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Terms of Reference for carrying out follow-up study of the New Ukrainian School reformimplementation

Learning Together is a four-year collaborative project between Ukraine and Finland. The project is funded by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the European Commission. The Finnish consortium in charge of the project implementation is led byFCGInternational Ltd. The project started in August 2018 and will continue till July2022.

The project focuses on supporting the New Ukrainian School (NUS) reform, especially in the primary education, and is designed around three main clusters and cross-cutting elements. These clusters are (1) teacher preparation, (2) education promotion, and (3) educationenvironment.

Learning together is now seeking to contract a qualified and experienced research organization/NGOwhich could carry out annual follow up study that will provide data on awareness on and perception of theNUSreform and its impact on schools. The purpose of this Terms of Reference (TOR) is to call for competitive service providers to carry out this research. This assignment focuses on carrying out research to produce reliable data about the Projects results and the reform on which the decision makers can rely and further develop the implementation activities.

1.Introduction

TheNUSreform piloting started in 129 schools in September 2017. In those schools all the first-graders followed new education standard, curricula and teaching methods. New education environments were developed and teachers were specially trained for new teaching approaches. In 2018 theNUSreform was rolled outnationwide.

In 2019, Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) launched a study to find out results ofNUSreform in everyday teaching and learning. The baseline study was conducted in autumn 2019 among 149 third grade teachers, 897 third grade students, 149 school principals and 2497 parents. It also aimed to find out the target audiences perceptions about the school reform. Total of 25 pilot schools and 124 normal schools were sampled to participate in this study. Published results of this survey can be found by this link:https://bit.ly/3wVegyU.

For further implementation of the reform, it is planned to carry out follow-up studies among the same target audiences in 2021. It is expected that about 75% of the questionnaire items used in the study will remain the same in order to follow the trends. Additionally, monitoring study onNUSawareness and perception will be conducted among general public and localofficials.

Target groups:3 grade teachers, 3 grade pupils, parents, school principals, general population, local educationaladministrations.

2. Objective

We are looking for an experienced and reliable research organization/NGOthat can conduct the follow-up monitoring study in 2021. The major goal of this study is to support decision makers by providing reliable data about the level of implementation and communication ofNUS. This includes also pragmatic recommendations how to further enhance the implementation. The survey will also provide monitoring data on the ProjectsKPIs, asfollows:

The main research question is: what is the level of implementation ofNUScontents in the schools? Thus, the study should focus on educational contents, teaching approaches and knowledge, skills and competences that studentslearn.

Some questions used in the first-round surveywere:

3. Scope of Work

The Service Provider will be contractedto:

3.1 Design, implement, analyze and report on the results of the monitoring study,including:

Planned study components andmethods:

Methods:

1) observation of students group work 2 competence-based tasks (structured and creative) for a group of 6 randomly selected students; observation by two trained experts, filling in an evaluation form with 15 closedquestions.

2) self-administered questionnaire for students (6-10items).

Method:observation of 3rd grade teachers performance in the class during a day; two trained experts, filling in evaluation forms to fix teachers statements and coding them by 10-15types.

Methods:

1) observation of students work in the class during a day; two trained experts, filling in monitoring forms on types and formats of work used and time spent on eachtype/format.

2) self-administered questionnaire for students around 30 questions, 2/3 of themclosed-end.

Up to 40 question items, 2 of themopen-ended.

Up to 30 question items on their attitudes regardingNUSreform and their needs andproposals.

Up to 5 closed-end questions, their awareness and attitudes regardingNUSreform. Participation in an omnibus-type survey isenvisioned.

Planed sample size 1000.

Phone/online representative survey of local educational authorities, up to 15 question items, 3 of whichopen-ended.

Planed sample size 600.

4. Expected Deliverables

The Service Provider will submit the followingdeliverables:

4.1. Analytical framework (Description of data that will be collected in the survey, for what purpose, why it is important to collect those and how these things will be reported, where and towhom).

4.2. Development of study tools in English and Ukrainian (about 75% of the instruments and questionnaire items will be repeated from the previous baseline study) including pretesting. The questionnaires should include items for measuring Projects Key Performance Indicators,NUSReform Perception Key Performance Indicators as set in the Communication Strategy 2019-2022 of MoES (understanding of the reform, understanding of particular messages of the campaigns, acceptance of the reform in the targetgroups).

4.3. Development of studyprocedures.

4.2. Technical report, where study design, including sampling, weights,QMprocedures, data collection procedures will be explained in detail in Ukrainian andEnglish.

4.3. Implementation of the study in2021.

4.4. Inputting the data, cleaning the data, in the created databank (MSExcel/SPSS).

4.5. Analyzing the data and producing results (tables and figures) accordingly to Analytical framework described in 4.1. including calculation of the Project andNUSReform Perception Key PerformanceIndicators.

4.6. Draw up recommendations based on the collected data for decision makers and various targetaudiences.

4.7. Write summary reports on targeted audiences in close collaboration withMOES, Reform Support Team (RST) and Learning Together project inUkrainian.

The first data collection should start in October2021.

The firstanalytical report should be ready by January 10,2022.

The supervision of workwill be carried out by the Project Learning Together, Ministry of Education and Science, and Reform Support Team (RST) staff members. It is expected that MoES will support this survey by an official order to be issued not later than in June2021.

5. Budget

The budget, details of the assignment, terms and conditions will be specified in the contract between the FCG International Ltd (Contractor) and the Service Provider. Payment milestones will be based on the acceptance of the key deliverables by the Project Management Team.

6. Submission requirements

The Proposalmust include thefollowing:

6.1 A Technical Proposal not exceeding 10 pages in length including the intended approach and the planned activities in the management of the undertaking, including an example of analytical framework, and, description about item development, operational work plan with timelines and plan how the quality of the work will be monitored. Risk analysis should be also included, as well as examples of reports on the similar projects ineducation.

6.2 Breakdown ofcosts

The budget breakdown must include two separate sections: Fees of experts and Other Costs. The fees shall be defined on rates based on working days or working months. Other Costs must be broken down to correspond the Technical Proposal and Work Plan. The Budget Breakdown must be inEuros.

6.3 The Curriculum Vitae of the team members with obligatory examples of participation in similar researchprojects.

6.4. Official documents proving the status of the organization and the document proving the financial capacity (annual turnover and profit/loss) of theorganization.

Copies of registration documents (including a copy of the certificates of state registration of legal entities which the Participant plans to apply for the provision of services, a copy of the tax certificate; an Extract from the Statute indicating theactivities).

Other relevant supporting material may be attached as anannex.

The Proposal must be inEnglish.

7. Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on Quality (90% weight) and Price (10%weight).

The quality of the proposal will be evaluated based on thefollowing:

Organization:

The Service Providers teamsqualifications:

TechnicalProposal:

The best candidates will be invited for an interview consisting of a 20 minutes presentation and 15 minutes for Q&A.

8. Deadline for Proposals

The timeline of the tender is asfollows:

In case the tenderers want to have further clarification on the competition, written questions must be sent via email (dmytro.morgun@fcg.fi) by October 11,2021.

All tenderers will be provided with answers to all clarification requests by October 13,2021.

The final application must be submitted by October 15 (including), 2021 via email todmytro.morgun@fcg.fi.

Please note that all written communication must be in English. Further instructions for the tender are given only from the email mentioned above. Advice obtained from other sources may be disregarded in the tenderevaluation.

Originally posted here:
Follow-up study of the New Ukrainian School reform implementation - KyivPost - Ukraine's Global Voice - Kyiv Post

German hotel workers probed over singers antisemitism allegations

FRANKFURT, Germany German prosecutors have opened an investigation into employees at a hotel after a rock musician made accusations of antisemitism against them in a video posted on social media.

The singer Gil Ofarim said in an emotional video published yesterday that two employees at the Westin hotel in Leipzig, in eastern Germany, had asked him to put away a Star of David pendant before he would be allowed to check in.

Two employees at the Westin were subsequently suspended while the accusations are investigated, a spokeswoman for the Marriott International hotel group says today.

Prosecutors are currently examining the accusations made against the hotel employees, say authorities in Leipzig.

At the same time, one of the accused files for defamation, describing the events very differently to the singer, according to a spokeswoman for the police.

The same individual reported threats made against him via his Instagram account.

Ofarim rejected the defamation allegation, saying that it was exactly like how I described it in the video.

I find it shameful and sad that I still have to justify and explain myself after such an incident, he tells Spiegel Online.

After the video was published yesterday, thousands of individuals gathered outside the hotel to demonstrate in solidarity with the singer and against antisemitism.

The German governments Commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight against Anti-Semitism Felix Klein offered his sympathy and solidarity to Ofarim in an interview with the Funke media group.

It was good and important that the incident had been made public, Klein said, and showed the need for more education on antisemitism in Germany.

See the original post:
Ukraine hosts memorial ceremony marking 80 years since Babi Yar massacre - The Times of Israel

80 years ago, around 34,000 Jews were lined up and killed in a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in the biggest Nazi mass killings during World War Two. They were then buried in mass graves and left for the world to forget.

More horrors followed the mass killings on September 29 and 30 as the Nazis continued to round up Jews, the mentally ill, Soviet prisoners, and others over the following years, killing up to 200,000 in total at Babi Yar.

The dark spot in history is, however, not forgotten. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has remembered it with civil memorials as a lesson of the past. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy laid flowers at the foot of the Menorah memorial, and another ceremony is planned for October 6.

Babi Yar. Two short words that sound like two short shots but carry long and horrible memories of several generations, Zelenskyy said at the memorial.

Anatoly Podolsky, the director at the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies in Kyiv, told Euronews that the Jewish population and others had no idea of what was coming back then due to the lack of information about the Nazi atrocities and anti-Semitism this early in the war.

That was due to the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, the so-called MolotovRibbentrop Pact, signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939.

Over the years, I have spoken to many from that time, and they had not seen it coming. During the German occupation in the First World War, many said that they were treated okay. They, therefore, didnt expect these atrocities to happen in the Second World War, says Podolsky, who says that the Soviet Union didnt inform the local population in Kyiv or Ukraine overall about what was coming.

One of the survivors of Babi Yar was Dina Pronicheva, who was ordered to march down in the ravine and undress before the shootings started. She avoided the fate of many others by jumping before the shootings and playing dead among the corpses.

She gasped for air as the Nazi SS soldiers started to cover the graves.

All around were standing fascists armed with submachine guns, Ukrainian policemen, and fierce dogs ready to tear a human apart, she testified after the war.

I pretended to be dead. Those who had been killed or wounded were lying under me and on top of me - many were still breathing, others were moaning. Suddenly I heard a child weeping and the cry: Mummy! I imagined my little girl crying, and I started to cry myself.

It was getting dark. Germans armed with submachine guns walked around, finishing off the wounded. I felt that somebody was standing above me, but I did not give any sign that I was alive, even though that was very difficult. Then I felt we were being covered with earth.

"I closed my eyes so that the soil would not get into them, and when it became dark and silent, literally the silence of death, I opened my eyes and threw the sand off me, making sure that no one was close by, no one was around, no one was watching me, Pronicheva said.

About 29 people are known to have survived Babi Yar, and Podolsky says that the atrocity still significantly impacts Jews and others living in Ukraine today. Many Jews, who fled their homeland, never returned, and the day is a way to remember history, he says.

Yaakov Dov Bleich is the chief rabbi in Ukraine and the vice-president of the World Jewish Congress. He said that remembering is vital for everyone.

This is not only a Jewish thing; it was a crime against humanity. They could have been doctors, nurses, engineers. They were people. They were killed because they were Jewish, but the significance is for all because of the hate.

"To wipe out an entire community in two days is something that is very hard for us, even today 80 years later, to understand, Bleich says.

The Ukrainian government plans to build a Holocaust Memorial Centre in Kyiv, which isnt getting support from everyone in Ukraine.

Podolsky says that the construction is controversial because the government is cooperating with a Russian organisation, while Bleich says that the plans are good as the families and the world will get a place to mourn.

Tens of thousands were killed. Hundreds of thousands or millions have families that died there. They had no place to go to pray; there are hundred thousand people without gravestones, Bleich said, It gives closure and peace.

While Ukrainians agree about atrocities at Babi Yar, the history of the Nazis and their occupation overall is a controversial topic in Ukraine, when it comes to other topics during the war. That is partly due to some Ukrainians opinion of controversial figures such as Stepan Bandera, explains Podolsky.

The Ukrainian government is considering giving the title Hero of Ukraine to Bandera because he fought for Ukrainian independence back in the 1930s and 1940s, but to others, he is an anti-Semitic war criminal who cooperated with the Nazis. His movement is accused of having killed up to 100,000 Jews and Poles during WW2. Bandera was, however, jailed for several years during the atrocities.

We need to be open about our history and the role of people such as Bandera in the Second World War, explains Podolsky, He is a hero for some, and we need to be open about Ukraines own role. I think that the atrocities in Babi Yar, which we all agree upon, can be a way for us to move away from the Ukrainian nationalist and also Soviet understanding of our history and into a more liberal and open understanding.

Bleich says that Ukraine has to deal with the legacy of people like Bandera, but he says that Ukraine has come a long way, and there isnt much anti-Semitism in Ukraine. Recently, Ukraine also approved a new law banning anti-Semitism.

It is important to get the balance and understand what is the heroization that he (Bandera) did. And we have to be able to say that they did things that were wrong. Some of these heroes did participate in crimes against humanity, and Ukraine has to decide whom they want for heroes,

It is important to take everything in the proper context. For that we need historians. (To answer) how, why, and what happened. Something Ukraine is working on as well, but it is taking time for them.

Continue reading here:
Babi Yar: 80 years after Nazi massacre, its ghosts still haunt Ukraine - Euronews

The Ukrainian local NGO Zaporizhzhia Roma Center Lacho Drome carried out from February to July 2021 a project on trining for humn rights mediators in 4 cities of the Zaporizhzhia d Dnepropetrovsk regions of Ukraine, with the support of the EU Council of Europe project Strengthening access to justice for victims of discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes in the Eastern Partnership.

What started as a small local project of basic human rights training for local mediators and an attempt to build bridges between representatives of local authorities and police and Roma people, emerged into a success story of empowerment and a working model that can be used in other small cities. The two target regions chosen for the project were characterised by a quite big Roma population with very low involvement in the civil society movement and little contacts with local authorities outside the big cities. These are Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia where the NGO Lacho Drome'' works. The main idea was to build and empower the network of Roma activists - mediators in smaller cities and equip them with instruments to build connections with local authorities and the police to make sure the latter hear what Roma communities in these cities need in cases of discrimination. Mediators were supposed to serve as a communication bridge between Roma communities in small cities and authorities.

This project was designed to address two big problems - Roma people are not communicating their human rights violations using formal channels and local authorities ignore the needs and constraints of Roma communities as they lack information and pressure.

The first stage of the project was to train Roma mediators in teams of two persons in each of the 4 cities - Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kamianske and Pologi. Local police, first of all patrol service and representatives of the Department of the Preventive Activities, were invited to the second stage, together with local representatives of the Ombudsman and the Department of Culture, Nationalities and Religion.

The second step was to build communication bridges between teams of mediators and local authorities, through sessions of joint discussion of the local issues and preparing action plans. Each city developed and formalised a list of tasks for further cooperation. These were short and specific local plans of feasible actions to be fulfilled during 6 months of the project implementation, to serve as a first attempt of formalising cooperation between the national minority and local authorities which was never so formal and close before. These small local plans have been a great tool of starting the communication between the communities and local authorities based on local needs and resources.

The third step of the project was awareness raising activities in local Roma communities and monitoring of human rights violations conducted by the mediators in their communities. These monitoring activities brought two important results. First, the awareness of the community members was increased and there is now a possibility for them to have a contact point to report human rights violations. This is the first step on the long path of empowering Roma communities to formally report human rights abuses to the authorities in the future. The second project result is the number and quality of cases collected, which show valuable data about the variety of discrimination attitudes Roma face in the regions and specific areas the mediators will work in the future after the project completion. 109 cases were collected in less than half a year in two regions of Ukraine and they show many different faces of discrimination Roma face daily - in education, in labour and on the streets. The project also has some success stories when mediators helped Roma people to formally complain to authorities in order to restore violated rights.

This project was organised with the support of the project Strengthening access to justice for victims of discrimination, hate crime and hate speech in the Eastern Partnership, funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe in the framework of the Partnership for Good Governance Programme (PGG II).

See the article here:
Empowering the Roma communities to stand against discrimination in Ukraine - Council of Europe

Mary Ware Dennett wroteThe Sex Side of Life in 1915as a teaching tool for her teenage sons. Photo illustration by Meilan Solly / Photos courtesy of Sharon Spaulding and Newspapers.com

It only took 42 minutes for an all-male jury to convict Mary Ware Dennett. Her crime? Sending a sex education pamphlet through the mail.

Charged with violating the Comstock Act of 1873one of a series of so-called chastity lawsDennett, a reproductive rights activist, had written and illustrated the booklet in question for her own teenage sons, as well as for parents around the country looking for a new way to teach their children about sex.

Lawyer Morris Ernst filed an appeal, setting in motion a federal court case that signaled the beginning of the end of the countrys obscenity laws. The pairs victory marked the zenith of Dennetts life work, building on her previous efforts to publicize and increase access to contraception and sex education. (Prior to the trial, she was best known as the more conservative rival of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.) Today, however, United States v. Dennett and its defendant are relatively unknown.

One of the reasons the Dennett case hasnt gotten the attention that it deserves is simply because it was an incremental victory, but one that took the crucial first step, says Laura Weinrib, a constitutional historian and law scholar at Harvard University. First steps are often overlooked. We tend to look at the culmination and miss the progression that got us there.

Dennett wrote the pamphlet in question, The Sex Side of Life: An Explanation for Young People, in 1915. Illustrated with anatomically correct drawings, it provided factual information, offered a discussion of human physiology and celebrated sex as a natural human act.

[G]ive them the facts, noted Dennett in the text, ... but also give them some conception of sex life as a vivifying joy, as a vital art, as a thing to be studied and developed with reverence for its big meaning, with understanding of its far-reaching reactions, psychologically and spiritually.

After Dennetts 14-year-old son approved the booklet, she circulated it among friends who, in turn, shared it with others. Eventually, The Sex Side of Life landed on the desk of editor Victor Robinson, who published it in his Medical Review of Reviewsin 1918. Calling the pamphlet a splendid contribution, Robinson added, We know nothing that equals Mrs. Dennetts brochure. Dennett, for her part, received so many requests for copies that she had the booklet reprinted and began selling it for a quarter to anyone who wrote to her asking for one.

These transactions flew in the face of the Comstock Laws, federal and local anti-obscenity legislation that equated birth control with pornography and rendered all devices and information for the prevention of conception illegal. Doctors couldnt discuss contraception with their patients, nor could parents discuss it with their children.

The Sex Side of Life offered no actionable advice regarding birth control. As Dennett acknowledged in the brochure, At present, unfortunately, it is against the law to give people information as to how to manage their sex relations so that no baby will be created. But the Comstock Act also stated that any printed material deemed obscene, lewd or lasciviouslabels that could be applied to the illustrated pamphletwas non-mailable. First-time offenders faced up to five years in prison or a maximum fine of $5,000.

In the same year that Dennett first wrote the brochure, she co-founded the National Birth Control League (NBCL), the first organization of its kind. The groups goal was to change obscenity laws at a state level and unshackle the subject of sex from Victorian morality and misinformation.

By 1919, Dennett had adopted a new approach to the fight for womens rights. A former secretary for state and national suffrage associations, she borrowed a page from the suffrage movement, tackling the issue on the federal level rather than state-by-state. She resigned from the NBCL and founded the Voluntary Parenthood League, whose mission was to pass legislation in Congress that would remove the words preventing conception from federal statutes, thereby uncoupling birth control from pornography.

Dennett soon found that the topic of sex education and contraception was too controversial for elected officials. Her lobbying efforts proved unsuccessful, so in 1921, she again changed tactics. Though the Comstock Laws prohibited the dissemination of obscene materials through the mail, they granted the postmaster general the power to determine what constituted obscenity. Dennett reasoned that if the Post Office lifted its ban on birth control materials, activists would win a partial victory and be able to offer widespread access to information.

Postmaster General William Hays, who had publicly stated that the Post Office should not function as a censorship organization, emerged as a potential ally. But Hays resigned his post in January 1922 without taking action. (Ironically, Hays later established what became known as the Hays Code, a set of self-imposed restrictions on profanity, sex and morality in the motion picture industry.) Dennett had hoped that the incoming postmaster general, Hubert Work, would fulfill his predecessors commitments. Instead, one of Works first official actions was to order copies of the Comstock Laws prominently displayed in every post office across America. He then declared The Sex Side of Life unmailable and indecent.

Undaunted, Dennett redoubled her lobbying efforts in Congress and began pushing to have the postal ban on her booklet removed. She wrote to Work, pressing him to identify which section was obscene, but no response ever arrived. Dennett also asked Arthur Hays, chief counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), to challenge the ban in court. In letters preserved at Radcliffe Colleges Schlesinger Library, Dennett argued that her booklet provided scientific and factual information. Though sympathetic, Hays declined, believing that the ACLU couldnt win the case.

By 1925, Dennettdiscouraged, broke and in poor healthhad conceded defeat regarding her legislative efforts and semi-retired. But she couldnt let the issue go entirely. She continued to mail The Sex Side of Life to those who requested copies and, in 1926, published a book titledBirth Control Laws: Shall We Keep Them, Change Them, or Abolish Them?

Publicly, Dennetts mission was to make information about birth control legal; privately, however, her motivation was to protect other women from the physical and emotional suffering she had endured.

The activist wed in 1900 and gave birth to three children, two of whom survived, within five years. Although the specifics of her medical condition are unknown, she likely suffered from lacerations of the uterus or fistulas, which are sometimes caused by childbirth and can be life-threatening if one becomes pregnant again.

Without access to contraceptives, Dennett faced a terrible choice: refrain from sexual intercourse or risk death if she conceived. Within two years, her husband had left her for another woman.

Dennett obtained custody of her children, but her abandonment and lack of access to birth control continued to haunt her. Eventually, these experiences led her to conclude that winning the vote was only one step on the path to equality. Women, she believed, deserved more.

In 1928, Dennett again reached out to the ACLU, this time to lawyer Ernst, who agreed to challenge the postal ban on the Sex Side of Life in court. Dennett understood the risks and possible consequences to her reputation and privacy, but she declared herself ready to take the gamble and be game. As she knew from press coverage of her separation and divorce, newspaper headlines and stories could be sensational, even salacious. (The story was considered scandalous because Dennetts husband wanted to leave her to form a commune with another family.)

Dennett believed that anyone who needed contraception should get it without undue burden or expense, without moralizing or gatekeeping by the medical establishment, says Stephanie Gorton, author of Citizen Reporters: S.S. McClure, Ida Tarbell and the Magazine That Rewrote America. Though she wasn't fond of publicity, she was willing to endure a federal obscenity trial so the next generation could have accurate sex educationand learn the facts of life without connecting them with shame or disgust.

In January 1929, before Ernst had finalized his legal strategy, Dennett was indicted by the government. Almost overnight, the trial became national news, buoyed by The Sex Side of Lifes earlier endorsement by medical organizations, parents groups, colleges and churches. The case accomplished a significant piece of what Dennett had worked 15 years to achieve: Sex, censorship and reproductive rights were being debated across America.

During the trial, assistant U.S. attorney James E. Wilkinson called the Sex Side of Life pure and simple smut. Pointing at Dennett, he warned that she would lead our children not only into the gutter, but below the gutter and into the sewer.

None of Dennetts expert witnesses were allowed to testify. The all-male jury took just 45 minutes to convict. Ernst filed an appeal.

In May, following Dennetts conviction but prior to the appellate courts ruling, an investigative reporter for the New York Telegram uncovered the source of the indictment. A postal inspector named C.E. Dunbar had been ordered to investigate a complaint about the pamphlet filed by an official with the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Using the pseudonym Mrs. Carl Miles, Dunbar sent a decoy letter to Dennett requesting a copy of the pamphlet. Unsuspecting, Dennett mailed the copy, thereby setting in motion her indictment, arrest and trial. (Writing about the trial later, Dennett noted that the DAR official who allegedly made the complaint was never called as a witness or identified. The activist speculated, Is she, perhaps, as mythical as Mrs. Miles?)

Dennetts is a name that deserves to be known.

When news of the undercover operation broke, Dennett wrote to her family that support for the case is rolling up till it looks like a mountain range. Leaders from the academic, religious, social and political sectors formed a national committee to raise money and awareness in support of Dennett; her name became synonymous with free speech and sex education.

In March 1930, an appellate court reversed Dennetts conviction, setting a landmark precedent. It wasnt the full victory Dennett had devoted much of her life to achieving, but it cracked the legal armor of censorship.

Even though Mary Ware Dennett wasnt a lawyer, she became an expert in obscenity law, says constitutional historian Weinrib. U.S. v. Dennett was influential in that it generated both public enthusiasm and money for the anti-censorship movement. It also had a tangible effect on the ACLUs organizational policies, and it led the ACLU to enter the fight against all forms of what we call morality-based censorship.

Ernst was back in court the following year. Citing U.S. v. Dennett, he won two lawsuits on behalf of British sex educator Marie Stopes and her previously banned books, Married Love and Contraception. Then, in 1933, Ernst expanded on arguments made in the Dennett case to encompass literature and the arts. He challenged the governments ban on James Joyces Ulysses and won, in part because of the precedent set by Dennetts case. Other important legal victories followed, each successively loosening the legal definition of obscenity. But it was only in 1970 that the Comstock Laws were fully struck down.

Ninety-two years after Dennetts arrest, titles dealing with sex continue to top the list of the American Library Associations most frequently challenged books. Sex education hasnt fared much better. As of September 2021, only 18 states require sex education to be medically accurate, and only 30 states mandate sex education at all. The U.S. has one of the highestteen pregnancy rates of all developed nations.

What might Dennett think or do if she were alive today? Lauren MacIvor Thompson, a historian of early 20th-century womens rights and public health at Kennesaw State University, takes the long view:

While its disheartening that we are fighting the same battles over sex and sex education today, I think that if Dennett were still alive, shed be fighting with school boards to include medically and scientifically accurate, inclusive, and appropriate information in schools. ... Shed [also] be fighting to ensure fair contraceptive and abortion access, knowing that the three pillars of education, access and necessary medical care all go hand in hand.

At the time of Dennetts death in 1947, The Sex Side of Life had been translated into 15 languages and printed in 23 editions. Until 1964, the activists family continued to mail the pamphlet to anyone who requested a copy.

As a lodestar in the history of marginalized Americans claiming bodily autonomy and exercising their right to free speech in a cultural moment hostile to both principles, says Gorton, Dennetts is a name that deserves to be known.

Originally posted here:
The Sex Education Pamphlet That Sparked a Landmark Censorship Case - Smithsonian