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Reddit’s I.P.O. Is a Content Moderation Success Story

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Reddit’s I.P.O. Is a Content Moderation Success Story

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‘You really have to have a thick skin’: A cross-cultural perspective on how online harassment influences female journalists

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‘You really have to have a thick skin’: A cross-cultural perspective on how online harassment influences female journalists

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Brian Karem, a White House correspondent for Playboy and political analyst for CNN, tweeted that beginning on Aug. 5, 2019, ...

Two days after the Little Rock Civil Service Commission signed off on a rule allowing the commission to bar anyone ...

A KRDO News Channel 13 news team was assaulted and a broadcasting camera attacked while attempting to conduct an interview ...

Two broadcast journalists for local KUTV 2News were assaulted on July 9, 2019, while covering a protest in Salt Lake ...

On May 10, 2019, San Francisco police officers raided the home and office of freelance journalist Bryan Carmody as part ...

In March and April 2019, San Francisco police seized phone records for freelance journalist Bryan Carmody as part of an ...

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The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is a project that aims to comprehensively document press freedom incidents in the United States - such as the arrests of journalists, seizures of their equipment, interrogations and searches at the U.S. border, subpoenas to testify about sources, leak prosecutions and physical attacks.

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College Curiosity Requires Free Speech (Opinion)

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College Curiosity Requires Free Speech (Opinion)

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College Is All About Curiosity. And That Requires Free Speech.

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True learning can only happen on campuses where academic freedom is paramount — within and outside the classroom.

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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

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‘The foundation of intellectual discovery’: The role of academic freedom in civil society

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Why is academic freedom important? Because educational institutions, professors, and other scholars must pursue knowledge without interference from the government.

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Academic freedom is paramount to the healthy functioning of a university. It refers to the rights of professors and students to exercise full freedom in their research, publications, and teaching, as well as the right to free expression of ideas in extramural contexts. It rests on the idea that knowledge is not stable and that questioning accepted wisdom is essential to the pursuit of truth. Professors do have pedagogical duties and an obligation to demonstrate requisite disciplinary knowledge, but the principle of academic freedom dictates that as long as they fulfill those responsibilities, they should have full latitude to speak, write, and publish free from censorship.

See resources by role:

There is no universally agreed upon definition of academic freedom, and institutions have different policies. Most define it as the protection to pursue knowledge "wherever it leads," with tenure typically insulating professors from reprisal if it leads someplace dangerous or unpopular. While the First Amendment relates to a relationship between a government and its people, academic freedom is mostly between an institution and its faculty, beholden not only to law but also to bedrock traditions of intellectual independence.

See Academic Freedom in the law section

Academic freedom is a core tenet of the academy and faculty should be encouraged to push the bounds of knowledge without fear of retaliation for exploring ideas that might offend.

Extramural speech by faculty members is considered protected by most definitions of academic freedom. Administrators should resist pressures to engage in disciplinary actions in response to such speech except in instances where the content of the speech clearly demonstrates the faculty member's unfitness for their position.

Where faculty members serve in an institutional capacity that may be negatively affected by the content of speech that raises questions about their ability to fulfill duties fairly and with equal respect for all students, universities should strive to ensure that any reallocation of duties is not punitive and does not spill over to impair the faculty member's academic career.

With the rise of social media and new methods of recording and distributing information, faculty members should not expect privacy when it comes to their public online speech and expression and should recognize that anything they say may be construed to reflect upon their ability to carry out their institutional responsibilities.

College should be acknowledged as a time for students to engage with new ideas and participate in robust debates, which can involve testing boundaries and experimenting with forms of speech and activism. As such, consequences for errors of judgment should be commensurate, and geared toward the possibility of learning and future improvement.

An environment where too many offenses are considered impermissible or even punishable becomes sterile, constraining, and inimical to creativity.

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Overview Academic freedom is paramount to the healthy functioning of a university. It refers to the rights of professors and students to exercise full

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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

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So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define your right to free speech.

New episodes post every other Thursday.

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So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through personal stories and candid conversations. New episodes post every other Thursday.

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Earlier this month, an investigative reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jeff German, was found stabbed dead outside his home. Now, the murder was disturbing in its own right, but then a shocking arrest was made. Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles was arrested on suspicion of murdering German. Now, the authorities have not provided a specific motive, but German had previously reported on mismanagement and a hostile work environment in Telles's office. Telles denied the accusations and went after German on social media. Although the killing of journalists is rare in the U.S., threats of doing so are not. And the important local reporting German worked on is also disappearing across the U.S. as more and more local news outlets close their doors.

Margaret Sullivan has been thinking about the threats facing journalists and journalism for a long time now. She's a longtime news executive. She just retired as The Washington Post's media columnist, and she's the author of "Ghosting The News: Local News And The Crisis Of American Democracy." And she's with us now to share some thoughts about this. Margaret Sullivan, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

MARGARET SULLIVAN: Thanks, Michel.

MARTIN: You know, well, one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you is that we often report on violence against journalists in other countries. But something like this happening in the United States, you know, while it is rare, we thought that this deserved some attention. So I wanted to ask what you make of this story and why you think it matters.

SULLIVAN: So you're absolutely right about how we report on the global threats to journalists. But in the United States, we - you know, with our proudly waving the First Amendment and the fact that we prize free expression or always have, we don't think this kind of thing happens to journalists. But journalists are more and more under threat in the United States. This is obviously an extreme case and a very disturbing one.

MARTIN: And when you talk about the threats being directed at journalists in the United States, what are you talking about?

SULLIVAN: So there's sort of two fronts here, and they're very different. One, as you mentioned, is the incredible and precipitous decline of local news. Seventy million Americans live in places where there is not that sort of sustainable local news. That's very disturbing. Two newspapers a week, whether weeklies or dailies, are going out of business. And while we know that newspapers are not the only form of news and not the only form of local news, they are very important one. So that's one front. And the other one is that threats and intimidation of journalists is on the rise so that, you know, a local TV crew who goes out to cover a school board meeting - it would not be unusual these days for them to be bullied, intimidated, yelled at. This is something new and something that's on the rise and extremely disturbing.

MARTIN: Ahead of one of German's stories on Telles's office, he wrote on social media, quote, "looking forward to lying smear piece No. 4 by Jeff German." Now, I bring this up because that kind of harassment of journalists is something that I think many people began to see in earnest during the campaign of the prior American president and certainly during his tenure - you know, reporters being doxxed, reporters having their personal information being made public, where their children go to school, you know, etc.

Now, we know that, again, actual deaths of journalists in the United States is rare. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, since 1992, 16 have been killed across the country, and one of the worst attacks in American newspaper was in 2018, when a man killed five people and wounded several others at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Md. And this is, again, noteworthy because the gunman had previously lost a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper for its accurate reporting on a criminal harassment complaints against him. And the prosecutors said in that case that he was out for revenge. A jury did find him criminally responsible for the rampage. So I guess what I'm wondering is, do you see this as having a chilling effect on reporters' willingness to report on difficult subjects of accountability?

SULLIVAN: I think that reporters, thankfully, tend to be very dedicated to their craft and, you know, not easily intimidated. But it's scary, and editors and owners can sometimes become extremely cautious, overly cautious because of these kinds of threats. So there is the problem of possible self-censorship. And, you know, as you say, just the pure online harassment of journalists, particularly women, particularly journalists of color, is so disturbing that you do reach a point where you say, you know, is this something that I want to deal with day after day? Journalism is really important and needs to be protected and needs to be valued.

MARTIN: I wanted to talk about one of the things that you reported on in your book "Ghosting The News" was that you actually had data on the effects in community - in counties and communities that don't have local newspapers doing actual reporting. You said...

SULLIVAN: Yes.

MARTIN: ...That there's - You can actually demonstrate increased costs of government services, that actually the increase in the costs of, say, even municipal bond offerings...

SULLIVAN: Exactly.

MARTIN: ...When there aren't local journalists following this information. That's just fascinating.

SULLIVAN: It is. And I mean, a few other things happen, too, that voter participation and citizen engagement go down when local journalism declines. Corruption finds more fertile ground, and false information spreads wildly with nothing to sort of debunk it or counter it. So there are many, you know, measurable effects that occur when local news goes away.

MARTIN: Before we let you go in your final column for The Post, you laid out some of the challenges that you've been talking about now, but you also laid out some recommendations. Do you want to leave us with just a couple of those thoughts about what you hope would happen next? What would you like to see happen next?

SULLIVAN: Well, I think that journalists need to have a pro-democracy mindset. And that's - you know, when they do have that, that kind of keeps them from doing some of the things that we have tended to do over time, you know, when we're covering campaigns, to turn it into horse-race coverage instead of covering the issues, to do this kind of sort of nickname for it is both sides-ing, where rather than seeking the truth, we take unequal things straight down the middle. And, you know, all of those things can get put in their proper place or a more proper place if we think of ourselves as having a public-spirited function and being there to serve the democracy, which is really what the founders protected when they protected the press.

MARTIN: That was media critic Margaret Sullivan. Her new memoir, "Newsroom Confidential: Lessons And Worries From An Ink-Stained Life," comes out next month. Margaret Sullivan, thanks so much for talking with us once again.

SULLIVAN: Thank you so much.

Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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Although the killing of journalists is rare in the U.S., threats of doing so are not

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Following the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German, NPR's Michel Martin speaks with media critic Margaret Sullivan about threats to journalists and journalism.

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This is the full investigative podcast by NHPR reporter and St. Anselm alumn Lauren Chooljian for which she was harassed.

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Reporter Lauren Chooljian starts getting tips about the founder of New Hampshire’s largest addiction treatment network. He is allegedly sexually harassing or assaulting women — employees and former clients at his facilities. The tips send Lauren on a journey deep into the addiction treatment industr…

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Leingang's experience is similar to that of writer Lyz Lenz, who has recounted the online harassment she faced for covering the 2016 Iowa caucuses and writing a profile of Fox News host Tucker Carlson in 2018.

"I see online all the time that journalists, especially women and journalists of color, often have to deal with harassment," Tatyana Tandanpolie, an incoming senior at New York University, tells Teen Vogue.

After writing a piece about the racism she experienced as a student in her hometown of Pickerington, Ohio, 21-year-old Tandanpolie was told to return to journalism school - which she found ironic as a current J-school student. She brushed it off, but had initially felt a pang of disbelief and fear. "It's not that I didn't expect any of that. It's just that it had been so long after the story came out," she says. "I really sat and thought it through. It didn't mean enough, so I moved on."

As a double major in journalism and Africana Studies, Tandanpolie has learned techniques for reporting and writing stories about people of color. But, she says, she has received little training to face the backlash that can come from doing so. "People definitely talked about harassment casually in my classes," Tandanpolie recalls, "but I can't say that I've been feasibly prepared for it."

Being told to have a "thick skin" or "suck it up" isn't helpful advice, especially for students with less experience. Sarah Nichols, president of the Journalism Education Association, reminds her high school journalists to respond professionally - if they choose to respond in the first place. When trolls badger her students, she asks them if they want to set community standards, either by removing hateful comments or writing explanations.

"Every journalism program and student media outlet should have a component of training where it's sort of anticipated, or to know what harassment might look like," Nichols says. "Much more important is knowing how to respond. Sometimes the answer is not responding."

Nichols recommends that training programs focus on ethics and the social, emotional burdens of reporters. "When is the right thing to respond, and when is the right thing to walk away because I'm making my media outlet look bad, and we're damaging ourselves by engaging in this?" Nichols says.

Wyatt Myskow, managing editor of Arizona State University's newspaper, The State Press, says he recognizes that journalists will always encounter some dissatisfied readers, especially when they're reporting on controversial topics or powerful institutions. Student journalists are trained to writes stories that hold people accountable, even if it means dissatisfying readers. But the 20-year-old wishes his training had provided more practical advice for dealing with critics and trolls, now that student journalists are expected to defend their work and themselves to readers.

"How do you handle being harassed on social media? You can block people, but when it's day after day, like you see some bigger journalists get, or if people email you, I don't know what you would do," Myskow says. "It certainly needs to be taught in your basic reporting classes that these things can happen."

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Student Journalists Are Struggling to Navigate Online Harassment

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Student journalists say they often face vicious online abuse, but aren't trained in how - or whether - to respond to detractors.

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Movies can be heartwarming, uplifting and entertaining, but they can also be disturbing, controversial and downright shocking. Over the history of cinema, many movies have been deemed too offensive to be seen by audiences and subsequently banned to protect viewers.

Whether for political reasons, acts of indecency or because of religious beliefs, films of all types can find themselves in trouble and receive a ban before they're even released.

Here's a list of 20 movies that caused a stir and were duly banned in the United States of America.

The Birth of a Nation - 1915

An incredibly important film in the history of cinema and in American history, The Birth of a Nation was originally called The Clansman.

The silent movie was banned in several American cities for its racist content and portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan. Many of the black characters seen on screen are played by white actors in blackface, and it also shows African American men as sexually aggressive toward white women. Meanwhile KKK members are portrayed as the heroes of the movie.

Although controversial, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry because it is "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Birth Control - 1917

The movie was produced by and starred sexual health activist and educator Margaret Sanger. She decided to make a film about birth control and family planning.

The New York Court of Appeals agreed the movie had to be censored "in the interest of morality, decency, and public safety and welfare."

This Swedish silent horror movie was banned for seven years after its production because of its use of torture, nudity, and its themes of witchcraft and Satanism.

It was frequently banned or censored when released in countries outside of Sweden.

Scarface - 1932

Not the Al Pacino version. The original Scarface was based loosely on the 1929 novel Armitage Trail.

The movie was censored by some states and banned in five others for its glorification of crime.

Ecstacy - 1933

This Czech film was banned for its highly suggestive content. This included showing sexual intercourse and a female orgasm, although it never showed more than the actor's face. The film wouldn't play in the United States until 1935, when it was censored in many states and banned in Pennsylvania altogether.

Ossessione - 1943

Ossessione fell foul of copyright issues and was banned in the U.S. for 33 years. The Italian movie is based on the James M. Cain novel The Postman Always Rings Twice to which MGM owned the rights.

Lost Boundaries - 1949

This movie was banned in Atlanta and Memphis for its racial themes. It was reported to be banned because it was liable to "create dissension and strife between members of the white and colored races, and would be likely to cause disorders, disturbances, and clashes between the races."

The Vanishing Prairie - 1954

Not many Walt Disney programs are very controversial in the United States, but this documentary managed to get banned in New York. The movie about pioneers on the Oregon Trail upset some people because it showed a buffalo giving birth. The ban was eventually lifted after a complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau starred in this adventure comedy movie that was banned in Dallas for its sexual and anti-Catholic content.

This documentary movie about criminally insane prison inmates was banned from distribution because it was considered a violation of the privacy for the patients featured.

It was banned from distribution in Massachusetts by court order.

I am Curious (Yellow) - 1967

The state of Massachusetts banned this movie about the sexual awakening of a young girl as it was classed as pornography. The Supreme Court eventually overturned the ban and the obscenity rules for films as a whole changed shortly after that.

John Waters comedy was banned across many towns in America for 25 years. Its portrayal of homosexuality, explicit sexual content, animal cruelty, and inclusion of the lead character eating dog feces turned many a stomach. His next dark comedy Female Trouble was also reportedly banned for similar themes.

This religious satire was banned after being re-released in 1974 because of how it exploited the fame of one of the stars, Bette Midler.

The film was legally challenged on the grounds that its title and advertising deceptively exploited Midler's fame. Its release was blocked in the United States, but it did get shown overseas.

German film The Tin Drum was briefly banned in Oklahoma and Canada after its release when a district court judge decided the film contained child pornography. The scene it was banned for allegedly depicted oral sex between an underage boy and a grown woman.

The movie did go on to win the Best Foreign Language award at the Oscars.

Monty Python's Life of Brian - 1979

One of the most famously controversial movies of all time, this British comedy irked many people in the Christian community for its depiction of the story of Christ. It was banned in many small towns across America, but can widely be seen now and is considered a comedy classic.

Cannibal Holocaust - 1980

The title may give away the reason why this Italian movie was banned in several countries. The found-footage style film featured intense gore and was investigated after its release to determine whether the scenes were staged or real.

Seven animals were also killed during production of the movie with six of those deaths seen on screen. The animals killed included a large turtle, a squirrel monkey, a pig and a boa constrictor.

Martin Scorsese's epic movie imagines what life would have been like for Jesus had he not sacrificed himself and died on the cross. Willem Defoe plays Jesus with Harvey Keitel starring as Judas. David Bowie also features as Pontius Pilate.

City leaders in Savannah, Georgia, got the film banned in their town for six weeks, but it went on to get a worldwide release anyway.

The Church of Scientology blocked the release of this movie for five years. The film borrowed elements of the life of Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard, and it was claimed the movie could taint the jury pool in the inquest into the death of former member Lisa McPherson.

Hillary: The Movie - 2008

Produced by conservative group Citizens United, the release of this video-on-demand documentary was blocked. That's because it was was due out in January 2008 and was classed as an electioneering communication as it mentioned a candidate within 30 days of a primary.

This was a violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

The Yes Men Fix the World - 2009

A film created by the societal and political activists The Yes Men, it was the subject of legal action by the United States Chamber of Commerce over its content.

In order to get around a ban, The Yes Men made the movie available on the internet through the bittorrent and torrent websites.

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20 Controversial Movies That Were Banned in America

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Just because a movie is made, it doesn't mean you get to see it. Here's a list of films that were banned in America as they were deemed too controversial.

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This is her main website, so you can learn a great deal about her and her work!

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Emily (she/her) is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign .

Her book, Book Banning in 21st Century America (Rowman & Littlefield) is the first monograph in the Beta Phi Mu Scholars' Series . Her most recent book Foundations of Intellectual Freedom (ALA Neal-Schuman) won the 2023 Eli M. Oboler Prize for best published work in the area of intellectual freedom. Emily's articles have been published in the Library Quarterly, Library and Information Science Research, and Open Information Science.

Emily serves on the board of National Coalition Against Censorship and is the editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy .

Her research interests include information access, intellectual freedom and censorship, information ethics and policy, and the intersection of print culture and reading practices. She is also a member of the Mapping Information Access research team .

She has been interviewed by media outlets such as NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, and Slate. She also before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on book banning.

Emily received her Ph.D. from the doctoral program at the Rutgers University School of Communication & Information . Her master's in library and information science is from the iSchool at Illinois. She also holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Smith College and an A.M. in the same field from The University of Chicago Divinity School .

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Emily (she/her) is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . Her book, Book Banning in 21st Century America (Rowman & Littlefield) is the first monograph in the Beta Phi Mu Scholars' Series .

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Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022 (and past lists)

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Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022 (and past lists)

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This is the link to the ALA's banned book info. Very useful for group project research!

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The American Library Association condemns censorship and works to defend each person’s right to read under the First Amendment and ensure free access to information. Every year, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) compiles a list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books in order to inform the pub…

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Campus Free Speech Realities And Myths | Lee Rowland | TEDxUniversityofNevada

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The Freedom of Hate Speech; a Call for Civil Dialogue | Katia Campbell | TEDxMSUDenver

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This is recent research into book bans in the U.S.

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Book bans are spreading with banned books and book challenges across the United States. PEN America tracks all book bans in libraries and classrooms across the U.S. including how many banned books feature BIPOC and LGBTQ+ characters.

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This is a terrific book that looks at the history of book banning in the U.S, and it is available in Geisel Library on campus!

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Another terrific book for researching banned book history AND it is available in Geisel Library!

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Banned and Challenged (Special NPR Series)

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Banned and Challenged (Special NPR Series)

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Banned and Challenged: Restricting access to books in the U.S.

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A series of interviews with - and essays by - authors who are seeing their books being banned from schools and libraries across the U.S.

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I’m a Conservative Professor Who Opposed Safe Spaces. I Was Wrong. (Opinion)

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I’m a Conservative Professor Who Opposed Safe Spaces. I Was Wrong. (Opinion)

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I Came to College Eager to Debate. I found Self-Censorship (Opinion)

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I Came to College Eager to Debate. I found Self-Censorship (Opinion)

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Opinion | I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead. (Published 2022)

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When we censor ourselves, our learning environments suffer.

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Social-media companies deny quietly suppressing content, but many users still believe it happens. The result is a lack of trust in the internet.

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Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

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47 U.S.C. § 230, a Provision of the Communication Decency Act Tucked inside the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 is one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation on the Internet: Section 230. This comes somewhat as a surprise, since the original purpose of the legislation was to restrict free speech on the Internet.

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Accountability or Censorship? (Pew Research)

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Accountability or Censorship? (Pew Research)

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Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech

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People have challenged each other's views for much of human history. But the internet - particularly social media - has changed how, when and where these kinds of interactions occur. The number of people who can go online and call out others for their behavior or words is immense, and it's never been easier to summon groups to join the public fray.

The phrase "cancel culture" is said to have originated from a relatively obscure slang term - "cancel," referring to breaking up with someone - used in a 1980s song. This term was then referenced in film and television and later evolved and gained traction on social media. Over the past several years, cancel culture has become a deeply contested idea in the nation's political discourse. There are plenty of debates over what it is and what it means, including whether it's a way to hold people accountable, or a tactic to punish others unjustly, or a mix of both. And some argue that cancel culture doesn't even exist.

To better understand how the U.S. public views the concept of cancel culture, Pew Research Center asked Americans in September 2020 to share - in their own words - what they think the term means and, more broadly, how they feel about the act of calling out others on social media. The survey finds a public deeply divided, including over the very meaning of the phrase.

Who's heard of 'cancel culture'?

As is often the case when a new term enters the collective lexicon, public awareness of the phrase "cancel culture" varies - sometimes widely - across demographic groups.

Overall, 44% of Americans say they have heard at least a fair amount about the phrase, including 22% who have heard a great deal, according to the Center's survey of 10,093 U.S. adults, conducted Sept. 8-13, 2020. Still, an even larger share (56%) say they've heard nothing or not too much about it, including 38% who have heard nothing at all. (The survey was fielded before a string of recent conversations and controversies about cancel culture.)

Familiarity with the term varies with age. While 64% of adults under 30 say they have heard a great deal or fair amount about cancel culture, that share drops to 46% among those ages 30 to 49 and 34% among those 50 and older.

There are gender and educational differences as well. Men are more likely than women to be familiar with the term, as are those who have a bachelor's or advanced degree when compared with those who have lower levels of formal education.

While discussions around cancel culture can be highly partisan, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are no more likely than Republicans and GOP-leaning independents to say they have heard at least a fair amount about the phrase (46% vs. 44%). (All references to Democrats and Republicans in this analysis include independents who lean to each party.)

When accounting for ideology, liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans are more likely to have heard at least a fair amount about cancel culture than their more moderate counterparts within each party. Liberal Democrats stand out as most likely to be familiar with the term.

How do Americans define 'cancel culture'?

As part of the survey, respondents who had heard about "cancel culture" were given the chance to explain in their own words what they think the term means.

The most common responses by far centered around accountability. Some 49% of those familiar with the term said it describes actions people take to hold others accountable:

A small share who mentioned accountability in their definitions also discussed how these actions can be misplaced, ineffective or overtly cruel.

Some 14% of adults who had heard at least a fair amount about cancel culture described it as a form of censorship, such as a restriction on free speech or as history being erased:

A similar share (12%) characterized cancel culture as mean-spirited attacks used to cause others harm:

Five other distinct descriptions of the term cancel culture also appeared in Americans' responses: people canceling anyone they disagree with, consequences for those who have been challenged, an attack on traditional American values, a way to call out issues like racism or sexism, or a misrepresentation of people's actions. About one-in-ten or fewer described the phrase in each of these ways.

There were some notable partisan and ideological differences in what the term cancel culture represents. Some 36% of conservative Republicans who had heard the term described it as actions taken to hold people accountable, compared with roughly half or more of moderate or liberal Republicans (51%), conservative or moderate Democrats (54%) and liberal Democrats (59%).

Conservative Republicans who had heard of the term were more likely than other partisan and ideological groups to see cancel culture as a form of censorship. Roughly a quarter of conservative Republicans familiar with the term (26%) described it as censorship, compared with 15% of moderate or liberal Republicans and roughly one-in-ten or fewer Democrats, regardless of ideology. Conservative Republicans aware of the phrase were also more likely than other partisan and ideological groups to define cancel culture as a way for people to cancel anyone they disagree with (15% say this) or as an attack on traditional American society (13% say this).

Click here to explore more definitions and explanations of the term cancel culture.

Given that cancel culture can mean different things to different people, the survey also asked about the more general act of calling out others on social media for posting content that might be considered offensive - and whether this kind of behavior is more likely to hold people accountable or punish those who don't deserve it.

Overall, 58% of U.S. adults say in general, calling out others on social media is more likely to hold people accountable, while 38% say it is more likely to punish people who don't deserve it. But views differ sharply by party. Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to say that, in general, calling people out on social media for posting offensive content holds them accountable (75% vs. 39%). Conversely, 56% of Republicans - but just 22% of Democrats - believe this type of action generally punishes people who don't deserve it.

Within each party, there are some modest differences by education level in these views. Specifically, Republicans who have a high school diploma or less education (43%) are slightly more likely than Republicans with some college (36%) or at least a bachelor's degree (37%) to say calling people out for potentially offensive posts is holding people accountable for their actions. The reverse is true among Democrats: Those with a bachelor's degree or more education are somewhat more likely than those with a high school diploma or less education to say calling out others is a form of accountability (78% vs. 70%).

Among Democrats, roughly three-quarters of those under 50 (73%) as well as those ages 50 and older (76%) say calling out others on social media is more likely to hold people accountable for their actions. At the same time, majorities of both younger and older Republicans say this action is more likely to punish people who didn't deserve it (58% and 55%, respectively).

People on both sides of the issue had an opportunity to explain why they see calling out others on social media for potentially offensive content as more likely to be either a form of accountability or punishment. We then coded these answers and grouped them into broad areas to frame the key topics of debates.

Some 17% of Americans who say that calling out others on social media holds people accountable say it can be a teaching moment that helps people learn from their mistakes and do better in the future. Among those who say calling out others unjustly punishes them, a similar share (18%) say it's because people are not taking the context of a person's post or the intentions behind it into account before confronting that person.

In all, five types of arguments most commonly stand out in people's answers. A quarter of all adults mention topics related to whether people who call out others are rushing to judge or are trying to be helpful; 14% center on whether calling out others on social media is a productive behavior or not; 10% focus on whether free speech or creating a comfortable environment online is more important; 8% address the perceived agendas of those who call out others; and 4% focus on whether speaking up is the best action to take if people find content offensive.

Are people rushing to judge or trying to be helpful?

The most common area of opposing arguments about calling out other people on social media arises from people's differing perspectives on whether people who call out others are rushing to judge or instead trying to be helpful.

One-in-five Americans who see this type of behavior as a form of accountability point to reasons that relate to how helpful calling out others can be. For example, some explained in an open-ended question that they associate this behavior with moving toward a better society or educating others on their mistakes so they can do better in the future. Conversely, roughly a third (35%) of those who see calling out other people on social media as a form of unjust punishment cite reasons that relate to people who call out others being rash or judgmental. Some of these Americans see this kind of behavior as overreacting or unnecessarily lashing out at others without considering the context or intentions of the original poster. Others emphasize that what is considered offensive can be subjective.

The second most common source of disagreement centers on the question of whether calling out others can solve anything: 13% of those who see calling out others as a form of punishment touch on this issue in explaining their opinion, as do 16% who see it as a form of accountability. Some who see calling people out as unjust punishment say it solves nothing and can actually make things worse. Others in this group question whether social media is a viable place for any productive conversations or see these platforms and their culture as inherently problematic and sometimes toxic. Conversely, there are those who see calling out others as a way to hold people accountable for what they post or to ensure that people consider the consequences of their social media posts.

Which is more important, free speech or creating a comfortable environment online?

Pew Research Center has studied the tension between free speech and feeling safe online for years, including the increasingly partisan nature of these disputes. This debate also appears in the context of calling out content on social media. Some 12% of those who see calling people out as punishment explain - in their own words - that they are in favor of free speech on social media. By comparison, 10% of those who see it in terms of accountability believe that things said in these social spaces matter, or that people should be more considerate by thinking before posting content that may be offensive or make people uncomfortable.

What's the agenda behind calling out others online?

Another small share of people mention the perceived agenda of those who call out other people on social media in their rationales for why calling out others is accountability or punishment. Some people who see calling out others as a form of accountability say it's a way to expose social ills such as misinformation, racism, ignorance or hate, or a way to make people face what they say online head-on by explaining themselves. In all, 8% of Americans who see calling out others as a way to hold people accountable for their actions voice these types of arguments.

Those who see calling others out as a form of punishment, by contrast, say it reflects people canceling anyone they disagree with or forcing their views on others. Some respondents feel people are trying to marginalize White voices and history. Others in this group believe that people who call out others are being disingenuous and doing so in an attempt to make themselves look good. In total, these types of arguments were raised by 9% of people who see calling out others as punishment.

Should people speak up if they are offended?

Arguments for why calling out others is accountability or punishment also involve a small but notable share who debate whether calling others out on social media is the best course of action for someone who finds a particular post offensive. Some 5% of people who see calling out others as punishment say those who find a post offensive should not engage with the post. Instead, they should take a different course of action, such as removing themselves from the situation by ignoring the post or blocking someone if they don't like what that person has to say. However, 4% of those who see calling out others as a form of accountability believe it is imperative to speak up because saying nothing changes nothing.

Beyond these five main areas of contention, some Americans see shades of gray when it comes to calling out other people on social media and say it can be difficult to classify this kind of behavior as a form of either accountability or punishment. They note that there can be great variability from case to case, and that the efficacy of this approach is by no means uniform: Sometimes those who are being called out may respond with heartfelt apologies but others may erupt in anger and frustration.

Below, we have gathered a selection of quotes from three open-ended survey questions that address two key topics. Americans who've heard of the term cancel culture were asked to define what it means to them. After answering a closed-ended question about whether calling out others on social media was more likely to hold people accountable for their actions or punish people who didn't deserve it, they were asked to explain why they held this view - that is, they were either asked why they saw it as accountability or why they saw it as punishment.

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Emily A. Vogels, Monica Anderson, Margaret Porteus, Chris Baronavski, Sara Atske, Colleen McClain, Brooke Auxier, Andrew Perrin and Meera Ramshankar

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Americans and 'Cancel Culture': Where Some See Calls for Accountability, Others See Censorship, Punishment

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U.S. adults explain - in their own words - what they think cancel culture means.

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Hate Speech and Hate Crime (American Library Association)

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Hate Speech and Hate Crime (American Library Association)

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Hate Speech

There is no legal definition of "hate speech" under U.S. law, just as there is no legal definition for evil ideas, rudeness, unpatriotic speech, or any other kind of speech that people might condemn. Generally, however, hate speech is any form of expression through which speakers intend to vilify, humiliate, or incite hatred against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, religion, skin color sexual identity, gender identity, ethnicity, disability, or national origin.

In the United States, hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. Courts extend this protection on the grounds that the First Amendment requires the government to strictly protect robust debate on matters of public concern even when such debate devolves into distasteful, offensive, or hateful speech that causes others to feel grief, anger, or fear. (The Supreme Court's decision in Snyder v. Phelps provides an example of this legal reasoning.) Under current First Amendment jurisprudence, hate speech can only be criminalized when it directly incites imminent criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group.

Hate Crime

For the purposes of collecting statistics, the FBI has defined a hate crime as a "criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity," including skin color and national origin. Hate crimes are overt acts that can include acts of violence against persons or property, violation or deprivation of civil rights, certain "true threats," or acts of intimidation, or conspiracy to commit these crimes. The Supreme Court has upheld laws that either criminalize these acts or impose a harsher punishment when it can be proven that the defendant targeted the victim because of the victim's race, ethnicity, identity, or beliefs. A hate crime is more than than offensive speech or conduct; it is specific criminal behavior that ranges from property crimes like vandalism and arson to acts of intimidation, assault, and murder. Victims of hate crimes can include institutions, religious organizations and government entities as well as individuals.

For Libraries

All libraries should be welcoming and inclusive spaces for all library users, library workers, and members of the community. Each library user has the the right to use the library free of discrimination and loss of individual safety; library workers also have a right to a safe workplace free from bias and discrimination. Hateful conduct should never be tolerated in the library. A library's policies on user behavior and workplace safety and conduct should address hateful conduct as a violation of those policies. Libraries should be prepared to prosecute, or support prosecution, of all bias-motivated criminal acts and provide aid and support to victims of such crimes and those targeted by hateful conduct.

Responding to Hateful Speech and Hate Crime

Reports of hateful speech and hate crimes in libraries is escalating in a time when reported hate crimes are at an all time high. The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom and Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services have prepared a white paper, Hateful Conduct in Libraries: Supporting Library Workers and Patrons to provide additional guidance for librarians struggling with issues of hate and intolerance.

In responding to hate speech and hateful conduct, public libraries should be aware that they operate under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and the associated court opinions governing access to the library as a designated public forum. There is an established body of case law holding that public libraries are a type of public forum, and that every person using a public library has a First Amendment right to access, use and take advantage of all the services the public library has to offer, without regard to the person's background, identity or economic status or their beliefs, opinions, or views. This is consistent with ALA's support for intellectual freedom, as expressed in ALA's Library Bill of Rights, which states that "a person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views."

Thus, under law, public libraries cannot discriminate against a library user or deny the user access to library resources and services based upon their views or beliefs. This principle applies to the provision of access to books, media, programming and the internet as well as publicly available meeting room space.

Knowing that the presence and activities of some groups in public libraries, while constitutionally protected, can cause fear and discomfort in some library users and staff, there are some strategies public libraries can employ to embrace their role as welcoming, inclusive, and responsible spaces that go beyond the adoption and enforcement of user behavior policies.

One strategy is to forgo the provision of public meeting room spaces for all users, allowing the library to fully control the messaging that takes place in its building and spaces. A second strategy is to employ the library's right under the First Amendment to speak in its own voice as a government agency about matters of importance. The library can exercise its prerogative to convey strong messaging that counters messages of bias, hatred and discrimination. Such messaging can be proactive, affirmative, and ongoing as well as a reaction to an incident of hateful conduct or speech. Libraries, could, for example, mount prominent signage throughout the library and in meeting rooms announcing its support for equality, diversity, and inclusion, and its belief in the human dignity of all persons, especially those in marginalized communities. Library-sponsored programming and services can echo this message.

Both the Office for Intellectual Freedom and the Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services are available to provide assistance, counsel and support to libraries considering these strategies.

ALA Resources, Statements and Policies

Resource Guide for Library Safety and Preparedness (2023)

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (2017)

Libraries Respond: Hate Crimes in Libraries (2017)

Libraries Respond: Hate Groups and Violence in Libraries (2017)

Resolution on Libraries as Responsible Spaces (2017)

Hateful Conduct in Libraries: Supporting Library Workers and Patrons (2020)

The Universal Right to Free Expression: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (2014)

Diverse Collections: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (2019)

Religion in American Libraries: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (2016)

Access to Library Resources and Services Regardless of Sex, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, or Sexual Orientation: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (2020)

Politics in American Libraries: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (2020)

Meeting Rooms: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (2019)

Assistance and Consultation

Hate crimes can be reported on the OIF Challenge Reporting form.

The staff of the Office for Intellectual Freedom is available to answer questions or provide assistance to librarians, trustees, educators and the public about hate speech and hate crimes. Areas of assistance include policy development, First Amendment issues, and professional ethics. Inquiries can be directed via email to oif@ala.org or via phone at (312) 280-4226.

ALA's Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services (ODLOS) works in close coordination with the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) to respond to incidents that have been reported, as well as units across the Association and its affiliates as needed. However, if library staff have encountered hate speech that may not be defined as a crime, we acknowledge that the impact can be traumatizing. We encourage you to reach out to ODLOS at diversity@ala.org, or directly contact ODLOS Interim Director Kristin Lahurd.

Kenneth Ward, Free Speech and the Development of Liberal Virtues: An Examination of the Controversies Involving Flag-Burning and Hate Speech, 52 U. Miami L. Rev. 733 (1998)

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Hate Speech There is no legal definition of "hate speech" under U.S. law, just as there is no legal definition for evil ideas, rudeness, unpatriotic speech, or any other kind of speech that people might condemn.

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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

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Is hate speech protected by the First Amendment?

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The First Amendment makes no general exception for offensive, repugnant, or hateful expression.

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The First Amendment protects individuals from government censorship. Social media platforms are private companies and can censor what people post on their websites as they see fit. But given their growing role in public discourse, it's important to ask ourselves - what exactly are their censorship policies? How do they compare to each other, and to the First Amendment's protections? Here's a deeper dive into free speech on social media.

Free speech on social media: What can and can't you say?
Mouseover or tap each social media icon for more information.

Hate

Hate speech is speech that offends or attacks people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, disease, or other traits.

Obscenity

Obscenity is famously hard to define, but in general refers to content that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time.

Misinformation

Misinformation is false or inaccurate information. Examples of misinformation include false rumors, insults and pranks, while examples of more deliberate disinformation include malicious content such as hoaxes, spearphishing and propaganda. Also referred to as fake news.

Harassment

Harassment refers to unwanted behavior that makes someone feel degraded, humiliated or offended. We do not define it to include true threats of violence, which are banned by all of the platforms below and are not protected by the First Amendment.

Legend

Related Resources
Lata Nott is a fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum. Follow her on Twitter at @LataNott.

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Free Speech on Social Media: The Complete Guide - Freedom Forum

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Free speech on social media is often misunderstood. Here's what you can, and can't, say on each of the primary platforms.

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Deadly year for journalists as killings rose sharply in 2022 - Committee to Protect Journalists

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By Jennifer Dunham/CPJ Deputy Editorial Director Published January 24, 2023 Key Takeaways | Methodology | 2022 Killed Data | Interactive Map | Video The year 2022 was deadly for members of the press. At least 67 journalists and media workers were killed during the year–the highest number since 2018…

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Attacks, intimidation, and even murder. Journalists across the world face serious risks and threats every day, just for doing their jobs – reporting the news and bringing information to the public.

Linda Klaassen
UNESCO

Over the past decade, a journalist has been killed every four days on average. Each year since 2016, more journalists have been killed outside of conflict zones than in countries currently experiencing armed conflict. A total of eighty-six killings of journalists worldwide have been reported between 2020 and the end of June 2021.

Impunity for crimes against journalists continues to prevail, with nine of ten killings remaining unpunished. The year 2020 saw a slight improvement, however, with thirteen per cent of cases worldwide reported as resolved, compared to twelve per cent in 2019, and eleven per cent in 2018. In many cases, impunity results from bottlenecks within the justice system itself.

While fewer women journalists are among the victims of fatal attacks, women are particularly targeted by offline and online gender-based threats and harassment. These attacks have increased significantly in recent years. Women journalists have identified political leaders, extremist networks and partisan media as some of the biggest instigators and amplifiers of online violence against women, according to the UNESCO discussion paper The Chilling: Global trends in online violence against women journalists, 2021, based on a major interdisciplinary study produced by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).

In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, media workers around the world have also been subject to harassment, persecution and detention as a result of their work to keep citizens informed  about the health crisis.

Source: UNESCO and the UNESCO Director-General's Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity, 2020.

This section is published to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists,
2 November.

Read more:

Global toolkit for judicial actors: international legal standards on freedom of expression, access to information and safety of journalists, UNESCO, 2021
Investigative journalism: Against the odds, The UNESCO Courier, July-September 2017
Dawit Isaak: A symbol of press freedom who must be freed, The UNESCO Courier, July-September 2017
Training judges online to safeguard journalists, The UNESCO Courier, April-June 2017

Subscribe to The UNESCO Courier for thought-provoking articles on contemporary issues. The digital version is completely free.

Follow The UNESCO Courier on: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

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Book Removals May Violate Students' Rights

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Book Removals May Violate Students' Rights

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Book Removals May Have Violated Students’ Rights, Education Department Says

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The U.S. Department of Education reached a settlement with a Georgia school district after launching an investigation into whether book removals created a hostile environment for students.

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A Reporter Investigated Sexual Misconduct. Then the Attacks Began

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A Reporter Investigated Sexual Misconduct. Then the Attacks Began

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A Reporter Investigated Sexual Misconduct. Then the Attacks Began.

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After publishing an exposé, journalists in New Hampshire faced broken windows, vulgar graffiti and a legal brawl, with important First Amendment implications.

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Local Officials Seek Revenge on Hometown Newspapers

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Local Officials Seek Revenge on Hometown Newspapers

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How Local Officials Seek Revenge on Their Hometown Newspapers

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When coverage upsets them, towns and counties are revoking newspapers’ lucrative contracts to print public notices.

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Everyone Likes Reading. Why Are We So Afraid of It?

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Everyone Likes Reading. Why Are We So Afraid of It?

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Everyone Likes Reading. Why Are We So Afraid of It?

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Book bans, chatbots, pedagogical warfare: What it means to read has become a minefield.

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How Christians & Drag Queens Are Defending the First Amendment (Opinion)

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How Christians & Drag Queens Are Defending the First Amendment (Opinion)

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Opinion | How Christians and Drag Queens Are Defending the First Amendment

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The Supreme Court reaffirms freedom of speech — and the freedom not to speak.

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Some of the most controversial books in history are now regarded as classics. The Bible and works by Shakespeare are among those that have been banned over the past two thousand years. Here is a selective timeline of book bannings, burnings, and other censorship activities.

2019: In the United States, people demanded the removal of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series from public libraries. Complainants objected to depictions of magic, witchcraft, and "actual curses and spells" in the text. They also disliked the characters' use of "nefarious means" to achieve their goals, reported the American Library Association (ALA). The fantasy novels-there are seven in all-chronicle the lives of students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The ALA also reported that Harry Potter books were the most frequently challenged in U.S. public libraries from 2000 to 2009.

2019: In the United States, people demanded the removal of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale from public library shelves. Complainants objected to profanity and "vulgarity and sexual overtones" in the text, reported the American Library Association (ALA). The novel, which was published in 1985, depicts a future Christian theocracy in the southern half of North America. The ALA also reported that Atwood's novel was the 88th most frequently challenged book from 2000 to 2009 and the 37th most frequently challenged book from 1990 to 1999 in U.S. public libraries.

2016: In northern Russia, the Vorkuta Mining and Economics College burned 53 books, including textbooks about logic, French surrealism, and criminology. A spokesperson said they were full of ideas "alien to Russian ideology." A Western foundation created by George Soros, the billionaire financier and philanthropist, had provided the money to publish the books. The college also seized another 427 books for shredding.

2013: In Pakistan, spokesmen for organizations that represent the nation's private schools announced bans on I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. In November, Adeeb Javedani, president of the All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association, said that a ban was in force in the libraries of 40,000 affiliated schools. Kashif Mirza, chairman of the All Pakistan Private Schools Federation, said a ban was in force in its affiliated schools. Senior education officials said the book-which was co-authored by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb-showed insufficient respect for Islam.

2013: Islamist insurgents in the African nation of Mali set fire to a library in Timbuktu and incinerated 4,000 ancient manuscripts. The damage would have been worse, but a quick-thinking librarian had organized the removal of hundreds of thousands of manuscripts to safety.

2012: In the United States, people demanded the removal of Toni Morrison's Beloved from public library shelves. Complainants claimed the novel was sexually explicit, and they objected to depictions of violence and the novel's religious viewpoint, reported the American Library Association (ALA). The novel, which was published in 1987, explores the destructive legacy of slavery in 19th-century America. The ALA also reported that Morrison's novel was the 26th most frequently challenged book from 2000 to 2009 and the 45th most frequently challenged book from 1990 to 1999 in U.S. public libraries.

2012: In May, Irshad Manji-a reform-minded Muslim-toured Malaysia to promote her book Allah, Liberty and Love. In Kuala Lumpur, government officials raided bookstores to confiscate copies of the book. Then, after receiving a critical report from the Department of Islamic Development, Malaysia's Ministry of Home Affairs banned the book. Manji protested the ban, and her Malaysian publisher challenged the ban in court.

2010: The U.S. Department of Defense bought and destroyed the entire first printing-9,500 copies-of Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer's Operation Dark Heart. The book focused on the war in Afghanistan. Even though Shaffer had worked closely with military officials when he was writing the manuscript, some feared that the book would reveal military secrets. Shaffer's publisher, St. Martin's Press, did release a second printing, but it featured cuts and changes that the U.S. Department of Defense had ordered.

2010: In India, nationalist students burned copies of Such a Long Journey, Rohinton Mistry's acclaimed novel, at the gates of the University of Mumbai. The students also pressed the university to stop teaching the book. Aditya Thackeray, the students' leader, said he objected to the "obscene and vulgar language" in the novel and to negative references to India's nationalist politicians, including his grandfather. The university quickly dropped the novel from the syllabus.

2001: The U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, passed by the American Congress in response to terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, gave the FBI power to collect information about the library borrowings of any U.S. citizen. The act also empowered the federal agency to gain access to library patrons' log-ons to Internet Web sites-and protected the FBI from disclosing the identities of individuals being investigated.

1998: American publishers expressed outrage over news that a Washington bookstore was ordered to turn over records of Monica Lewinsky's book purchases to independent counsel Kenneth Starr. Lewinsky is the former White House intern with whom President Clinton had what he later termed an "inappropriate relationship." The Association of American Publishers declared: "I don't think the American people could find anything more alien to our way of life or repugnant to the Bill of Rights than government intrusion into what we think and what we read. I would suggest Mr. Starr give some thought to his own reading list. Maybe it's time for him to re-read the First Amendment."

1997: In Ireland, a government censorship board banned at least 24 books and 90 periodicals.

1992: In August, during the Bosnian war, Serbian troops shelled the National Library in Sarajevo. They destroyed between 1.5 million and 3 million volumes. It was one of the worst book burnings in modern history. Soldiers shot at anyone who tried to save the books.

1988: Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which some critics said blasphemed Islam, was burned repeatedly by Muslims in the United Kingdom. In October, India-a majority Hindu nation which has a minority Muslim population-became the first of several countries in the world to ban the novel. (In 2012, Indian writers called for the ban's repeal.) The Republic of South Africa also banned the novel in 1988, although the government lifted this ban in 2002.

1987: After retiring from 20 years' service with Britain's MI5 counterintelligence agency, Peter Wright moved to Australia and wrote his autobiography, entitled Spycatcher, in which he accused British security services of trying to topple Harold Wilson's 1974-76 Labour government. The book, a best-seller, was banned in Britain, and the British government waged a lengthy and expensive legal battle to prevent its publication in Australia. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said that if Wright ever returned to Britain, he would be prosecuted for breaching the country's Official Secrets Act. But when Wright died in 1995, he got the last laugh, since his ashes were scattered over the waters of the Blackwater Sailing Club in southern England.

1987: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou was removed from the required reading list for Wake County, North Carolina, high school students because of a scene in which the author, at the age of seven and a half, is raped.

1983: Members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee called for the rejection of The Diary of Anne Frank because it was "a real downer." It was also challenged for offensive references to sexuality.

1977: Maurice Sendak's picture book In the Night Kitchen was removed from the Norridge, Illinois, school library because of "nudity to no purpose." The book was expurgated elsewhere when shorts were drawn on the nude boy.

1977: Decent Interval, a memoir written by a former CIA employee, criticized the CIA, Henry Kissinger, and U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Author Frank Snepp succeeded in getting his book published before the CIA knew about it, but the government filed a lawsuit against him, even though no classified information appeared in the book. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme

Court ruled against Snepp; the government seized all profits from the book and imposed a lifelong gag order on the author. Snepp was required to submit everything he might write-fiction, screenplays, non-fiction, poetry-to the CIA for review. The CIA won the right to cut any classified or classifiable information within 30 days of receipt of Snepp's work.

1974: The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence revealed some of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's dirty tricks and failures overseas and in the United States. The authors (Victor Marchetti, a former senior analyst for the CIA, and John D. Marks, a former U.S. State Department official) were told by a U.S. court to submit their manuscript to the CIA before the book was published. The CIA demanded the removal of 339 passages from the text, but eventually the publisher won the right to retain 171 of those in the first edition of the book. By 1980, the publisher had won the legal right to publish 25 more passages, but the most recent edition (1989) still indicated numerous censored passages.

1970: White Niggers of America, a political tract about Quebec politics and society, was written by Pierre Vallières while he was in jail. The book was confiscated when the writer was accused of sedition, and an edition published in France was not allowed into Canada. A U.S. edition was published in English in 1971.

1960: D.H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was the subject of a trial in England, in which Penguin Books was prosecuted for publishing an obscene book. During the proceedings, the prosecutor asked: "Is it a book you would wish your wife or servant to read?" Penguin won the case, and the book was allowed to be sold in England. A year earlier, the U.S. Post Office had declared the novel obscene and non-mailable. But a federal judge overturned the Post Office's decision and questioned the right of the postmaster general to decide what was or was not obscene.

1959: After protests by the White Citizens' Council, The Rabbits' Wedding, a picture book for children, was put on the reserved shelf in Alabama public libraries because it was thought to promote racial integration.

1954: Mickey Mouse comics were banned in East Berlin because Mickey was said to be an "anti-Red rebel."

1953: The Irish government banned Anatole France's A Mummer's Tale (for immorality), Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and Across the River and Into the Trees (for immorality), all the works of John Steinbeck (for subversion and immorality), all the works of Emile Zola (for immorality), and most works by William Faulkner (for immorality).

1933: A series of massive bonfires in Nazi Germany burned thousands of books written by Jews, communists, and others. Included were the works of John Dos Passos, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller, Lenin, Jack London, Thomas Mann, Karl Marx, Erich Maria Remarque, Upton Sinclair, Stalin, and Leon Trotsky.

1932: In a letter to an American publisher, James Joyce said that "some very kind person" bought the entire first edition of Dubliners and had it burnt.

1931: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was banned by the governor of Hunan province in China because, he said, animals should not use human language and it was disastrous to put animals and humans on the same level.

1929-62: Novels by Ernest Hemingway were banned in various parts of the world such as Italy, Ireland, and Germany (where they were burned by the Nazis). In California in 1960, The Sun Also Rises was banned from schools in San Jose and all of Hemingway's works were removed from Riverside school libraries. In 1962, a group called Texans for America opposed textbooks that referred students to books by the Nobel Prize-winning author.

1929: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was banned in the Soviet Union because of "occultism."

1929: Jack London's popular novel Call of the Wild was banned in Italy and Yugoslavia. In 1932, copies of this and other books by London were burned by the Nazis in Germany.

1927: A translation of The Arabian Nights by the French scholar Mardrus was held up by U.S. Customs. Four years later another translation, by Sir Richard Burton, was allowed into the country, but the ban on the Mardrus version was maintained.

1885: A year after the publication of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, the library of Concord, Massachusetts, decided to exclude the book from its collection. The committee making the decision said the book was "rough, coarse and inelegant, dealing with a series of experiences not elevating, the whole book being more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people." By 1907, it was said that Twain's novel had been thrown out of some library somewhere every year, mostly because its hero was said to present a bad example for impressionable young readers.

1881: Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (published in 1833) was threatened with banning by Boston's district attorney unless the book was expurgated. The public uproar brought such sales of his books that Whitman was able to buy a house with the proceeds.

1864-1959: Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables was placed on the Index Librorum.

1859: George Eliot's novel Adam Bede was attacked as the "vile outpourings of a lewd woman's mind," and the book was withdrawn from circulation libraries in Britain.

1843: The English Parliament updated an act that required all plays to be performed in England to be submitted for approval to the Lord Chamberlain. Despite objections by illustrious figures such as George Bernard Shaw (in 1909), this power remained with the Lord Chamberlain until 1968.

1807: Dr. Thomas Bowdler quietly brought out the first of his revised editions of Shakespeare's plays. The preface claimed that he had removed from Shakespeare "everything that can raise a blush on the cheek of modesty"-which amounted to about 10 per cent of the playwright's text. One hundred and fifty years later, it was discovered that the real excision had been done by Dr. Bowdler's sister, Henrietta Maria. The word "bowdlerize" became part of the English language.

1807: In Paris, French police entered the room in the asylum where the Marquis de Sade was imprisoned and seized several of his manuscripts, including the manuscript of his latest novel, The Days at Florbelle. The police claimed that the notorious libertine's novel was blasphemous and obscene, and Sade never saw it again. After Sade died in 1814, his younger son, anxious to restore the Sade family's name, asked the Ministry of Justice to burn The Days at Florbelle and any other manuscript like it. The authorities obliged. But one police officer saved one notebook: it outlined the story and briefly described a few characters and incidents.

1788: Shakespeare's King Lear was banned from the stage until 1820-in deference to the insanity of the reigning monarch, King George III.

1720: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was placed on the Index Librorum by the Spanish Catholic Church.

1616-42: Galileo's theories about the solar system and his support of the discoveries of Copernicus were condemned by the Catholic Church. Under threat of torture, and sentenced to jail at the age of 70, the great scientist was forced to renounce what he knew to be true. On his death, his widow agreed to destroy some of his manuscripts.

1624: Martin Luther's German translation of the Bible was burnt in Germany by order of the Pope.

1614: Sir Walter Raleigh's book The History of the World was banned by King James I of England for "being too saucy in censuring princes."

1597: The original version of Shakespeare's Richard II contained a scene in which the king was deposed from his throne. Queen Elizabeth I was so angry that she ordered the scene removed from all copies of the play.

1559: For hundreds of years, the Roman Catholic Church listed books that were prohibited to its members; but in this year, Pope Paul IV established the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. For more than 400 years this was the definitive list of books that Roman Catholics were told not to read. It was one of the most powerful censorship tools in the world.

1524-26: Thousands of copies of William Tyndale's English translation of the New Testament were printed in Germany and smuggled into England, where they were publicly burned in 1526 on the orders of London's Roman Catholic bishop. Church authorities in England insisted that the Bible would be available only in Latin and that only they would be able to read and interpret it. In 1536, as a result of a plot masterminded by the English, Tyndale was arrested in Belgium, tried for heresy, and strangled and burned at the stake near Brussels. A few of his translations were burned with him. Today, only three original copies of Tyndale's New Testament survive.

1497-98: Savonarola, a Florentine religious fanatic with a large following, was one of the most notorious and powerful of all censors. In these years, he instigated great "bonfires of the vanities" which destroyed books and paintings by some of the greatest artists of Florence. He persuaded the artists themselves to bring their works-including drawings of nudes-to the bonfires. Some poets decided they should no longer write in verse because they were persuaded that their lines were wicked and impure. Popular songs were denounced, and some were turned into hymns with new pious lyrics. Ironically, in May of 1498 another great bonfire was lit-this time under Savonarola who hung from a cross. With him were burned all his writings, sermons, essays, and pamphlets.

640: According to legend, the caliph Omar burned all 200,000 volumes in the library at Alexandria in Egypt. In doing so, he said: "If these writings of the Greeks agree with the Book of God they are useless and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed." In burning the books, the caliph provided six months' fuel to warm the city's baths.

35: The Roman emperor Caligula opposed the reading of The Odyssey by Homer, written more than 300 years before. He thought the epic poem was dangerous because it expressed Greek ideas of freedom.

A.D. 8: The Roman poet Ovid was banished from Rome for writing Ars Amatoria ( The Art of Love). He died in exile in Greece eight years later. All Ovid's works were burned by Savonarola in Florence in 1497, and an English translation of Ars Amatoria was banned by U.S. Customs in 1928.

259-210 B.C.: The Chinese emperor Shih Huang Ti is said to have buried alive 460 Confucian scholars to control the writing of history in his time. In 212 B.C., he burned all the books in his kingdom, retaining only a single copy of each for the Royal Libraryand those were destroyed before his death. With all previous historical records destroyed, he thought history could be said to begin with him.

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Bannings and Burnings in History - Freedom to Read

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Some of the most controversial books in history are now regarded as classics. Read our selective timeline of 2000 years of censorship activities.

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History of U.S. Book Bans (National Geographic)

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History of U.S. Book Bans (National Geographic)

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Book banning is more common than ever. Stories featuring LGBTQ+ issues are often targets today-including these five books that survived an attempt to remove them from the shelves of the library at North Hunterdon Regional High School in Annandale, N.J.

Photograph by Bryan Anselm, Redux

​Recent years have seen a record-breaking number of attempts to ban books. Here's how book banning emerged-and how it turned school libraries into battlegrounds.

Mark Twain. Harriet Beecher Stowe. William Shakespeare. These names share something more than a legacy of classic literature and a place on school curriculums: They're just some of the many authors whose work has been banned from classrooms over the years for content deemed controversial, obscene, or otherwise objectionable by authorities.

Judy Blume is on this esteemed list. Her 1970 best seller Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret- recently adapted for film for the first time- has been challenged in schools across the United States for its portrayal of female puberty and religion.

Even Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl has been targeted for censorship-not for its depiction of a young Jewish girl whose family is persecuted by Nazi Germany, but for the passages where the teen discusses her changing body.

Book banning never seems to leave the headlines. In fact, the American Library Association reports that there were a record-breaking number of attempts to ban books in 2022-up 38 percent from the previous year. Of those challenges, the organization notes, "the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color."

(Did Ovid's erotic poetry lead to his exile from Rome?)

Though censorship is as old as writing, its targets have shifted over the centuries. Here's how book banning emerged in the United States-stretching as far back as when some of the nation's territories were British colonies-and how censorship affects modern readers today.

Religion in the early colonial era

Most of the earliest book bans were spurred by religious leaders, and by the time Great Britain founded its colonies in America, it had a longstanding history of book censorship. In 1650, prominent Massachusetts Bay colonist William Pynchon published The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, a pamphlet that argued that anyone who was obedient to God and followed Christian teachings on Earth could get into heaven. This flew in the face of Puritan Calvinist beliefs that only a special few were predestined for God's favor.

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Outraged, Pynchon's fellow colonists denounced him as a heretic, burned his pamphlet, and banned it-the first event of its kind in what would later become the U.S. Only four copies of his controversial tract survive today.

Slavery and the Civil War

In the first half of the 19th century, materials about the nation's most incendiary issue, the enslavement of people, alarmed would-be censors in the South. By the 1850s, multiple states had outlawed expressing anti-slavery sentiments-which abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe defied in 1851 with the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel that aimed to expose the evils of slavery.

In 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe agreed to "paint a word picture of slavery" for an abolitionist newspaper. Her story, Uncle Tom's Cabin, became an instant bestseller-and drew the ire of Southern slaveholders, who burned copies and banned it from bookshelves.

Photograph by Fine Art Images, Heritage Images/Getty

As historian Claire Parfait notes, the book was publicly burned and banned by slaveholders along with other anti-slavery books. In Maryland, free Black minister Sam Green was sentenced to 10 years in the state penitentiary for owning a copy of the book.

As the Civil War roiled in the 1860s, the pro-slavery South continued to ban abolitionist materials while Union authorities banned pro-Southern literature like John Esten Cook's biography of Stonewall Jackson.

A war against 'immorality'

In 1873, the war against books went federal with the passage of the Comstock Act, a congressional law that made it illegal to possess "obscene" or "immoral" texts or articles or send them through the mail. Championed by moral crusader Anthony Comstock, the laws were designed to ban both content about sexuality and birth control-which at the time, was widely available via mail order.

The law criminalized the activities of birth control advocates and forced popular pamphlets like Margaret Sanger's Family Limitation underground, restricting the dissemination of knowledge about contraception at a time when open discussion about sexuality was taboo and infant and maternal mortality were rampant. It remained in effect until 1936. (Read more about the complex early history of abortion in the United States.)

Meanwhile, obscenity was also a prime target in Boston, the capital of the state that had sanctioned the first book burning in the U.S. Boston's book censors challenged everything they considered "indecent," from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, which the society's president called a "darling morsel of literary filth," to Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.

A unique single-copy "unburnable" edition of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale at Sotheby's on June 3, 2022, in New York City. This fireproof edition of the often-banned book was created to raise awareness about the proliferation of censorship.

Photograph by Slaven Vlasic, Getty

The New England Watch and Ward Society, a private organization that included many of Boston's most elite residents, petitioned against printed materials they found objectionable, sued booksellers, pressured law enforcement and courts to bring obscenity charges against authors, and spurred the Boston Public Library to lock copies of the most controversial books, including books by Balzac and Zola, in a restricted room known as the Inferno.

By the 1920s, Boston was so notorious for banning books that authors intentionally printed their books there in hopes that the inevitable ban would give them a publicity boost elsewhere in the country.

Schools and libraries become battlegrounds

Even as social mores relaxed in the 20th century, school libraries remained sites of contentious battles about what kind of information should be available to children in an age of social progress and the modernization of American society. Parents and administrators grappled over both fiction and nonfiction during school board and library commission meetings.

The reasons for the proposed bans varied: Some books challenged longstanding narratives about American history or social norms; others were deemed problematic for its language or for sexual or political content.

The Jim Crow-era South was a particular hotbed for book censorship. The United Daughters of the Confederacy made several successful attempts to ban school textbooks that did not offer a sympathetic view of the South's loss in the Civil War. There were also attempts to ban The Rabbits' Wedding, a 1954 children's book by Garth Williams that depicted a white rabbit marrying a black rabbit, because opponents felt it encouraged interracial relationships. (How Jim Crow laws created "slavery by another name.")

These attempted bans tended to have a chilling effect on librarians afraid to acquire material that could be considered controversial. But some school and public librarians began to organize instead. They responded to a rash of challenges against books McCarthy-era censors felt encouraged Communism or socialism during the 1950s and fought attempted bans on books like Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird and even The Canterbury Tales.

A constitutional right to read

In 1969, the Supreme Court weighed in on students' right to free expression. In Tinker v. Des Moines, a case involving students who wore black armbands protesting the Vietnam War to school, the court ruled 7-2 that "neither teachers nor students shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

In 1982, the Supreme Court overtly addressed schoolbooks in a case involving a group of students who sued a New York school board for removing books by authors like Kurt Vonnegut and Langston Hughes that the board deemed "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy."

"Local school boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books," the court ruled in Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico, citing students' First Amendment rights.

Nonetheless, librarians contended with so many book challenges in the early 1980s that they created Banned Book Week, an annual event centered around the freedom to read. During Banned Book Week, the literary and library community raises awareness about commonly challenged books and First Amendment freedoms.

Modern censorship

Still, book challenges are more common than ever. Between July 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022 alone, there were 1,586 book bans in 86 school districts across 26 states-affecting more than two million students, according to PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free speech. Stories featuring LGBTQ+ issues or protagonists were a "major target" of bans, the group wrote, while other targets included book with storylines about race and racism, sexual content or sexual assault, and death and grief. Texas led the charge against books; its 713 bans were nearly double that of other states.

According to the American Library Association, the most challenged book of 2022 was Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer, a memoir about what it means to be nonbinary. Other books on the most-challenged list include Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

First Amendment advocate Pat Scales, a veteran South Carolina middle- and high-school librarian and former chair of the ALA's Intellectual Freedom Committee, notes that outright censorship is only one face of book bans. Shelving books in inaccessible places, defacing them, or marking them with reading levels that put them out of students' reach also keep books out of would-be readers' hands, and challenges of any kind can create a chilling effect for librarians.

"Censorship is about control," Scales wrote in 2007 in the book Scales on Censorship. "Intellectual freedom is about respect."

Editor's note: This story was originally published on September 6, 2022. It has been updated.

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The history of book bans-and their changing targets-in the U.S.

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Recent years have seen a record-breaking number of attempts to ban books. Here's how book banning emerged-and how it turned school libraries into battlegrounds.

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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Book bans, disinformation, the wild world of the internet. Free speech debates are all around us.What were the Founding Fathers thinking when they created the First Amendment, and how have the words they wrote in the 18th century been stretched and shaped to fit a world they never could have imagined? It's a story that travels through world wars and culture wars. Through the highest courts and the Ku Klux Klan. What exactly is free speech, and how has the answer to that question changed in the history of the U.S.?

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Book bans, disinformation, the wild world of the internet. Free speech debates are all around us. What were the Founding Fathers thinking when they created the First Amendment, and how have the words they wrote in the 18th century been stretched and shaped to fit a world they never could have imagined?

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Banned Books · Media and Cultural Analysis

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This site hosts student projects for the Media and Cultural Analysis course at New York University’s Steinhardt School.

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Near the conclusion of the British Book Awards' gala evening in London, the 'Nibbies' offer an unexpected honor for Salman Rushdie.

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Rushdie: 'Quite Remarkably Alarming'

As Publishing Perspectives readers know, the British Book Awards, also called the Nibbies, annually hand out one of the largest arrays of book and publishing awards in the international business, utilizing a corps of almost 50 jurors. The honors fall into two main categories of "Book of the Year" honors and "Book Trade" winners. Consumers, of course, may be most interested in the book awards, while the industry players who fill the hall for the show each year primarily follow the trade accolades.

The 2023 edition tonight (May 15)-held once more in the searchlight-strafed ballroom at Mayfair's Grosvenor House and streamed live-included a previously unannounced Freedom to Publish honor for Salman Rushdie, obviously well-chosen and avidly received.

As many of our readers will recall, Rushdie was ferociously attacked and severely wounded on August 12 last year while onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. He suffered injuries so extensive that he was initially in critical condition, requiring surgeries and a long effort at rehabilitation. ( Here is our coverage of the International Publishers Association's response to the late-summer attack.)

Appearing tonight in a recorded video from New York to accept the award, Rushdie seemed to be in good color, if speaking softly and looking a bit gaunt. He gamely expressed his thanks to the British Book Awards "for choosing me to receive this important recognition," sponsored by the Index on Censorship campaign.

In introducing the award in London tonight, author Monica Ali had said, in part, "Nobody has been more courageous, more steadfast, more brilliant in the pursuit of truth and artistic freedom."

And in his taped address, provided to us by The Bookseller in full, Rushdie said:

"We live in a moment, I think, at which freedom of expression, freedom to publish, has not in my lifetime been under such threat in the countries of the West.

"We live in a moment, I think, at which freedom of expression, freedom to publish, has not in my lifetime been under such threat in the countries of the West."Salman Rushdie, British Book Award Winner

"Obviously, there are parts of the world where censorship has been prevalent for a long-time, quite a lot of the world-Russia, China, in some ways India as well. But in the countries of the West, until recently, there was a fair measure of freedom in the area of publishing. Now I am sitting here in the United States, I have to look at the extraordinary attack on libraries, and books for children in schools. The attack on the idea of libraries themselves.

"It is quite remarkably alarming, and we need to be very aware of it, and to fight against it very hard.

"It has also been alarming to see publishers looking to-how shall I put this?-bowdlerize the work of such people as Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming, and I have to say that the idea that James Bond could be made politically correct is almost comical. I think that has to be resisted. Books have to come to us from their time and be of their time. And if that's difficult to take, don't read it, read another book. Don't try and remake yesterday's work in the light of today's attitudes.

"I know that room where you all are is full of people who are deeply committed to the principles of freedom of publishing and I am proud to receive this award, and I think I receive it on behalf of everybody fighting that fight.

"I did once receive a British Book Award back in 1995 for The Moor's Last Sigh, so it is nice to have this one to keep it company. Thank you."

This is only the second time that the British Book Awards regime has conferred this prize which, according to The Bookseller, "acknowledges the determination of authors, publishers, and booksellers who take a stand against intolerance, despite the ongoing threats they face." The earlier use of this award, as noted in The Bookseller's writeup by Sian Bayley, was last year when the honor went to HarperCollins UK and its publishing director Arabella Pike "in recognition of their defense of [their] authors against interference from Russian oligarchs, and for their 'robust defense of investigative nonfiction and publishing in the public interest.'"

Referring to tonight's special award for Rushdie, longtime Bookseller editor Philip Jones said, "There can scarcely be a more important winner of this prize at a more important moment. Freedom to publish is about the right to read, write, speak, and hear without interference, and without the dire consequences so often now threatened by those who would restrict, censor, and circumscribe.

"More than most, Rushdie has lived his defiance, and continues to pay a huge price for it.

"His cause belongs to all of us, and The British Book Awards is delighted to honor him for it."

The 2023 Book Trade Winners

Because we're a trade news medium, we'll begin with the industry awards side of the program, and then follow with the book awards.

To get a sense for the size of "the Nibbies" among publishing awards programs, consider that this part of the roster, the trade accolades, numbers 17 honors:

Publisher of the Year: Simon & Schuster UK (second consecutive year)

Small Press: Boldwood Books

Independent Bookshop: Griffin Books

Independent Publisher: Oneworld

Children's Bookseller: Waterstones and Round Table Books

Academic, Educational and Professional Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

British Book Award for Export: HarperCollins UK

Rights Professional: Richard King

Individual Bookseller: Carolynn Bain

Editor: Natasha Bardon

Marketing Strategy: Lilly Cox & Vicky Palmer, Lessons in Chemistry

Children's Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Designer: Suzanne Dean, Vintage

Imprint: HarperVoyager

Publicity Campaign: Alison Barrow, Lessons in Chemistry

Literary Agent: Claire Wilson

Book Retailer: WHS Travel

The 2023 Book of the Year Honors

There are 12 honors in the more consumer-facing side of the Nibbies, the "Book of the Year" honors:

Children's Nonfiction, supported by The Week Junior
Nonfiction Lifestyle and Illustrated
Audiobook: Fiction, supported by Audiobookish
Audiobook: Nonfiction
Pageturner, supported by TikTok

Fiction, supported by Good Housekeeping

Children's Illustrated, supported by Love Reading 4 Kids

Discover, supported by Magic Radio Book Club

Crime and Thriller, supported by Scala Radio Book Club
Debut
Nonfiction Narrative, supported by The Big Issue

Children's Fiction, supported by The Week Junior
More on the British Book Awards is here. More from us on publishing and book awards in general is here, more on the freedom to publish is here, more on Salman Rushdie is here. And more on the United Kingdom's book market and industry is here. Porter Anderson is a former associate editor of The FutureBook at The Bookseller. Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association's world media partner.
About the Author

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The British Book Awards Honor Salman Rushdie

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Near the conclusion of the British Book Awards' gala evening in London, the 'Nibbies' offer an unexpected honor for Salman Rushdie. By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson Rushdie: 'Quite Remarkably Alarming' As Publishing Perspectives readers know, the British Book Awards, also called the Nibbies, annually hand out one of the largest arrays of book and publishing awards in the international business, utilizing a corps of almost 50 jurors.

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Opinion | My Book Is Horrifying. My Book Is a Lifeline. My Book Is Banned.

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The organized movement to ban books in schools is betraying the young people it claims to protect.

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The tales are swapped in conference-hotel hallways or over quiet dinners: controversial speakers attracting rowdy protests, professors drawing fire for an offhand comment during a lecture and then posted online, legislators trying to codify what can and can't be taught in classrooms.

College presidents know a free-speech controversy is going to burst forth on their campus if it hasn't already. One week it's a guest lecturer shouted down at Stanford. The next it's a Florida bill that would restrict how campuses can teach about race in general-education courses. The next it's a request for mandatory trigger warnings at Cornell.

While in the past a president's response to such a controversy may have been silence or a carefully worded message, now college leaders are beginning to speak up in more forceful terms.

Here and there, in notes to campus communities, speeches during formal events, and open letters, university presidents and other administrators are pushing back in defense of academic freedom and free speech. They're not standing on soapboxes shouting against would-be censors, but the words they choose, the battles they pick, and the signals they send suggest a renewed fondness for free-speech principles. Leaders at Stanford, Pennsylvania State, Cornell, and elsewhere, are talking bluntly about the value of the First Amendment; a group of former presidents have mobilized to protect campus speech from legislative attacks; and The Washington Post editorial board, among others in the media, is looking on with approval, describing these developments as "a welcome reminder that academic institutions have the power to defend their fundamental values - and are willing to use it."

Those unfurling from a defensive crouch say they are doing so because they believe higher education needs the ability to explore all topics and viewpoints.

"For us, academic freedom is at the heart of what universities do," President Martha E. Pollack of Cornell University told The Chronicle. "Without it, knowledge doesn't advance."

Pollack chose last fall's new-student convocation as the forum to showcase a full-throated defense of free speech.

After the expected praise of the depth and brilliance of the class in her welcome speech, Pollack used the bulk of her address to tell students that the key to success at Cornell is to "engage across difference," "develop an appreciation of the importance of free speech," and learn how to responsibly participate in civil discourse.

"Free speech is under attack in our country, from across the political spectrum," she said. "But free speech, as difficult and as challenging as it is, is not only the bedrock of higher education. It's also the bedrock of democracy and a free society. Chipping away at that bedrock - even for what we think are good reasons, like protecting others - diminishes our capacity as a learning community to do our work, and it puts our democracy at risk."

She continued: "Because if we ever accept that someone, anyone, has the right to tell us what we're allowed to say - we'll also be giving them the right to control what we're allowed to hear and to know."

Seven months later, at the end of March, those words would be put to a test. Cornell's Student Assembly unanimously passed a resolution that proposed requiring professors to place trigger warnings in syllabi for "any traumatic content" that would be discussed, as well as excuse any student wishing to opt out of learning that material. Pollack and Provost Michael Kotlikoff rejected the resolution in early April, taking the opportunity to underline their commitment to academic freedom.

The pair wrote that the resolution "would have a chilling effect on faculty, who would naturally fear censure lest they bring a discussion spontaneously into new and challenging territory, or fail to accurately anticipate students' reaction to a topic or idea. And it would unacceptably limit our students' ability to speak, question, and explore, lest a classroom conversation veer into an area determined 'off-limits' unless warned against weeks or months earlier."

That chilling effect would most likely pop up in dialogue in a class as a professor and students explored a topic, Pollack explained to The Chronicle. Her decision drew hosannas from those on the political right, who saw the move as a defense against "woke" students.

But it wasn't a political move, Pollack said. "There are pressures from both ends of the political spectrum," she said, noting the push from the right to censor what is being said and taught is more frequent and heavier, especially in attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

It's a balancing act to both protect students and also allow free speech, Pollack acknowledged. "It's my job to honor both of those values," she said. "We allow speakers but also support students who disagree with those speakers."

That line's not an easy one to walk.

Earlier this academic year, Stanford's law school invited as a speaker Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was met by student protesters who disrupted his speech. After Duncan asked for administrators present to intervene, an associate dean of diversity spoke up, seemingly asking Duncan if the speech was worth all the fuss and criticizing him for his stands on various positions.

A couple of days later, President Marc Tessier-Lavigne of Stanford and Jenny S. Martinez, dean of the law school, apologized to Duncan in a joint letter.

"What happened was inconsistent with our policies on free speech, and we are very sorry about the experience you had while visiting our campus," the letter read. "We are very clear with our students that, given our commitment to free expression, if there are speakers they disagree with, they are welcome to exercise their right to protest but not to disrupt the proceedings." Later, Martinez penned a 10-page letter elaborating on how the law school would handle free-speech issues, declaring, among other things, that the school's "commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion actually means that we must protect free expression of all views."

Martinez also announced future educational programming on the topic - something leaders elsewhere have also embraced. Two weeks after rejecting the trigger-warning resolution, Pollack announced that the university will dedicate the 2023-24 academic year to free speech and academic freedom, including special events and discussions to highlight the history of academic freedom.

The goal is to help students learn to engage with different opinions, but it's more than just that.

"Knowledge doesn't advance unless we are able to engage all ideas, even those some don't want explored," Pollack said.

Ricardo Rey for the Chronicle

One factor prompting more leaders to speak out on free speech is the escalating nature of the threat against it. Republican legislators in some states have passed or proposed bills that would restrict campus speech. College leaders recognize this trend as a much more dire threat to what they do than students' asking for trigger warnings or shouting down speakers.

"Proponents of these laws attempt to justify them by repeating claims that universities are places where political correctness runs rampant and students are intolerant of alternative viewpoints. In my experience, these problems are much less pervasive than media coverage suggests, but they do exist," wrote Christina Paxson, president of Brown University in a recent New York Times "But ‌‌it is ludicrous to claim that state-sponsored censorship - which carries the full force of the government and can even entail criminal penalties - is justified by student misconduct or peer pressure."

She added that the "ironic truth" is that such laws "are themselves attempts to indoctrinate students into seeing the world through one lens. This is exactly the opposite of what colleges and universities should do."

While some presidents have testified against bills in their states, they're loath to speak out publicly and risk antagonizing the holders of state purse strings.

"Too often ... university and college leaders face an impossible choice: openly criticizing educational censorship laws could make it more difficult for them to secure or maintain needed funding for their campuses, inviting negative consequences for their students, faculty, and staff," said 100 former presidents in a recent statement. "Accordingly, they are often unable to mount a consistent public response to the deluge of educational gag orders and other legislative intrusions into America's classrooms and campuses."

Those former presidents and chancellors have signed on to a group to mount that response. Champions of Higher Education, led by PEN America, began in mid-April to, in their words, "defend the autonomy of educational decisions made by colleges and universities against political and legislative incursions." They plan to do so by using their connections and public visibility to advocate in protection of free speech and academic freedom.

That battle might happen on two fronts. Some presidents say the pandemic left students ill prepared for the hard conversations that civil discussion requires.

At the start of the 2021-22 academic year, colleges welcomed students who had spent large chunks of time primarily interacting virtually. Accustomed to the flame-throwing ethos of social media and shaped by Trump-era political divisiveness, students were out of practice in engaging with strangers outside of virtual communities.

It became more routine, presidents said, for protesters to shout down guest speakers and for students to post videos of their instructors saying controversial things.

"We need to recognize the impact Covid has had on social discourse," said Darren Reisberg, president of Hartwick College, a small, private institution in upstate New York. "Students are spending more time on social media and in echo chambers. They are less and less likely to engage with ideas they don't agree with."

Descriptions of students as fragile, coddled, and hypnotized by social media are likely to provoke grimaces among some educators. Real-life students are often more complex and resilient than such narratives suggest. Indeed, Reisberg said that Hartwick's small size made for a more-familiar community, used to disagreeing. "Because of how tightknit the campus is, there is more trust," he said. "So if faculty were to say something in a class, a student may give them the benefit of the doubt because they know the person and where they are coming from."

At Hamline University, a small college in Minnesota, one instructor did not get the benefit of the doubt. Last year, a lecturer showed two artistic depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, dating to the 14th and 16th centuries, in an online session of a class on global art history. After controversy erupted when a devout Muslim student objected to the prophet's image, the instructor's contract was not renewed. National criticism from free-speech groups followed, and the university backtracked from a statement by administrators that students' feelings should have "superseded" academic freedom.

The Hamline controversy brought to the fore a question about the right conditions for learning. In siding with students, administrators seemed to affirm that classrooms need to be safe and supportive above all else, even the rights of instructors to teach how they see fit. But Sian Beilock, the current president of Barnard College and president-elect of Dartmouth College, said the right approach may be less absolute.

"There's a tendency to characterize the learning environment as a place where you are safe," she said. "We need to have brave spaces."

That means students and faculty members being able to engage in tough conversations. It's a president's job to help equip the faculty to have those conversations, she said, noting Barnard has a staff person dedicated to this topic.

"Having these conversations is something you have to learn," she said.

Presidents' new messaging will certainly be put to the test, though it may look different than past dilemmas.

Take the white supremacist Richard Spencer, who several years ago showed up on campuses all over America, including a March 2018 speech at Michigan State University. Hours before the event, hundreds of protesters showed up at the speech venue on the far edge of campus. Then, shortly before the speech was to begin, a bunch of Spencer's supporters marched in formation down a blocked-off street toward the venue. As they got closer, they and protesters began screaming obscenities at each other, culminating in a massive brawl.

Spencer seemed to relish the chaos. "If you aren't getting protested, you aren't doing anything that matters," he said then, according to media reports.

Appearances like Spencer's tested colleges, especially public institutions that responded by scrambling to communicate that they could not legally bar someone from speaking on campus. (Though some got creative in providing distractions from such events.)

Controversial speakers are still frequenting campuses. Last month, Neeli Bendapudi, Penn State's president, released a video explaining why the university can't - and won't - turn them away.

But the age of the campus provocateur - someone who's there mainly to stir up controversy - has since faded, said Maurie McInnis, president of Stony Brook University. Springing up in its place is a whole new array of challenges.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression released a report on a recent study that found the number of complaints seeking to penalize campus speech had skyrocketed between 2000 and 2022.

Komi Frey, the director of faculty outreach at FIRE, who compiled the database for the report and updates it weekly, said social media is an undeniable force in fueling such demands. "It's easier to share Change.org petitions and have people from all over sign them," she said.

FIRE's analysis of that database found that complaints from on campus tended to oppose speech from the political left, while complaints from off campus tended to come from the right.

Amid those conflicting forces, some colleges have turned to institutional neutrality as a way to broadly encourage speech without picking sides. Some campuses dusted off the Kalven Report, a document written by a University of Chicago faculty committee in 1967, which proclaimed that universities should almost never take political positions.

Reisberg, who came to his current position from the University of Chicago, said he agrees that presidents should be careful about what they say.

"When an academic leader puts their thumb on the scale with a position on a controversial issue, they are effectively speaking for the institution and, whether intentionally or not, creating a chilling effect and fear of repercussion." Speaking forcefully in defense of academic freedom and free speech, then, is not just an urgent priority, presidents say. It's also a way to speak up without taking political sides. And it's clear their words matter.

"Presidents have always been vocal on these topics," Beilock said, but as the push to limit conversations grows, "they have to continue to speak."

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Presidents Are Changing Their Tune on Free Speech

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The tales are swapped in conference-hotel hallways or over quiet dinners: controversial speakers attracting rowdy protests, professors drawing fire for an offhand comment during a lecture and then posted online, legislators trying to codify what can and can't be taught in classrooms. College presidents know a free-speech controversy is going to burst forth on their campus if it hasn't already.

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As Book Bans Gain Favor, Some Say Libraries Could Go

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The number of school libraries and librarians has been dwindling for decades.

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Texas county commission votes to keep library in operation after threat of closure over banned books | CNN

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A rural Texas county voted Thursday afternoon to drop discussion for now of possibly defunding the county’s library system after a federal judge ordered it to return more than a dozen banned books to library shelves.

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ST. LOUIS- Missouri's Republican-led House voted to cut all funding for libraries in its version of the state's annual budget, an unprecedented move that has angered librarians and patrons across the state who rely on the facilities for everything from books to educational programming and internet access.

The proposal is not yet final; it now sits before the state Senate's appropriations committee along with the rest of the annual $45.6 billion budget, and Republican chair Sen. Lincoln Hough said it would be his intention to restore library funding.

But for those who manage or use the state's 160 library districts, especially in rural areas where services are not as robust, the threat feels real, librarians and patrons told the PBS NewsHour.

"The majority of Missouri libraries are small libraries, and for smaller communities that rely on this funding to serve their communities, to provide summer reading programing, to provide new books, new materials, books, and to pay their staff, this will have an absolutely devastating effect," said Judy Garrett, who has served as a librarian at the Gentry County Public Library for 27 years.

Gentry County, located 90 miles north of Kansas City, is home to a little over 6,000 people, many of whom, like residents in other rural parts of the state, rely heavily on their libraries for internet access, Garrett said.

In Missouri, 20 percent of the population - more than 1.26 million people - do not have high-speed internet access. Nearly 34 percent of Missouri's population live in rural parts of the state, where this kind of access can be harder to come by. Libraries provide a lifeline to this service, among others.
READ MORE:House Republicans pass 'parents' rights' bill in fight over schools
Beyond internet, libraries have historically provided analog services that existed long before fiber optics, such as passport services, free concerts and assistance with voter registration. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, some branches expanded their offerings to include distribution of masks and test kits, and vaccine clinics.

Jon Karlen, a resident of St. Charles County, whose more than 400,000 residents are represented by Republican legislators, told the NewsHour that book bans and library funding cuts in the state feels like an effort to control distribution of information, which, he said, would hurt the state's most vulnerable residents in the end.

"Some people would say, 'well, if kids want to learn about that, it's all there. They just have to go home and Google it.' But as far into the Internet era as we are, not everybody in Missouri has that opportunity," he said.

Missouri Rep. Cody Smith, the House budget committee chair who proposed eliminating library funding, pointed to a recent lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union over a state law banning sexually explicit material from schools as justification for the cuts. Nearly 300 books have been removed from school libraries under the law, according to EducationWeek. The ACLU is suing the state alongside the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association.

During a committee hearing back in March, Smith, who was recognized by the Missouri Library Association in 2019 for his "contribution to the welfare of Missouri's libraries," restated his position.

"I don't think we should subsidize the attempts to overturn laws that we also created," Smith said in a budget meeting.

In a statement, the ACLU said the lawsuit, filed in February, is not funded by state-funded library dollars.

Smith did not respond to a request from the PBS NewsHour for comment.
READ MORE: Experts say attacks on free speech are rising across the U.S.
"The house budget committee's choice to retaliate against two private, volunteer-led organizations by punishing the patrons of Missouri's public libraries is abhorrent. As with every case when the ACLU represents someone, we are not charging our clients to challenge the unconstitutional book ban the legislature passed last year," the statement read.

Opponents of the proposed cuts argue the move is unconstitutional, pointing to a 1945 statute in the Missouri constitution declaring "the establishment and development of free public libraries and to accept the obligation of their support by the state and its subdivisions and municipalities in such manner as may be provided by law."

Rep. Peter Merideth, a ranking Democrat on the state house's budget committee who tried along with other party members to reinstate the funding, called the move to strip the funds "horrific, and borderline fascist."

"I hate using that word," he said. "But it sounds like a dystopian novel where a government issues a book ban, librarians are upset about it and try to exercise their rights and the government then de-funded public libraries, which is like the primary source of free information in our state."

Karlen said it is issues like these, among others, that show the state's lawmakers don't make decisions that align with what voters want.

"The electorate is paying attention and sometimes it takes a few cycles to catch up, but they're taking away vital and important services to the people that send them into power," he said.

Republican Sen. Lincoln Hough, who chairs the Senate Committee on appropriations, called the house's decision "shortsighted."

"Libraries provide access to reading materials for people that maybe don't have the means to order every book that they want," Hough said. "I know our community in Springfield, we depend on those libraries and those resources - and not just for reading material, but for Internet access for folks sometimes that are a little less socioeconomically disadvantaged."

Otter Bowman, president of the Missouri Library Association ,said beyond basic services, "the physical buildings become either a cool space or a warm space for our unhoused population, depending on the weather."
READ MORE:As LGBTQ book challenges rise, some Louisiana librarians are scared to go to work
Tamara King, a parent and resident of St. Charles County, told the NewsHour it feels like the state's residents should still be concerned even if the budget is not yet final.

"You start by taking away small things, right? And then you do that, you gain your support and then you go for the jugular, right? So that's what they did. They took away everything. Now, where are these kids supposed to go and learn and have those activities that involve books?" King said. "Books create imagination."

Like many lawmakers, Hough said he's been fielding calls from constituents since the decision was made.

Regina Cooper is the Executive Director of the Springfield-Greene County Library District, which sits in Hough's district and has worked in library systems for more than 40 years.

When she heard reduced funding could be in her library's future, she said she was concerned not only for her own library, but also for others dealing with even smaller budgets. .

"Money is tight and we have a lot of needs. And as you know, inflation continues to be a problem," Cooper said. "Every year our expenses go up."

The Springfield-Greene County Library District serves nearly 300,000 people in the surrounding area. Though the cuts are still being discussed, Cooper believes the decisions that state lawmakers have made make their message clear.

"I think it makes [community members] feel like that who they elected, don't really care about what their needs are because it's something they all know and use every day. To suddenly have the legislators say, 'no, we're not going to provide any more money for you,' that's very disappointing," she told the NewsHour.

Cooper said the move was a surprise to most librarians seeing that some politicians utilize library services themselves.

"I'm sure it would feel that way to me, even if I weren't the librarian[and] just a patron that [knows] this is a really important thing for me and my family. Why are you not supporting this?" she said.

The importance of libraries was made especially clear during the pandemic, Garrett said, when librarians had to get creative about how to fill needs that were at times more acute than ever.

"During the pandemic when we weren't able to be open, our parking lot was full of cars because we expanded our wireless outreach beyond our walls so that people could get online to do homeschooling or..... they had to use their computers to access their schoolwork," Garrett said.

Bowman worries most about libraries like Garrett's.

"There are so many small libraries that are just barely getting by on a shoestring the way it is," Bowman said

Despite reassurance from lawmakers, Bowman said the future feels uncertain.

"Nationally, this is such a thing right now. There's an attack on public schools and there's an attack on public libraries and I would just really hate for us to continue to stay in the news for all the wrong reasons," she said.

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Missouri House Republicans want to defund libraries. Here's why

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The proposal is not yet final; it must clear the state Senate. But for those who manage or use the state's 160 library districts, especially in rural areas where services are not as robust, the threat feels real, librarians and patrons told the PBS NewsHour.

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This summer, a library in Lafayette, Louisiana, was forced to remove a Pride Month display after conservative Christian activists joined its board of directors.

In Iowa, a proposed bill would give city councils the power to overturn librarians' decisions about what books to buy and where they're displayed.

And librarians in Missouri canceled their bookmobile to several schools after a law passed in the state criminalizing anyone who makes visually explicit content available in schools.

So far, the American Library Association has reported 681 challenges to more than 1,600 titles this year. That puts 2022 on track to see the highest number of book challenges in decades.

What future do public libraries and library workers have in this climate of unprecedented censorship? And what role do larger, out-of-state libraries play in combating it?

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom's Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the former director of Boundary County Public Library in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, Kimber Glidden, the Michigan Library Association's Deborah Mikula, author and professor of English, the University of Mississippi, Kiese Laymon, and freelance writer and literary critic, Connor Goodwin all join us for the conversation.

Like what you hear? Find more of our programs.

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The Strain Of Censorship On Public Libraries : 1A

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The American Library Association has reported 681 challenges to more than 1,600 titles this year. That puts 2022 on track to see the highest number of book challenges in decades. This summer, a library in Lafayette, Louisiana, was forced to remove a Pride Month display.

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With Rising Book Bans, Librarians Have Come Under Attack

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Caustic fights over which books belong on the shelves have put librarians at the center of a bitter and widening culture war.

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How Book Bans Turned a Texas Town Upside Down

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In a political environment where book-banning efforts are being used to drive voter sentiment, librarians find themselves on the front lines.

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Opinion | There’s a Problem With Banning TikTok. It’s Called the First Amendment.

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American users of the social media platform are indisputably exercising their constitutional rights when they post and consume content on the site.

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Opinion | Free Speech Doesn’t Mean Free Rein to Shout Down Others

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Stanford Law's Next Steps on Protests and Free Speech memo

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Stanford Law's Next Steps on Protests and Free Speech memo

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At Stanford Law School, the Dean Takes a Stand for Free Speech. Will It Work?

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After a student protest, Jenny S. Martinez wrote a much-praised memo defending academic freedom. But that protest shows how complicated protecting free speech can be.

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Book Banning in 21st Century America by Emily J.M. Knox 

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Book Banning in 21st Century America by Emily J.M. Knox 

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Yes, our text is available to check out from Geisel Library.

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Just before the winter holiday in December 2021, the administrative team at Texas A&M University announced that all librarians with faculty status would be removed from the tenure track at the end of the spring term; if they were tenured, they would be stripped of it. Despite opposition by the Faculty Senate, university leaders gave tenured librarians two choices: They could relinquish faculty status and stay on as staff, or they could retain tenure by vacating their library position and securing an appointment in a different academic department.

Alyson Vaaler, formerly an assistant professor in the business library, wrote in a blog post that the process caused a " collective trauma." Should she renounce her faculty status, with its autonomy, prestige, and research expectations, to remain true to her identity as a librarian? Or was academic freedom, membership in faculty governance, and job security so valuable that it was worth giving up the professional identity that felt most natural to her? In the end, Vaaler chose to remain as a staff librarian and still received the small raise that she would have earned with tenure, though she worried that the tangible demotion in status would leave her feeling as if she were "not enough."

The choice that Vaaler and other Texas A&M librarians faced represents a cultural problem with deeper roots. Throughout the past year I have reported on flagging morale among tenure-track faculty members, which has caused some to leave academe altogether and others to either withdraw from their work or set pragmatic boundaries for themselves. Those problems have long plagued academic librarians. Many institutions hire librarians strictly in a staff capacity, but even universities that offer tenure-track appointments reveal an abiding prejudice among faculty members and administrators toward librarians. The Texas A&M University library system, which has included many first-rate scholars, was reduced in the president's own words to a "service unit."

Denigrating language of this kind clashes with a statement on faculty status for college and university librarians that the Association of College and Research Libraries, the American Association of Colleges and Universities, and the American Association of University Professors issued jointly in 1973 and reaffirmed in 2018. While many institutions continue to reduce faculty lines, the ACRL, AACU, and AAUP agree that "where the role of college and university librarians ... requires them to function essentially as part of the faculty, this functional identity should be recognized by granting of faculty status. ... The function of the librarian as participant in the processes of teaching, research, and service is the essential criterion of faculty status."

I have come to think of academic librarians as akin to the engineers who maintain the electrical grid. Without them, many university systems would go dark. But colleges increasingly treat librarians like convenience-store clerks waiting to help faculty members and students at their points of need or impulse. Why is it that academic librarians are rarely viewed by their faculty colleagues as experts, collaborators, and equals?

When new faculty members approached librarian Jamie Byerly at Shorter University, in Georgia, it was often because they needed help finding a building on campus. Sometimes, instead of giving directions, she would accompany them to their destination while giving her elevator pitch for the library. And she would ask her new colleagues to consider inviting her to class. Despite her efforts, Byerly struggled to book even a few visits to classes every semester. Eventually she left. "I couldn't keep working where I felt no value or support," she told me.

Byerly is now a reference and instruction librarian at Clarke University, in northeast Iowa, where she has built collaborative relationships across the campus. But she was warned about faculty members in graduate school: the potential for misunderstanding, the default assumptions about status inequities. Consequently, she still runs through multiple drafts of an email before approaching a colleague she has never worked with before. "I want the first impression to be good," she said. "If I've never worked with you before, then I'm careful. I always err on the side of not trying to start an argument."

There is a term for Byerly's caution: deference behavior. As mixed-methods researchers Lyda Fontes McCartin and Raquel Wright-Mair explained in a recent study, academic librarians frequently prioritize the goals and preferences of teaching faculty over their own, even in cases where better library resources or approaches to research could improve student learning. Even when librarians have faculty status, their disciplinary counterparts can be demanding and presumptuous. It is common for faculty members to request that a librarian visit their class on short notice, for brief periods that do not allow for meaningful instruction, and sometimes even as a substitute when they are absent due to illness or conference presentations.

A research librarian at a graduate school on the West Coast told me that academic librarians are accustomed to disciplinary faculty members assuming that the library will assist with grant projects, such as providing data repository work or collection support for a new curriculum. Some faculty members only notify the library of their inclusion in a grant proposal the day after the application is submitted or shortly after funds are awarded, rather than consulting with the library much earlier in the process. "There is an inherent power imbalance between teaching faculty and librarians," he told me. "Teaching faculty need to recognize librarians as collaborators and partners, rather than an afterthought."

Some of these markers of disrespect are subtle, more microaggressions than frontal attacks. But the blowback that librarians receive from disciplinary faculty members for requesting more class time or suggesting other changes to instructional requests is often overt. I once overheard a faculty colleague shouting at a librarian over the phone, "I just want you to be a consultant!"

That 83 percent of librarians are women suggests that a strong current of misogyny runs beneath these interactions. This has long been known to librarians, at least since Dee Garrison published " The Tender Technicians: The Feminization of Public Librarianship, 1876-1905 " in 1977. Garrison explains that the growth of undercompensated but highly credentialed positions in academic libraries near the end of the 19th century led universities to overwhelmingly recruit women. This demographic imbalance promoted the sexist perception of the librarian as a warm and accommodating hostess.

In their journal article McCartin and Wright-Mair explained that even though academic librarians are aware that undue deference harms their professional and personal identities, they are often denied representation in the very governance structures that might level the playing field. As a staff librarian, Byerly cannot vote on curriculum or policy proposals that might affect her role. As she told me, "You're focused on trying to get in with faculty and hope that the faculty then advocate for the library."

Laura Krier believes that all librarians who work in academe should be hired as faculty members. Krier is a collection development librarian at Sonoma State University, in California, where librarians have enjoyed faculty status since the early 1970s. For much of that time the Sonoma State model was the norm. One 1993 study found that 67 percent of librarians held some form of faculty status, and a 2008 survey reported that roughly half of academic librarians with Ph.D.s or other terminal degrees were recognized as either tenure-track or nontenure-track faculty members. A 2016 study also showed that "52 percent of U.S. research universities grant nominal faculty status to librarians." However, the same study demonstrated that faculty status for librarians at research universities had declined since 2008.

There are between 26,000 and 30,000 academic librarians nationwide. The U.S. Department of Education reported 34,423 library positions at colleges and universities in 2012, but this category included both librarians and professional staff. The American Library Association listed 26,606 academic librarians in a 2018 fact sheet, but this report did not distinguish between those in faculty and staff roles. The lack of clear data on how many academic librarians there are in the United States reflects the opacity of the profession, even to its insiders.

Krier said that she has never felt unwelcome in faculty governance. "Nobody has ever been like, 'Oh, what are the librarians doing here?'" she told me. "But I also think they don't really understand what we do." Ignorance about library expertise among disciplinary faculty members can complicate the tenure process for librarians. Without a nuanced understanding of how a library faculty member's workload differs from that of teaching faculty, governance systems can create new inequities. For instance, Krier and her colleagues enjoy participating in campuswide committees, but maintaining membership on more than a dozen committees, the Faculty Senate, subcommittees, and working groups sometimes overwhelms her department of four.

A library administrator, whom I'll call Schneider, said that participation in governance is a way for librarians to feel seen as colleagues and accorded the same respect as their disciplinary faculty counterparts. Schneider is dean of libraries at a public university in the West, where she has been trying to rebuild morale among her staff despite resource stagnation under a Republican state legislature. "The more I try to uncover and expose and resolve some of these long-time challenges, the more challenges I'm discovering," she told me.

When we spoke, Schneider was freshly piqued by " How Do Academic Libraries Spend Their Money?" an Inside Higher Ed blog post that raised questions about how academic libraries spend their budgets, especially around "people costs" - salaries and benefits. The author, Joshua Kim, claimed that he was merely trying to interpret data from the U.S. Department of Education, but many librarians took him to task on Twitter for failing to consult an academic librarian before publishing his "guesses" about what the data meant.

"We haven't been telling our story well," Schneider said. "And guess what? That's because the nature of librarianship is to serve. That's core; it's fundamental to what we do. It's taking pleasure in supporting the work of others. But historically, generationally, it's really been a challenge to get librarians out there and explain."

Schneider recognizes the risk of conflating service with subservience. She believes the pay gap between those on her staff with faculty status and disciplinary faculty on campus reflects unmistakable gender discrimination. According to Krier, librarians at Sonoma State University receive less pay than any other tenure-track faculty member at the university. Likewise, library faculty at Schneider's institution make $12,000 less in annual salary, despite holding 12-month contracts, than their lowest-paid disciplinary faculty counterparts, who hold nine-month contracts. "The salary base was baked in the cake generations ago," Schneider said. "I do think people are waking up to that. People are starting to put their foot down."

Some of the tensions between academic librarians, disciplinary faculty, and administrators stem from abiding ideological differences. Disciplinary faculty are trained to burnish their own brands as researchers, which often makes them behave like free agents within an institution, prioritizing their own needs and resources over the collective good. Krier likens this mentality, and its corollary among university administrators, to political governance. "When you're thinking politically," she told me, "you're territorial. You need to protect your own. You don't want people to know what you have because they might try to take it. You have to make sure nobody can get your power, your money, or your resources." By contrast, librarians are trained to collaborate, to identify common goals and strategize about sharing resources rather than hoarding them.

Andrew Jewell recalls a shift in his thinking when he accepted a tenure-track library position after completing a traditional Ph.D. in literature. Jewell is now a professor of digital projects and co-director of the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. For many years he served as lead editor of the Willa Cather Archive, a digital resource that attracts more than 100,000 visitors a year. The collection includes full-text scholarly editions of Cather's fiction, a searchable digital collection of nearly 3,000 letters, and many other primary and secondary materials. Whereas Jewell had been trained, as a literary scholar, to privilege his critical arguments over scholarly resources, he found it invigorating to help build a custom resource with practical value for teachers and researchers. "But I didn't do this all by myself," he said. "Working in a library is a team-based approach to problem solving ... There have been many contributors to the Cather Archive all along the way."

The same collaborative principle applies to building a general collection. As Schneider told me, it takes a nuanced understanding of an entire campus, of the arts and humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, and applied sciences, to purchase and organize resources strategically. "Somebody needs to have their eyes on a lot of balls in the air simultaneously," she said. "The teaching mission. The research mission. Where are the strengths on campus? Where do you need to put your resources so that they're getting the most impact? You have to have somebody that has their head around the whole game."

If few disciplinary faculty or administrators understand the complexity of building a collection or coordinating digital systems so that they are usable, even fewer understand the plight of academic librarians facing dwindling or inflexible resources. Krier, the collection development librarian at Sonoma State, said that her budget has remained unchanged for 10 years, even though subscription fees for digital resources and streaming media have increased by 5-7 percent every year. If the costs rise but the budget does not, something has to give. Krier recently canceled a subscription to a streaming service because she could not justify paying $15,000 every year for rights to the same movies. "It'd be like just having to buy the exact same book every year, over and over," she said. "That's crazy. Why are we doing this?" But faculty members who just want access to the films they've always taught, or students who want the library to purchase textbooks that they can use for free, don't understand that the library budget cannot accommodate every demand.

One way libraries or special collections might protect themselves against budget cuts from state legislatures is external funding. Jewell, the Nebraska professor, told me that the trend at most public universities is toward more private funds and less state support - and so investing in fundraising and donor support will be a top priority for academic libraries for the foreseeable future. The Willa Cather Archive, for instance, is sustained in part by a private endowment that funds a base level of staff and graduate students, even when grant funding is not available. The endowment not only provides a safety net for the archive, it allows university funds to go further.

Schneider agrees that external fundraising can help ameliorate budget woes, but she does not see it as a sustainable solution for academic libraries. To fund one faculty position in the library, Schneider said she would need an endowment of more than $3 million. To complicate matters, most university donors are alumni who give back to their majors or athletic teams. "Usually donors have something really specific in mind," she said. "Not a generalist librarian that's going to teach info lit. classes, or a librarian that's going to rewrite cataloging standards and create all kinds of automated ways of managing our records."

Resource scarcity and unhappy work environments contribute to a high rate of turnover in academic libraries. Elaina Norlin said that many academic libraries are seeing an uptick in failed searches. Norlin is a professional-development and diversity, equity, and inclusion program coordinator at the Association for Southeastern Research Libraries. It often takes more than a year to fill an open library position, which requires everyone else to absorb the workload in the meantime. Norlin told me, "When you're recruiting people while you're stressed and burnt out and not as happy working there, that energy carries through the recruitment process."

In 2018, Fobazi Ettarh - then a librarian at California State University-Dominguez Hills - coined the term "vocational awe" to explain the tensions many academic librarians feel between their vision of the profession and the reality of it. Vocational awe is the belief "that libraries as institutions are inherently good and sacred, and therefore beyond critique." If libraries are sanctuaries, then librarians are, by association, priests or martyrs. When this sense of divine calling is internalized, it enables deference behavior, but it can just as easily be leveraged by administrators or disciplinary faculty members to shame librarians for self-advocacy. "Awe," Ettarh wrote, "is easily weaponized against the worker, allowing anyone to deploy a vocational purity test in which the worker can be accused of not being devout or passionate enough to serve without complaint."

Many academic librarians turn to library science after other careers or avenues of study left them unfulfilled, only to discover that their disciplinary colleagues, who should be kindred spirits, or their supervisors, who should know their worth, cannot see them at all. As a scholar and faculty member, I have been as guilty as anyone of romanticizing the golden hours I've spent in the stacks or the archives, while ignoring the librarians who bring those spaces to life. Ettarh offered a useful corrective: "Libraries are just buildings. It is the people who do the work. And we need to treat these people well."

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association of college and research libraries

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american association of colleges and universities

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american association of university professors

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Just before the winter holiday in December 2021, the administrative team at Texas A&M University announced that all librarians with faculty status would be removed from the tenure track at the end of the spring term; if they were tenured, they would be stripped of it.

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The Freedom Forum's mission is to foster First Amendment freedoms for all.

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Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

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Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

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Explore FIRE's expansive library of resources and research on free speech, due process, and other civil liberties.

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