Chicago State University (CSU) administrators have sent another letter attempting to shut down or censor the CSU Faculty Voice blog. In November, AAUP VP Hank Reichman called CSU’s earlier letter to the blog “a thuggish effort to bully and frighten, with no legal or moral justification.” This new letter is even worse, and clear evidence […] … learn more→

The UK Prime Minister has declared that Internet service providers should by default block access to pornography, and that some “horrific” internet search terms to be “blacklisted” on the major search engines, not bringing up any search results. The main motivation of the speech appears to be that access to pornography is “corroding childhood” by […] … learn more→

Channel 4 was censured by Ofcom last week for cutting to a light-hearted sponsorship advert just after viewers had watched the particularly graphic and disturbing rape scene in the film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The Phones 4 U sponsorship ad was thought to be especially inappropriate for that moment as it features a […] … learn more→

For the third time in recent weeks the Banned Books Awareness series once again focuses on some rather disturbing trends from Canada. Incidents of censorship by the border patrol, negative reactions to fiction based on historical documents, and now it seems Dr. Seuss has been branded too political for the classroom. Yertle the Turtle (1958) […] … learn more→

This is a republish of this article Lawrence Hill wrote one of the bestselling and most-popular Canadian novels of all time; but what does he do for an encore? Hill, who will be in Edmonton this coming Tuesday (4/17/12) to deliver the University of Alberta’s annual Henry Kreisel lecture, knows how to follow up a […] … learn more→

Todd Parr has written over 30 children’s books, and he is the winner of two National Parenting Publication Awards, as well as three Oppenheim Gold Awards; but his The Family Book (preschool-grade 2; 2004) has stirred up some controversy. In a whimsical, engaging way, the daily lives of all kinds of families are depicted, celebrating their […] … learn more→

The Tennessee legislature recently passed a bill stating that teachers cannot encourage “gateway sexual activity,” as part of the state\’s abstinence-based sexual education movement. Seizing the opportunity implied by the new law, officials in Sumner County last week banned John Green’s Young Adult novel “Looking for Alaska” from the school curriculum because it contains an […] … learn more→

Some call it fan fiction, while others call it “mommy porn;” but the fact is that whatever you call it, Fifty Shades of Grey, a New York Times #1 bestselling novel by E. L. James, has become an international hit. Set in Seattle, it is the first in a trilogy that follows the relationship between a recent college […] … learn more→

Last Thursday (4/19/2012), the Annville-Cleona School Board in Pennsylvania voted 8-0 to remove an award-winning children\’s book, The Dirty Cowboy, by Amy Timberlake, from its elementary schools after a student\’s parents objected to its illustrations. Board Vice President Gordon Waldhausen was absent, but President Tom Tshudy said, “We take review of this type of thing […] … learn more→

Just two days before Deborah Merrick, Branch Manager at Merritt Library in British Columbia, was scheduled to burn banned books, members of the community came forward to stop her. “People came in and said they didn’t want any books burned,” Merrick said. “I didn’t have a single person come out and say that burning books […] … learn more→