Bioethicist Alice Dreger Resigns from Northwestern Over Censorship
Bioethicist and author Alice Dreger has resigned from her professorship at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, citing continuing censorship by university administrators. “An institution in which the faculty are afraid to offend the dean is not an institution where I can in good conscience do my work,” Dreger, a professor of medical education, medical humanities, and bioethics, wrote in a letter of resignation submitted last night to Northwestern Provost Daniel Linzer. “Such an institution is not a ‘university,’ in the truest sense of that word.” Dreger points specifically to Northwestern’s ongoing censorship of the faculty-produced medical journal Atrium, of […]
Is Campus Censorship the New Normal?
CAMPUS CENSORSHIP: AN ENDURING PROBLEM Yale University: Censoring “Sissy” and the Mohammad Cartoons Despite its unequivocal public commitments to free speech and academic freedom, Yale University failed to live up to these ideals in two well-publicized incidents last year. One example is somewhat comic, the other far more sinister, but each illustrates the endemic will to censor all too common on our nation’s campuses. The less serious case arose from the fabled Yale-Harvard football rivalry. Every year, each university’s student body pulls together to find creative ways of insulting the other before the clash known simply as “The Game.” The […]
Yale University: Censorship of Mohammed Cartoons at Yale University Press
Yale University censored images of Mohammed in author Jytte Klausen’s book, The Cartoons That Shook the World, which discusses the controversy and violence that resulted from the publication of cartoons of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper in 2005. The book, published by the Yale University Press in fall 2009, was to contain images of the cartoons and other images of Mohammed. However, Yale University intervened in the editorial process of its Press, submitted the cartoons out of context to a group of anonymous consultants and, relying on their opinions, decided to remove the cartoons from the book. Despite much criticism […]
Silenced at Saint Mary’s: Censorship and Academic Freedom Concerns Raised After Professor’s Firing
As the spring semester begins today at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, a storm of controversy is brewing amid allegations the school unjustly censored a school play, fired the popular professor who wrote it, and is now demanding silence from students and faculty critical of the administration. One thing is certain: Numerous Saint Mary’s students and faculty who worked with Professor David Hillman tell FIRE they want people to know about the man they call a dedicated and brilliant scholar who got students excited about the classics. “It’s a total loss for the university,” said Judy Myers, a theater and […]
Jodie Ginsberg of Index on Censorship on the Global State of Censorship (VIDEO)
In this interview, Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg gives FIRE an overview of the state of free expression and censorship efforts across the globe. FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff conducted the interview with Ginsberg while he was in London in July 2015. Before joining Index on Censorship, an organization that defends and promotes free expression worldwide, Ginsberg spent 12 years as a journalist. It’s a job Ginsberg says led her to understand the importance of free speech. “I became a journalist because I wanted to tell untold stories,” Ginsberg said. “I think information is one of the most […]
Email Congress About Campus Censorship Today
Yes, this blog post talks about tax policy. But entertainingly, I promise. But even if you don’t want to read further, please do this: Send your stories of campus censorship to the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives through the committee’s website. Or email: campus.speech@mail.house.gov. The committee is collecting stories of how free speech is being stifled on college campuses and needs to hear from you, Torch readers. Now, if you want to know the fascinating reason why the committee is engaged in this issue, read on. When I give presentations, I always warn students that […]
FIRE Nominated for Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award
The Index on Censorship has chosen FIRE as one if its longlisted finalists for its #Index100 2016 Freedom of Expression Awards. #Index100: Unveiling this year’s 100 global free speech heroes https://t.co/4Pdpt3Eq5S #IndexAwards2016 — Index on Censorship (@IndexCensorship) December 16, 2015 The awards “celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world,” in four categories: arts, campaigning, digital activism, and journalism. FIRE was nominated in the campaigning category, “for activists and campaigners who have had a marked impact in fighting censorship and promoting freedom of expression.” Other nominees include France’s satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, Chinese […]
What Causes Campus Censorship and How to Combat it
Talk delivered on June 19th, in Philadelphia at the Campus Freedom Network Conference, sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Copyright 2009 Wendy Kaminer When I say that censorship on campus has become more pervasive and intrusive and focused on increasingly trivial offenses, I don’t mean to suggest that campus speech was unrestricted in the past. Censorship is a perennial problem; the urge to restrict speech you fear or dislike seems almost primal – especially to people in power, on all points in the political spectrum. In recent years, the drive to repress individual rights on campus has […]
In the Name of Free Exchange of Ideas, CSU Los Angeles Resorts to Censorship
Another story of administrative censorship made headlines yesterday, this time out of California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). CSULA’s president, William Covino, is the latest university president to take it upon himself to cancel a student organization’s event due to the views of an invited speaker. The target of Covino’s censorship is conservative author and political commentator Ben Shapiro, editor-at-large of the Breitbart News Network. Shapiro’s lecture, to have been hosted tomorrow by the CSULA Young America’s Foundation (YAF), was titled “When Diversity Becomes a Problem” and was predictably controversial. According to the event’s Facebook page, Shapiro was planning to “discuss how […]
University of California at San Diego: Censorship of Student Satire Magazine
The University of California at San Diego (UCSD) announced that it had dropped its charge of "disruption" against a student humor publication, The Koala. The Koala faced charges after publishing satirical photos of a student member of a campus Chicano organization. FIRE wrote UCSD to remind it of a 1995 case when another UCSD student publication, Voz Fronteriza, celebrated the death of a Latino Immigration and Naturalization Service officer and called for the murder of other such "race traitors." In that case, UCSD-including Vice Chancellor Joseph W. Watson, whose office oversaw this year’s trial of The Koala-vigorously affirmed Voz Fronteriza’s […]
