but did not hear back by the time of publication of this piece.

Prey isn't the only one to decline a nomination. Author S.B. Divya also declined their nominations in the Best Novelette category as well as in the Best Semiprozine category for the Escape Pod podcast magazine. Unlike Prey, Divya did explain why she declined the nominations on her blog back in July of last year, saying she had signed a petition against holding the con in Chengdu to "protest the Chinese governments treatment of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province."

Yesterday, Dave McCarty, Chengdu Worldcon vice-chair and co-head of the Hugo Awards Selection Executive Division, fielded questions on Facebook about why some works were deemed ineligible and why the nomination numbers appeared to be abnormal. Despite being asked for specifics, he fell back on an obviously preprepared non-answer:

"After reviewing the Constitution and the rules we must follow, the administration team determined those works/persons were not eligible."

When pressed for more details, McCarty kept referring to that response, becoming increasingly hostile to the onslaught of questions from upset writers demanding answers, asking one "are you slow?" and telling another "You cant parse a sentence in what I assume is your native language."

Not even Neil Gaiman himself was able to get an answer from McCarty about why The Sandman episode was deemed ineligible. He joined in the Facebook discussion to inquire as to why precisely The Sandman was disqualified without explanation. Is there anyone who could actually explain WHY Sandman episode 6 was ineligible? I dont recall any politics in the episode. It was 'SF or Fantasy' and had not been previously released. He went on to ask why, if The Sandman was disqualified for an individual episode, it wouldn't be reinstated in the series category.

"It was a judgment call on my part whether to list both the same way or note that per the WSFS constitution, only one could be considered. I thought it more appropriate to do it the way it appears," McCarty replied. "The only statement from the administration team that I can share is the one that I already have, after we reviewed the constitution and the rules we must follow, we determined the work was not eligible." When pressed further for specifics, he said "I understand this may be unsatisfying for some, but it is what I can share."

There are plenty more examples of these types of evasive answers on the Facebook thread. If not even Neil Gaiman can get a straight answer about this, it's doubtful anyone in the sci-fi and fantasy community can. The author's reply was scathing and illuminating about just how bad this current controversy is, even compared with the Sad/Rabid Puppy scandal a few years back:

"I've been peripherally involved with the Hugos for the last 37 years. I've been awarded multiple Hugos and failed to win just as many Hugos, and never worried or gave it a moment's thought, other than knowing that the process was fair. Until now, one of the things that's always been refreshing about the Hugos has been the transparency and clarity of the process. Even the Sad Puppies nonsense was something easy to deal with because the process was transparent. Something had gone wrong, but it was fixable and was fixed. This is obfuscatory, and without some clarity it means that whatever has gone wrong here is unfixable, or may be unfixable in ways that don't damage the respect the Hugos have earned over the last seventy years."

As of this writing, one of the predominant theories about what went awry with the Chengdu Worldcon nominations is that concessions were made to appease the strict censorship laws in China. McCarty "categorically den[ied]" this with a carefully worded response. "Nobody has ordered me to do anything. Nobody is changing decisions I have made," he said. "There was no communication between the Hugo administration team and the Chinese government in any official manner. I got to meet the mayor and the vice mayor and there were a couple dinners with the vice mayor, the Worldcon team, and local dignitaries where the conversation was purely on our love of the literature and everyones excitement to hold the event. The government wasnt involved in things beyond the local government liking the prestige of holding the event and doing things to support us like helping us connect with key sponsors and supporting those sponsors and us."

Many remain skeptical of McCarty's explanation. He says that no pressure was placed on the Hugo Awards, but that doesn't mean preemptive choices may not have been made to head off any censorship. For example, Babel is a novel which deals with social revolution and colonialism. If it won the Hugo Award in Chengdu, might that have brought undue scrutiny on the event and its organizers? This is pure speculation on my part, but without any official explanation, speculation is unfortunately all we have.

Adding fuel to the fire are statements like this one from Tammy Coxen, another member of the Hugo Awards Administration, who replied on Facebook to another writer that they should "think about the fact that throwing someone in China under the bus could have very different consequences than it would in the U.S." She went on to say that if McCarty had wanted to falsify the data completely, he could have; instead he released it with clearly questionable red flags. Perhaps he was trying to signal something was amiss without saying it outright?

Writer Cheryl Morgan, who has won multiple Hugo Awards over the years and is very familiar with the system, had similar thoughts:

If I wanted to fix the results of the Hugos, there are two ways I would go about it. The first is that I would put out an entirely falsified set of nomination statistics. After all, the ballots will have been destroyed by now. How would anyone know that they were false?

The other option is to simply not issue the nomination statistics at all. Sure, they are supposed to, but there is no effective comeback if you dont do it, and the outrage at them not doing so is likely to be far less than what is happening right now.

Instead they have chosen to put out a set of nomination statistics that makes it very clear that shenanigans have taken place. Maybe we should be thinking about why they did that.

However you slice it, the 2023 Worldcon will likely go down as a prime example of why the convention needs to be extremely conscientious of how local laws and precedents might affect the legitimacy of the Hugo Awards. Sci-fi author John Scalzi had some interesting thoughts about this over on his Whatever blog:

"Even the speculation of state censorship should give pause to site selection voters regarding future Worldcons. For example, there is a 2028 Worldcon proposal for Kampala, Uganda, and whilethe proposed Worldcon itself offers a laudable and comprehensive Code of Conduct page, Uganda is a country with some of the most severe laws in the world regarding LGBTQ+ people, including laws involving censorship. If the state leaned hard on the local Worldcon regarding what was acceptable on the Hugo ballot, would it be safe for the organizers to ignore this pressure? This is now an issue we will need to consider, among the many others, in where the Worldcon lands every year."

To me, this seems like a very smart take. I happened to be at DisCon III when Chengdu won the bid for this year's Hugo ceremony, and one of the prominent arguments in its favor that I heard floated around was that Worldcon should be a world convention, not just one that floats back and forth across the U.S. and a handful of other western countries. Bringing it to countries in, for example, East Asia and Africa would be a great way to include fans in parts of the world who have not typically been able to attend, and to recognize the writers doing amazing work in those regions.

However, if each Worldcon must logically abide by the local and regional laws of the country where it's being held, and those laws mean that the Hugo Awards cannot be conducted legitimately and fairly because of things like censorship or even worse, that certain groups of people might have their safety put in jeopardy then that must be considered as well. We have a situation right now where it's being speculated that there was government censorship on the 2023 Hugos, and regardless of whether there was or not, it seems clear that the people behind the event do not feel that everyone involved is safe enough to explain the situation in full. In that sort of circumstance, it's hard to imagine any scenario where the awards can actually take place in a legitimate manner.

We'll see where things go from here. This story is still very much developing. Should anything more break, we'll update this post.

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Controversy strikes the 2023 Hugo Awards, causing uproar over censorship speculation - Winter is Coming

The nerve center of the federal governments censorship operations admitted ahead of the 2020 election that mass mail-in voting comes with risks but flagged online posts highlighting such insecurities to Big Tech companies for censorship anyway.

A series of internal documents obtained via open records request by America First Legal (AFL) show that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, was aware of the risks associated with unsupervised mail-in voting in the months leading up to the 2020 election. It was during this same time that the agency was classifying social media posts highlighting these risks as disinformation and flagging them for censorship.

The communications unearthed by AFL reveal that by September 2020, CISA officials knew there was no evidence to support the claim that in-person voting increase[d] the spread of COVID-19 and were aware that mass vote-by-mail schemes presented difficulties to election officials. Among the major challenges highlighted by the agency were the process of mailing and returning ballots, high numbers of improperly completed ballots, and the shortage of personnel to process ballots in a prompt manner.

By October 2020, CISA had crafted a six-point list titled, Mail-In Voting Risk: Infrastructure and Process, which detailed insecurities present in mass mail-in voting operations and offered compensating controls election officials could use to manage them.

One of these risks is that Inbound mail-in ballot processes and tabulation take longer than in-person processing, causing tabulation of results to occur more slowly and resulting in more ballots to tabulate following election night. Under the compensating controls section accompanying that specific issue, CISA noted that Election officials, media, candidates, and NGOs are educating voters and setting the expectation that it will take days, if not weeks, to determine the outcome of many races.

Recall that it took several days after the Nov. 3, 2020, contest before Joe Biden was declared the winner. This was in large part due to states such as Pennsylvania and Nevada still counting ballots days after Election Day.

But it wasnt just CISA officials who were informed of such risks. An Oct. 30, 2020, email indicates the agency shared the aforementioned concerns regarding mail-in voting with members of the corporate press during an unclassified media tour that same day.

Rather than report this information to the American public, self-professed news organizations such as The Washington Post which had staff attend the tour published articles in the days following the Oct. 30 briefing dismissing mail-in ballotings many liabilities and praising CISA for its independence from [President Donald] Trump.

Officials including Krebs have also scrupulously avoided criticizing or even explicitly correcting Trumps unfounded attacks on the elections legitimacy even as their own assessments oftendirectly contradicthis statements about the security of mail ballots and other topics, the Posts Joseph Marks wrote.

Despite its own admission that mail-in voting presented challenges and potential hazards to effective election administration, CISA worked extensively to compel Big Tech platforms to censor posts underscoring such points leading up to the 2020 election. According to AFL, the agency contracted consulting firm Deloitte to report on Daily Social Media Trends relating to the U.S. Election including narratives relating to Vote-By-Mail and to flag specific social media posts for CISAs awareness and attention.

Included in the posts Deloitte sent to CISA was an Oct. 30, 2020, tweet issued by Trump, in which the then-president claimed there were Big problems and discrepancies with Mail In Ballots all over the USA. Deloitte also flagged a post from an unnamed conservative pundit who, as the consulting firm described, accused Twitter of SUPPRESSING a story about the Democratic presidential nominees son to help the nominee win the election.

That post was in reference to Big Techs censorship of the New York Posts Hunter Biden laptop story. OnTwitter (now known as X), users were not permitted to share the story, even via direct message. The platform further removed links and issued alerts that it may be unsafe. Meanwhile, Facebookannouncedshortly after the story broke that it would be reducing [the storys] distribution pending verification by third-party fact-checkers.

Despite having authenticated the laptop in late 2019, the FBI was also heavily involved in these platforms suppression of the story.

CISAs use of Deloitte to flag so-called disinformation online further confirms the findings unearthed in aninterim reportreleased by House Republicans in November. According to that analysis, CISA along with the State DepartmentsGlobal Engagement Center (GEC) colluded with Stanford University to pressure Big Tech companies into censoring what they claimed was disinformation during the 2020 election. At the heart of this operation was theElection Integrity Partnership (EIP), a consortium of disinformation academics spearheaded by the Stanford Internet Observatory that coordinated with DHS and GEC to monitor and censor Americans online speech ahead of the 2020 contest.

[RELATED:State Of Texas Joins The Federalist, Daily Wire In Suing The Federal Censorship-Industrial Complex]

Created at the request of CISA, EIP allowed federal officials to launder [their] censorship activities in hopes of bypassing both the First Amendment and public scrutiny. As documented in the interim report, this operationaimedto censor true information, jokes and satire, and political opinions and submitted flagged posts from prominent conservative figures to Big Tech companies for censorship. Among those targeted were The Federalists Mollie Hemingway and Sean Davis.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

Continued here:
CISA Admitted 'Risks' Of Vote-By-Mail In Internal Docs From 2020 - The Federalist

The New Jersey Library Association (NJLA), the New Jersey Association of School Librarians (NJASL), New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) have watched, with concern, the growing number of coordinated attempts of censorship and suppression in schools and libraries in New Jersey and across the country. Many of these attacks are targeting materials and programs that address race, racism, sexuality, and gender identity and expression. New Jersey school, public, and academic library workers are being defamed, harassed and threatened in public school board meetings, public library board of trustees meetings, on social media and on public media. Their professionalism, honor, work ethics and performance are being questioned, judged and vilified.

The signers of this statement condemn these attacks. We strongly affirm the Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read Statement, first published by the American Library Association in 1953. We respect and recognize New Jerseys Law Against Discrimination, and refuse to participate in efforts to discriminate against protected groups by weaponizing information. Libraries provide access to books and other library resources and services for the interest, information, education, and enlightenment of all people within the communities we serve. They do not exclude materials because of their origin, background, or the views of those contributing to their creation. Libraries do not discriminate against any group, recognizing that a healthy democracy holds many voices and free access to credible information is a cornerstone that keeps all of us safe, healthy, and informed about the world around us.

Library workers are trained to curate collections that are designed to be inclusive. NJASLs job description states that school librarians are obligated to:

Information service providers are guided by the tenets of intellectual freedom and their ethical responsibilities to uphold the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Through careful consideration and rigorous training, librarians and library workers are equipped to make selection decisions that represent a balance of the spectrum of knowledge.

We appreciate the right and responsibility of parents and guardians to guide the reading choices of their children. Such rights should not inhibit the rights of others to read or view materials of their choosing. As parents, educators, administrators, and school board members, we stand united against prejudices, and politically motivated culture wars that target the right to read and access to education and information.

We reaffirm our commitment to our communities, the right to be who they are and to see themselves represented in books, regardless of their gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, or religion.

The New Jersey Library Association, the New Jersey Association of School Librarians and the New Jersey Education Association stand together to support the freedom to read. In addition, these organizations stand in steadfast support of New Jerseys library workers, community members, and students, who demonstrate daily courage as champions of the right to read for everyone.

Signed by: New Jersey Education Association New Jersey Library Association New Jersey School Library Association

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NJEA joins librarians to oppose censorship and book banning - New Jersey Education Association

It is a rough time to be a teacher. Having parents who are interested in their childrens curriculum was the dream once upon a time. Thats become nightmarish as helicopter parents go out of their way to redefine any and everything as too controversial to belong to a learning environment you cant even take kids to see high art anymore. In Texas, there were several highly esteemed authors Shakespeare and Toni Morrison among them that you couldnt teach for fear that it would offend the parents moral sensibilities. Thankfully, Texas teachers have hope of a little more autonomy in their classrooms. From Jurist:

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled on Wednesday that Texas legislation aimed at restricting or banning sexually explicit books in public school libraries likely violates the Constitution, affirming a lower courts injunction against it. Representatives from the plaintiffs side welcomed the judgment with a sense of triumph and relief: The courts decision also shields Texas businesses from the imposition of impossibly onerous conditions, protects the basic constitutional rights of the plaintiffs, and lets Texas parents make decisions for their own children without government interference or control. This is a good day for bookstores, readers, and free expression.

It is a good day for students, too. Laws that prevent kids from being able to learn are literally stultifying, and its a shame that the main motivator is petty politics. The motivation for these book bans seem more concerned with parents egos than childrens well being. Just take a look at some of the books Texan parents want banned. A Michelle Obama autobiography got shot down because it painted Trump as a bully. 1) So? 2) Hows that second defamation case going for ya? A book called A Good Kind Of Trouble about a 12-year-old joining a protest was attacked for causing a white child to feel confusion or distress. Excuse me, were we not all forced to read Lord of the Flies growing up? Because the thought that my classmates and I would all go feral if the teachers left us to our own devices was far more harrowing than people using the First Amendment.

Best of luck to the teachers in Florida. Even if the books are available to your students, it wont be easy getting them to read them when you have to compete against TikTok.

US Appeals Court Upholds Injunction Against Texas Law Censoring Sexually Explicit School Books [Jurist]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord in the Facebook groupLaw School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim,a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email atcwilliams@abovethelaw.comand by tweet at@WritesForRent.

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Texas Library Censorship Attempt Struck Down By 5th Circuit - Above the Law