Today we'll celebrate the right to read and Banned Books Week with Charles Brownstein the comic book Legal Defense Fund Jackie farmer from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Also joins the program for the youth free expression program a kid's right to read project at the National Coalition Against Censorship and finally we'll talk with Deborah Caldwell stone she is at the American Library Association office for intellectual freedom and the freedom to read foundation once again for the hour today we celebrate the right to read Banned Books Week Stay with us. For that about the because it was alibi guys of the democracy politics if you look at the Gaza Community Welcome to the Project Censored show I'm your host Mickey Huff Well we're coming to the end of September and listeners of the project censors show know that that means we're likely going to be celebrating Banned Books Week Banned Books Week Of course goes back to the early 1980 S. 1902 every September libraries schools bookstores museums and other locales around the world celebrate the right to read during Banned Books Week at its heart it's a celebration of the freedom to access ideas a fundamental right that belongs to everyone and over which no person or small group of people should hold sway Banned Books Week is a celebration of books comics plays art journalism and much more and I couldn't think of a better guests to have on than I do today Special thanks to the Banned Books Week coalition about to go for helping set this up and I am welcoming back to the program Charles Brownstein who is the executive editor of the comic book Legal Defense Fund He however also serves as the chair of the Banned Books Week coalition also on the board of directors of Media Coalition is past president of the freedom to read Foundation. Brownstein has served as the executive director of the comicbook Legal Defense Fund since 2002 and during his tenure his organization has achieved numerous legal victories been cited by the US Supreme Court and has become the leading source of education advocacy for combating comics censorship in libraries and schools and he's a prolific inside out lecture on the history of comics is widely published and I want to thank Charles Brownstein once again this year for taking some time out to come on the project's answer Joe Charles welcome back to the program it's good to hear from you Mickey thanks so much for having us on this year it's my pleasure to do so and of course Project Censored is proud once again to be a contributor along with the many sponsors of Banned Books Week and of course people can learn more at Banned Books Week dot org But Charles Brownstein started out you're wearing the chair hat so what's Banned Books Week looking like this year coming up at the end of September well because thing about being able to be the chair of the Banned Books Week coalition is to see just how many institutions in American life are really committed to the values of free expression and so we've got a tremendous range of organizations some from we're going to be talking to later in this hour including the American Booksellers so Cieszyn the American Library Association these assisting Unilever's the presses the Dramatis legal defense fund fire the Punisher for Individual Rights in Education the freedom to read Foundation index on censorship NESA coasting and censorship National Council teachers in English people for the American way each one of those organizations is doing their own Banned Books Week programming so we are able to reach broad broad swaths of American life and in fact with index international life talking about the importance of fighting censorship so this year's theme is censorship leaves us in the dark keep the light on and we're really alumina aiding how Banned Books Week is this great opportunity for communities. The ones that are listening to us talk right now can band together to talk about the importance of intellectual freedom and if you think intellectual freedom isn't important then you don't think that speaking truth to power is important and if speaking truth to power is an important and not a now what we're doing in the world right now well Charles I couldn't agree more and that this is a truth emergency this is a situation that really does require all of these wonderful sponsors and groups getting together to talk about this because this has been going on since the early eighty's the American Library Association celebrating Banned Books Week in and for some for some who don't realize it that this is the thing they say What do you mean Banned Books Week we live in United States what do you mean there's censorship of books going on so Charles Brownstein in lightness of course the folks who listen to this show may be aware of it but you know so much more about it and the kinds of books that have been challenged outside even of comics so go ahead and give us a little overview Yeah definitely you know every year in April the American Library Association publishes a list of the top band unchallenged books that have popped up in the past year and every year there's hundreds of incidents where individuals will attempt to restrict access or remove certain books from circulation and increasingly in recent years this is really vectoring on the the locus of identity censorship this whole idea that the city very identity of the speaker or the very identity of the audience for an intended body of work is enough to have it removed from the public square from the conversations that are happening in libraries and in schools and institutions all over the world and so in the last 2 year C.B.L. The FS been really intercalary involved as have our partners on the banned books the coalition in combat ing this kind of identity censorship we get a little bit more into the granular detail of the C.B.O.T. . Half cases a little bit but broadly speaking there's always going to be folks out there that think they know better than you about what you should have the right to access or think about or folks that believe that they know better then some other set of parents about how the kids in their community should be raised and the truth the matter is that every individual has the right to make up their own minds about their own minds that's what the 1st Amendment is all about and that's what Banned Books Week is about it saying respect the intelligence of yourself respect the intelligence of your neighbors respect the intentions of the Constitution and honor that the 1st Amendment gives us the right to make up our own minds about any of a variety of ideas and so Banned Books Week is an opportunity for not just the sponsor groups that now I'm proud to be a part of putting on our own events but maybe the coolest thing about it is the Banned Books Week has the conditions of a movement that has the conditions of individual communities getting together and putting their own events on whether that's local readouts whether that is author talks whether that is story time whether that is exhibits of the books that have been banned or challenge or any number of creative ideas and in fact not encourage your listeners to go check out Banned Books Week dot org where the coalition resources are up and you can find vents near you and if you've got an event that's not on there you can listen for free to get more people involved because that's how we're going to get out of this darkness that we're in is for more and more people to keep the light on and keep the light of intellectual freedom on by coming together an illuminating each other with mutual dignity and respect about their rights to make up their own minds about their own minds absolutely we're speaking with Charles Brownstein executive director of the comic book Legal Defense Fund and you can learn more at C B L D F O R G can also learn more at Banned Books Week dot. Org Charles Bronson I'm of course also doing our small part here with Project Censored having this annual show on Banned Books Week I'll be actually doing a constitution day talk at my college focusing on Banned Books Week this year and also I have spoken to my kids' schools elementary and middle schools and so I want to remind people that while the sponsors contributors and UN and so many folks that do so many great things across the country in the L.A. To get this going on I really really appreciate how it's more and more a grassroots effort there's invitations for everybody to be spreading the word about so many of these important principles that you were just telling us about Banned Books Week this year starts September 22nd runs to the 29th so Charles Brownstein Could you tell us about a couple of these more specific and recent cases about identity censorship or about political identification I know you had a couple of cases in Texas and New Jersey in particular we're keeping watch on a really disturbing case in the end or Texas involving a city council that has overruled a local library in the invitation of the author of a young adult graphic novel of the it's called number James the infernal compass the graphic novelist is the author Laila Sturges and 2 hours before Laila was to give her talk about her was a graphic novel to the kids in Leander she got a call saying that this event has been abruptly canceled don't come and when we drilled into it it was found out this was a discriminatory disinvite Taishan and it appears to be from the basis of the fact that Lyle was transgender and you know no other speakers that were invited to the library suffered this indignity and you know it's just wrong so she found herself censored just for who she is not the content of her work not the content of the political activities and that's wrong so C.B.S. Lead a coalition effort. They were still working on urging the city of Leander to reinstate her event which they failed to do in fact while we did find a an advocate in councilman Christine said her quest to has been a vocal supporter of Laila and more inclusive library policies the city council instead voted not just to not address the ban of Lyla but also to restrict access to the community members to use library meeting room so it's a really terrible situation that we continue to keep watch on and we hope that saner heads can prevail and that these policy decisions can be reversed but it's a really extreme example of something that's happening all over the country which is people finding themselves being discriminated against because of who they are and I'm sure later in this episode you talk to other folks about other areas where this is happening one of the key flashpoints is drag queen story hour where there are folks that object to the presence of fantastically dressed human beings reading stories about fables and fairy tales to young kids and saying you know that these fantastically dressed human beings are somehow putting a negative agenda into these kids' heads which is just complete nonsense but this is a growing trend it's a trend that C.B.L. The F.E.'s active in opposing and it's a trend that our partners including the National Coalition Against Censorship The L.A. And others are speaking out against and in favor of the fact that every human being has the right to be heard it's a terrible set of circumstances and then the New Jersey case that you brought up this involves the ongoing saga of the book Fun Home by Alison Bechtel which is one of the quintessential graphic memoirs of the 21st century and this is frequently plagued with challenges again just on the basis of the book addressing gay themes those would be. Plus themes and there was a lawsuit that we weren't involved in in watching his New Jersey that grew out of a case we were involved in where a small group of parents challenge the presence of an optional reading assignment for seniors in high school to read this book we spoke out against the attempts to ban the book in that case and it was successful and then about a year later group of parents brought a lawsuit against the school district saying that this was going to be a violation of the obscenity law to assign this literary graphic novel that is one all of the accolades a graphic novel of this kind could win been adapted to a successful Broadway play and the school district was forced to defend itself and fortunately the case was dismissed with prejudice by the judge so it can't be brought back but we're seeing more and more and more of these kinds of cases emerging where it's not even about what's being said it's about who is being spoken to ready or who is speaking and that's just an un-American idea it's not even getting into the content there are so many stereotypes and assumptions and projections going on in these kinds of cases not to mention that it clearly flies in the face of everything that the 1st Amendment stands for and again to see these kind of things happening where there are censorship taking place in schools particularly in libraries bookstores community halls and it's just anathema to what we stand for as a free society and again that's why I think it's so important you have so many wonderful sponsors contributors and people doing this the office of intellectual freedom at the American Library Association also a key player here Charles there's a couple of other things I think that are on your mind you mentioned a comic censorship going on in Idaho and you had a workshop and something coming up that you might be able to invite people to yes definitely folks check out C B L D F O R G C B O T F dot org We have a lot of free resources including webinars that folks can. Paid in to help creates more awareness and better tools for managing difficult situations coming up at the end of this month we've got a web in our on how to fight identity censorship we're going to have Laila Sturges the author of lover James the infernal compass who was the target of this terrible censorship in Texas and John Spears the chief librarian of the Pikes Peak Library District in Colorado Springs where there was the big protest about drag queen story hour and they're going to be talking about their experiences with an eye to informing the participants in this weapon are about how they can fight this kind of censorship when it happens in their communities and ultimately how we can create the conditions of education awareness so that we can help prevent this kind of censorship from happening in the 1st place so that's going to be during Banned Books Week Friday September 27th you can register now for FREE at C.B. L.D.F. Dot org And there you also get a sense of some of the other cases that C.B.L. T.F. Is working on on a regular basis the case in Idaho you mentioned involves a extremely weird high school band of The Walking Dead comic book series which was in the high school library and there was a challenge brought to that book because of the violent content within it and ultimately a committee went through the proper processes and procedures the committee voted to retain the book but the superintendent decided to override that committee and not just remove the book from this rural library but also is attempting to create a bifurcated library card system to bring him but students from using interlibrary loan to get their hands on copies of this graphic novel series which is of course the basis of a wildly popular set of television shows and video games etc But the thing that's really disturbing about all. This is that if they actually bothered to read the book there you go look it's all about government and good government and how government is the highest form of common consent rule of law is the highest from a common consent so this is a serious that is using the popular vernacular to talk about the core values of what it is to be an American and to be engaged in the rule of law so you just one of many many examples of the kinds of censorship that we're dealing with on a regular basis Charles Brownstein that is again another riveting story censorship is very real and we've dedicated a pretty significant part of our professional and personal lives to fighting it at every level but again I don't think people necessarily suspect it so often and so it's always very heartening to see people in these local communities pushing back against this with the help of a lot of the people involved in Banned Books Week to make these really big deals the right to read the right to think the right to express oneself I mean they're really at the core of what it means to be an American constitutionally I think you make a really great point that all of this work requires every single one of us Banned Books Week comic book legal defense fund projects censored American Library Association all of these organizations are at their heart collections of people that share common values and a bond of common respect for each other's right to make up their own minds and so when we talk about censorship in libraries and we talk about censorship in schools you know it's really not the individuals that are trying to serve their community by bringing books into them that are creating these problems these are really well meaning folks that are just trying to do right by everybody in their community and there's a lot of unsung heroes in this environment that Banned Books Week is a great opportunity to sing the praises of so cheers to all of the great teachers librarians parents and activists out there that are standing up for this work because. Organizations like the one that I work for when they exist without them and ultimately the society that we all strive to live in and improve when it exists without people of good heart doing this important work so Banned Books Week is a big chance for assaults celebrate each other in doing not the other group that I know that you're including in all of that of course often on the frontlines are the students themselves sometimes we don't always recognize that it's the students that are the ones that are raising their voices 1st and they're the ones that are getting other people involved and calling attention to the fact that they're not being allowed to see something especially if you're going through the middle school years and high school years I mean that's that's the trigger soon as they're told they're not allowed to do something they're all about it so kudos to all the students that have stood up to to do those things that Charles Brownstein you are at C B L D F O R G or the executive director of the comic book Legal Defense Fund you've been doing that since 2002 Additionally you also are the chair of Banned Books Week coalition you're on the board of directors meeting coalition and past president the freedom to read Foundation So again you're a man wearing many hats Charles Brownstein and our hat goes off to you here at Project Censored thanks so much for having me today Mickey thank Charles and thanks for all your great work again you can go to Banned Books Week dot org or a C B L D F O R G Charles Bronstein We'll catch you next time thanks so much you're listening to the Project Censored show I'm your host Mickey huff after this brief musical break we're going to come back and talk with our next guest from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education otherwise known as fire Stay with us . He's the Belfast cowboy in a jeweler on the threshold the beloved singer of brown eyed girl caravan and Moondance and Van Morrison is going to be a featured artist during Cajun useful fun drive during morning D.J. Doug Gardiner and Paul Epstein the Twist and Shout records for a deep dive in the musical legacy of Van Morrison including rare live gems. Never before broadcast performances spanning over 50 years in the spotlight tuning into the morning sun alternative on Monday October 14th from 9 30 am until 12 noon for our van morrison special right here on K G N U Boulder Denver and for Congress. Welcome back to the project center Joe I'm your host Nikki Huff on today's program we are highlighting Banned Books Week we're talking to members of the Banned Books Week coalition sponsors contributors and other people to support the right to read and today I would like to welcome another representative from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and that is Jackie farmer she is outreach officer at Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Jackie Farmer thank you for joining the program today to talk about Banned Books Week Yes thank you for having me so Jacki just remind our listeners 20 some years ago a small nonprofit in Philadelphia opened its doors to answer calls for help from students and professors facing violations of their individual rights you can learn more of course about the Foundation for Individual Rights at the website the fire dot R.G.T. And 20 years later fires a leading authority on campus civil liberties having helped millions defend and enjoy their rights and so this is the organization you work for so tell us about how you're connected with Banned Books Week this year and its connection to academic freedom Jackie farmer but this is actually or 1st year with the Banned Books Week coalition and we're super excited to be a part of the play to be helping to educate the public about the importance of free speech and the harm that counter ship can do docs are always the 1st way people learn about their culture and life experience and you know I never went to the library to learn about what I already knew I always went to learn about what I don't know and especially where. When students reach college are faced with folks from all different walks away with different opinions and experiences it can be a really difficult time to it after that new environment. Especially in regards to a lot of the children's books and the books that are often on the American Library Association list of the most banned their challenge books it's great to have that opportunity and those books accessible when you're younger children learn about different ideas and lives at that important point in your life before you even hit the college campus and are faced with all of these different folks that you might not have in your hometown environment sheltering people from controversial books can have a negative impact on students when they reach college or are faced with folks from all walks of life with different opinions and that's that's what you know we were talking a little bit before you came on air so can you can you talk a little bit more specifically about that or tying it into Banned Books Week or any particular cases that you're involved in or that you might be working with that give an example like this. Yeah so I think you know for this year's list you have to hit you get on the alias list of most panda challenge books and the book George and last year there is the Kite Runner and you know these books the past experiences that many readers don't have the privilege to learn about and their everyday lives so making sure that people have access Facebook is really important to prime them for the college environment if they choose to read them as for fire cases related to banned books we actually won a great roundup was hostess by personal favorite predators probably not the right word to use but one of the cases I always go back to is the craft and hills case from 2015 where a student and her parents were briefly successful and pressuring a college to add trigger warnings to any list course oldest on graphic novels they had objections to but the Persepolis Fun Home was black man and Sandman clearly showing they did not know much from graphic novels but I was one of those interesting cases because it was a case of rhetoric to trigger warnings and that's normally used on the last use on the side of more people with conservative values to try to limit the active freedom of the professor is what we argued when we wrote to the college boys that making professors go through any sort of process where they have to put these warnings on there so busy this would really have a chilling effect that makes them stop to think about what kind of controversies they're bringing about what they're choosing to teach and to their credit practice helping mediately reverse their decision which is really great and it was a great coalition of folks that helped us on that letter that's certainly something that fire does foundation review of rights education working with other groups and getting coalitions of people involved in supporting academic freedom and again the thing that's interesting about it and again I know that there's people out there listening that are going to write me angry e-mails telling me don't you know that there is right wing money behind the fire and this kind of business and I do know all that but what I also know is that I know. A lot of the people that work at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education I've seen the track record of the things that fire has done I know people personally in my life as polygraph that when I wrote an email to Greg off within a week they were on the case of helping people that I knew that were having a rough time at their institutions and it didn't matter if they were right or left what matters was violating academic freedom is a matter of right and wrong and it's simply wrong to do that no matter what side of the spectrum people are on and that's again something else that I admire about the fire and I see it fitting in quite well with the National Coalition Against Censorship and Banned Books Week in general that it's a general idea that you have a right to information a right to be taught and a right to teach these things without interference so Jackie farmer can you tell our listeners a little bit more about what you do at fire I primarily work in our 1st minute library which is a portion of our website the main portion of that is a database person I meant related cases for the Supreme Court and summary data. And one of our efforts that were really pushing to news the portion of our site to busy increase the awareness about history the 1st Amendment and free speech Roger seen around us about the kind of work we're trying to work toward to preserve history and to get that information out there as a historian by day one of the other hats I wear I couldn't agree more with that in the 1st Amendment library is something that you have on your site at the fire dot org You can click into it and it's actually a searchable database and for listeners there's a freedom of speech and expression section assembly and petition specific cases on campus also the free exercise clause and of course I notice a lot of what fire does is government censorship but there is also a big problem of corporate censorship and other types of special interest groups censorship but I know fire focuses mainly. On government so could you tell us a particular thing that you might be working on that you're pretty excited about I know the library the searchable library in the citations is really good but I just just wanted to give you another opportunity to tell our listeners more about what you're doing and maybe even you know I know you do student outreach events and you do events to try to get young people involved in protecting the 1st Amendment we have some regional conferences for students I don't have them on hand but sometimes we host the event regionally 1st and where I believe our next one is going to be on censorship of student press so if anybody knows anything journalists out there even putting the internet was definitely watch our site for updates on that we have our own network that you can join in the right we focus mostly on government censorship but part of the personal library is also tracking general free speech controversy and you know if you're interested in that realm one of the things I direct people to look at is our timeline from the library and we have one that got me history of film censorship so that's a little bit more not private round chronicling those controversies so we we know why we advocate for free speech and that written by the author of Freedom of the screen legal challenges to state so censorship and it's really good to see that the fire has branched out a lot and you're covering a lot of different areas and you have a lot of resources that are available to the public and the 1st Amendment library just being one of the parts of what the Foundation for Individual Rights is all about and is doing so Jacki farmer before we move on to the next member of the Banned Books Week coalition anything else you'd like to share with our listeners could also ban books read something in never thought you'd read and expand your mind Jackie farmer thanks so much for what you're doing at the fire give our best to Greg and the team there and we will be back in touch and we'll get more updates from you coming up here by the end of the year thank you for listening to the Project Censored show I'm your host Mickey Huff today's program is our and you will be. Books Week show and when we come back from this musical break we will be rejoined by about 100 Full who manages the youth free expression program and kids right to read project with the National Coalition Against Censorship a big partner in Banned Books Week Stay with us. On into the cabaret this Tuesday at 7 pm for a special live performance from the pearls in one piece dance steeped in classical soul standards and outfitted with modern flair techniques. With host will 2 step that's the girls this Tuesday night in the cabaret and 17. Welcome back to the Project Censored show you're tuned to Pacifica Radio I'm your host Nikki huff and today's program is about Banned Books Week Banned Books Week is at the end of September September 22nd to 20 eight's I believe I said the 29th earlier and misspoke but September 22nd 22829000 Banned Books Week should be every week where we're celebrating the right to read and celebrating the idea that we have free speech free expression academic freedom etc but Banned Books Week is coming up here September 22nd and for this segment of the program we are joined once again by about 100 school she manages the free expression program and kids right to read project with the National Coalition Against Censorship of which projects censored is a member and we're all of course members of the Banned Books Week coalition so about how much will welcome back to the Project Censored Joe Thank you Michel it's an honor to have you back and thank you so much for the important work that you do fighting for free expression especially with the youth free expression program in the kid's right to read projects of could you please remind our listeners what exactly it is you do over at and CAC are the only. National project or initiative dedicated to fighting both censorship in school and also in public libraries what that means is that we work very closely with teachers the National Council for teachers of English is a very close partner of ours and librarians a labor close partner of ours to track both challenges you know also the reasons for the book challenges so we can observe the trends and what this tells us about our communities and the kind of material we're targeting and then also make sure the decisions made on whether or not to keep the book and to allow students access to above our viewpoint neutral so we're not removing material on the basis of my ideology that we're we're not censoring particular viewpoints which of course would violate the 1st Amendment and our work with the kids right to read project deals primarily with books but also use free expression deals with a lot of access to information not just the written word we work closely with other partners education partners to make sure the kids have access to art the opportunities to express their views and so we have been working really closely with teachers to also incorporate some of these lessons in the classroom as well about the dangers of censorship and the importance of protecting and respecting diversity points. Well that's a mouthful for sure and whenever we talk about Banned Books Week which has been around since the early eighty's with the L.A. People say well what's that about what do you ban books or who's being books in the United States what do you mean that there's people banning books there's books censorship going on and again we can go on all day in fact people like us go on all year talking about censorship and fighting it in its many guises So what are some examples of the things that you're doing with the youth free expression program and also the kids right to read project I think our biggest role is to remind people that book censorship is still happening by documenting these incidents and also by serving as a record and reflection of society and what kind of material is targeting reminding people that by depriving young people of access to defer suspected there we see what kind of perspectives we're targeting here we are effectively silencing or racing the people who have those views and as you can see from Noel a list of banned books this year and also as we've been seeing from our cases the majority of the target for censorship of material that's targeted targeted for censorship is about by El Duque you people people of color These are the under represented of our communities right the groups that are most heavily stigmatized that are marginalized and suppressed and the problem with banning censoring material based on ideology and subjective views is that it depends on who has the power right if any who has the power it can always be used against you and your group so we've been seeing that there is like I said majority of the material that's challenge with challenge of past year pertain to else you can see he experiences either they were written by or about else you can see 2 characters and also pertain to programming as well this summer we saw almost every other week there was a headache. I'm story about driving story hour protest and library being forced to cancel reading events for kids having nothing to do with the books that are being read in some cases but we're seeing creeping leave a book censorship is not just about the book it's also about the people whose voices they're trying to silence and busy in the case of Dr King story our programs and my breath a lot of the hostility and real harm to safety came from censors protesters who were trying to silence in a race the views of L.G.B. Take you readers authors I want to remind listeners you're tuned to the project centered show I'm your host Nikki Huff we're talking about Banned Books Week and I'm now talking with a been a hunch will she manages the youth free expression program and kids right to read project with the National Coalition Against Censorship and I urge you to go to their Web site and see a c dot org And under resources you can find out a lot of different things that are going on and ways that you can get involved and under what we do which is the 1st tab you can access the youth free expression program kids right to read project as well as the other things and see if he does but a benefit you were just saying a moment ago please continue I was saying in Tennessee recently an author of Why a literature Giulia was. An acclaimed writer Wonderland the literary awards for her one of her novels back in 2001 and now she's bestselling author quiver which is a book about Ironically 2 young girls from different and of the political ideological spectrum the family have very different political beliefs and they form a friendship and it's about overcoming their differences and really seeing the humanity in one another and ironically she was disinvited from a literary festival and I think because you felt you can see she will author write fiction that features else you can get your perspective but also because she has written for adult audiences. For so it had nothing to do with the book itself that she's promoting or what the message is in the story this becomes really quickly and insidiously about everything people's voices about a range thing entire groups of people I think that this year perhaps more than any other year that I've worked at N.C.C. I've seen more and more examples of that and it becomes chillingly clear that as much as we think that book censorship is not a thing anymore is not a big threat anymore as much as we've normalized and become desensitized to it isn't was very real threat and I find that there's something wrong in our society and I think it's important for us to look at book challenges of protest or quest to ban access to certain types of literature or any literature as a dangerous time for society about how she will it's also important to emphasize that in some of these cases that you're describing and that we had a couple guests on earlier describing it's not even the book that was being protested it was the identity of the speaker for the author which I'm not sure if we can put a tag on it that makes it better or worse although it does appear to be something that's broadening in terms of censorship you just mentioned that the types of censorship that you're seeing are broadening and thus increasing I think it is something that may not be getting worse but we are seeing more examples of it we cuz also the way in which it's happening we're seeing a lot of calls for censorship using social media as a tool and we also see the response to attempts to censor on social media and so where perhaps more impressed by that. And recently in Vermont also over the summer around pride month there's a conservative Facebook personality and an activist mommy who has over $700000.00 followers and she calls for her followers to protest a dry clean story hour and there was a Jackson story our event in Vermont Montpellier firm on all these protesters appeared at the library and started calling into the library to cancel the event and fortunately people who care about defending free splash and recognize the dangers of censorship and do want to protect access to diverse perspectives and viewpoints organize a counter protest also over social media calling people to the library to show support for the event and also fortunately the library continued to buy organizers until the event and ultimately the protest was not successful but I think we're seeing as more and more people gain access to social media platforms and recognize the power of voice we're seeing I think censorship more closely than maybe in the past but we also see more opportunities to resist it which is great very well said That seems like what is going on right but also the good sign there is there's also more awareness that comes out of this more teachable moments right that come out of this earlier we were talking about Laila Sturgis in Texas and unfortunately the library wasn't able to protect the rights there not yet I mean that's still an ongoing thing Charles Bronson was talking about is there something else do you want to add about that case because I know that's something that you were reacting to that he's actually illustrates another trend that I have noticed in my time with the program which is increasing I don't know if it's black us a millionaire a T. With a respect for the 1st amendment on the part of legislators to put increasing pressure on libraries from legislators So in light of the surge of cases and agree. Some shocking one what happened after her event was cancelled was that the city council and Leander changed their meeting room postings 1st of all to restrict access to outside groups in response to protests against the Sturgis talk but also again striking story our events that were scheduled to be held and had been canceled and then the city council also pressured the library into changing these policies and becoming more restrictive and imposed a background check requirement on speakers that would be invited that aren't on an approved list but it's OK for the Eagle Scouts or daughters of the American Revolution right there and there's plenty of groups that might think that there's some kind of controversy involved with those groups but we're talking about the public square the library you know public education and information we're all groups should be able to Tom and express and have their say and have these people censored because of how they identify is absolutely agree Jace and even the types of fences that will be screened are the background check deny certain communities access communities that are heavily policed that are overly encouraging I think it's really shocking how much public officials have disregarded the 1st Amendment in the interest of of waiting controversy and avoiding those teachable moments. Another example is in Ohio there are 2 libraries that plan to have driving story are events over 5 they also had other side events planned and in response to a lot of protests the campus and before the 2nd one cancelled the House speaker wrote a letter to the library board calling their programming stunningly bizarre breaches of the tax Care Trust and libraries are dependent on these schemes for funding dependent on government on politician support and I think it can other trend that is clear from this past summer actually and this whole year the kinds of challenges a better game against a better tool is there anything here in the last minute or so we have in the segment maybe you can share ways to be contacted to share the Web sites again and for the good things about Banned Books Week and Banned Books Week dot org The major web site for all the coalition there is there's a lot of different ways for people to get involved so maybe there are some ways that you can suggest we've actually together with comic book Legal Defense Fund in L.A. Started that campaign to shed light on L.G.B. To censorship in schools and called uncensored pride so I'll encourage everyone to check it out we include resources and different ways that you can defend L G B 62 I think pression and voices in your community I think also the way that people have shown up for other members of their community whether being targeted for censorship organizing counter protest supporting petitions in the take of Leander Texas it was a church that actually opened their doors busy for the Dr King story our event that was canceled supporting censored in silence views supporting the people who identities and humanity is being targeted in the race I think is the very important way to support as National Coalition Hunter said and I would encourage everyone to check out our Web site. right and also by a band book ferns absolutely abene hutch full you manage the youth 3 expression program a kid's very to read project for the national coalition against censorship porton part a banned books week coalition is well you can learn more it n c o r g a benefit you again for joining us for our annual program and will probably have you back because that mean censorship will still be an issue in a problem but i'm just very grateful that there are so many wonderful allies in people like you abana and jackie in charles and so many others that are out there on the front lines with the students with peep in marginalized communities that are fighting censorship every day so thank you so much for what you do like way i thank you know your listen to the projects censored show i'm your host mckee huffed today's program focuses on banned books week which is September 22nd to 28th are and more it banned books week dot org after this musical break we will conclude our conversation about banned books week and we'll be joined by deborah paul dwell stone she is the interim director at the a l.a. The american library association zz office for intellectual freedom in the free him to read foundation police stay with us tonight if this is betty let i'll be playing from eat and solar powered stakes muzi conversation community involvement and when the 100 percent in mission for eat this week in the morning at a lab in and key g.n. Welcome back to the projects censored show i'm your host mickey huff today we have been celebrating the upcoming banned books week and we've had some stellar guests on in we have another fabulous guest to a share wisdom with you we have a deborah caldwell stone who's the in him director of the american library association zz office for intellectual freedom and the freedom to read foundation again very Very significant and important part of the American Library Association also of course a L.A. Goes back to the roots of Banned Books Week in a big part of Banned Books Week so Deborah Caldwell Stone welcome to the project's answer Joe thanks for having me on Mickey So one of the things we didn't cover yet in this whole hour even though we've discussed many examples of books censorship and talked about some of the things that are being sense particularly identity censorship one of the things that I know some listeners are wondering is what are some other books that are actually being censored or more accurately what are the top most challenged books of the last year and maybe you can differentiate that maybe explain to our listeners what it means to challenge a book and what the L.A. Office of intellectual freedom does in terms of fighting censorship one of the things that we do in our role in defending the freedom to read in libraries is to actually keep track of censorship attempts both in libraries and in schools and so we solicit censorship reports challenge reports from across the country we define a challenge as any request to remove a book or library resource from the library itself or from the classroom book is considered banned when it is actually removed from the library or the classroom and we've kind of expanded our reporting to not only cover books but attempts to censure any kind of free expression in the library such as times when an author is this invited from speaking at a library or when there's an attempt to shut down a particular program as what's happened with drag queens story times this year but at any rate we keep this database going of censorship attempts and sometimes successful censorship in schools and libraries last year we see reports of 347 challenges to library school and university. Materials for $28.00 team and over all in $28.00 teams $493.00 books were targeted for removal by would be censors and we analyze that data and we identify the most frequently challenge books and last year's number one most frequently challenge book was George by Alex Geno which was a challenge primarily because it depicts a transgender character and that became kind of a theme for the top 11 because of the top 117 of them dealt with Seems dealing with transgender characters or L G P T Q characters or defending civil liberties for L G B T Q People could you repeat the number again of the challenges that you've seen in the last year 347 challenges to library school and university materials and that's only what's reported that's only what's reported and the thing to remember is we don't hear about every censorship attempt in schools and libraries we actually were able to get a measure of what we don't hear about through a number of studies done by university communities and particularly the University of Missouri where the journalism classes did for you Freedom of Information Act project and they sent requests for public records to every school district and public library in the state asking for reports about challenges to library materials or request to remove books from the classroom and when we compared our data to the data collected by this group of students we found that we only heard about 8 percent of the challenges reported to the University of Missouri group through the Freedom of Information Act request so we are guessing that in any given year we only hear about 10 to 25 percent of the challenges for. Forwarded to us so we know that what we're getting in our database is a snapshot of some 3 ships or champs in our schools and libraries across the country but it's good enough numbers that we can really identify trends like last year's trend of bringing challenges to materials that deal with L G B T Q themes or characters which were real primary target in fact we identified atop a love in books and one of the reasons we didn't have a top 10 is that there was a tie for number 10 on our list and it was 2 books 2 boys kissing by David Levison and in the stay in June which is a nonfiction chapter book for young people about gay pride parades in June and they had been removed from the library by a religious activist and burned in protest of that library celebration of pride month ever That's what I wanted to say I was just reading the L.A. Dot org site and it said challenge and burned absolutely this activist was so opposed to the idea of any books reflecting L.G.B. T.Q. Lifestyles in the library or having them available for young people he was his idea that he would burn the books to prevent them from ever being inside the library again he was actually arrested and charged with the destruction of public property and vandalism and what a great thing to know is that in response to the book burning which he did via Facebook Live I mean broadcast it to the world he was arrested and convicted for that act of vandalism and was given some jail time however in response the public began donating copies of the books and money to the library so that they were able to replaced all the books and had many more books dealing with L G P T 2 themes to the libraries collection Well censored. It backfires doesn't it absolutely and I think that when there is a challenge show book we often find that it actually raises interest in the book and gets a greater distribution that would have otherwise gotten had it not been for the challenge to the book Deborah Caldwell stone we only have a minute or 2 remaining in our final segment today but again it's it's great to have you on from the L.A. Particularly the important work that you do there at the office for intellectual freedom the freedom to read Foundation there are some repeat offenders here Sherman Alexie is back on the list down Pilkey is back on the way I asked you know some of these books are the same over and over in some of them aren't recent books some of them in the past have been going way back people are still trying to ban Mark Twain Absolutely we still see challenges to Huckleberry Finn and every so often the challenges rise to the point where Mark Twain is back on our top 10 list but this year's list was particularly interesting because we actually had our 1st parody book our number 2 most challenge book was A Day In The Life of Marlon bundle which was the book developed by writers Steven Kull bears show Late Show as a parody of a book written about the bunny rabbit at the vice president's house other themes that emerged was challenges to books like the hate you give fans you Thomas which was challenge on the grounds that it promoted anti cop feelings when and fact it's such a deeply felt wonderful book about black lives matter and the violence suffered by the black community such an important book that should be read by so many people outside of that community in particular that often don't get a real clear understanding and sometimes don't seem to make an opportunity to learn about these very important perspectives that other people are trying to share all the more reason that the work you do as interim director there at the elite office for intellectual freedom the freedom to read Foundation is ever more him. And so we're about done with the segments Deborah Caldwell stone but could you share with us any other information or website information or other ways that our listeners can learn more about the important work of the A L A O I F or any other thing you'd like to share are seen this year and I'm sure you know this already is that censorship leaves us in the dark and we encourage everyone to keep the light on and you can learn more about las Banned Books Week efforts and our ongoing all year round effort to protect the freedom to read at L.A. Dot org forward slash the book they were called gallstone thank you so much for the important work you do and being a big part of the Banned Books Week coalition and Banned Books Week Every year the last week of September so thank you so much for joining us on the Project Censored show and we'll hopefully get more updates from you and maybe do more than just our annual show on Banned Books Week we talk about censorship in media in the press quite a bit on the program but especially last couple years been paying way more attention to what's happening with banned books and there are so many overlapping themes across all platforms and forms of media including social media so I would really like to try to have you back on in some other people from L.A. Back on in the near future Thanks for having me and just really appreciate what you do and I guarantee we will be inviting you back on. As. You've been listening to the Project Censored show established in 2010 by myself and Peter Phillips. That's me I'm the executive producer and host of the program our co-host is Chase Palmeri Anthony fest is our senior producer our associate producer is Dennis Murphy the Project Censored show airs on roughly 50 stations around the United States from Maui to New York to learn more about our work or to find any of our previous archive programs go to Project Censored dot au our G. Please follow unlike us on Facebook Twitter and Instagram and be sure to subscribe to the official Project Censored show on your phone's podcast application please feel free to share your feedback about our work at Project Censored dot org And last but not least thanks to you our listeners for tuning in will see you next time. Q. Because it is the bottom of the politics if you look at the cost of. It all to her by the way it was what. Was it she says is. Such. An outrage chief. Or you can find out more about projects censored by going to Project Censored dot au argy that's Project Censored dot au argy it's just a few seconds past 5 o'clock here on New York community radio station this is K G A new 80 excuse me K.J. New Boulder Denver with translators K 229 a c Nederland K 254 C H Laporte and K 256 C.T. Denver Colorado and all kinds of good stuff going on want to let you know it looks like it's going to be a fairly nice week. We're going to have got a slight chance of afternoon thunderstorms along the Front Range today overnight lows will be in the low fifty's will be in the low eighty's and sunny tomorrow. On Thursday they'll be about a 30 percent chance of showers in and to be back up into the mid eighty's back down to 80 on Friday with a 20 percent chance of understand ours and then a slight chance on Saturday. As well but it's what can be a nice week and a nice end to the week. On this weekend good stuff coming up here is the headline from the B.B.C. I'm Danielle with the B.B.C. News Israel's former defense minister a victor Lieberman who's leading the right wing Israel party has called for a unity government after exit polls showed no clear winner in Tuesday's general election they indicate an extremely close result between the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main rival Benny Gantz Tom Bateman is in Tel Aviv the celebration tape played by the mood was muted Mr Netanyahu election night headquarters as the exit polls were released hundreds of chairs for supporters remained empty activists were kept outside the whole the Likud leadership digested the numbers if the polls are correct Mr Netanyahu has no simple route to government in fact the figures put him in an even weaker position than after April's election when coalition talks collapsed but his party's foreign affairs director Elie has said the numbers should be treated with caution reports from Washington say the United States has identified the.