Daily Archives: March 23, 2022

Amanda Darrow, director of youth, family and education programs at the Utah Pride Center, poses with books, including The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison and Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, that have been the subject of complaints from parents in Salt Lake City on Dec. 16, 2021. Rick Bowmer/AP hide caption

Amanda Darrow, director of youth, family and education programs at the Utah Pride Center, poses with books, including The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison and Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, that have been the subject of complaints from parents in Salt Lake City on Dec. 16, 2021.

On a school night in late January, Stephana Ferrell, a 39-year-old mother of two elementary school children in Orange County, Fla., logged onto a virtual meeting with more than 200 other parents around the country who, like her, have been alarmed to see books pulled off the shelves of their children's schools.

Ferrell, a family photographer who owns a business, began dipping her toes in local activism for the first time in early 2021 when she lobbied her school district to continue COVID-19 precautions as mask mandates were being lifted. But her involvement ramped up later in the year. That's when she began organizing parents all around Florida to oppose calls to ban books that some conservatives have deemed too "divisive" or "pornographic" to be in schools and curricula.

Ferrell hoped her experience organizing a campaign against book challenges might be instructive to others who similarly oppose what she views as a politically-driven campaign at children's schools.

"Lawn Boy is not on the shelf right now, and then All Boys Aren't Blue says that it's in stock and available," Ferrell told the online participants. "We had a high school student go in there and try to ask for it and they said, 'Sorry, that book's not available right now for checkout.' So that's a shadow ban on All Boys Aren't Blue."

The session was the inaugural training of a national campaign called "Book Ban Busters," organized by a left-leaning grassroots network called "Red Wine & Blue." With the tagline of "Channeling the Power of Suburban Women," the group was established in 2019 and has extended its reach across the country. Founded with the purpose of activating primarily left-leaning moms around local and school issues, it also emphasizes a social component to organizing.

Prior to the pandemic, local groups affiliated with the network organized get-togethers at moms' homes or restaurants. During the past two years, much of their activity has been online.

This past year, many of these parents have watched their schools become battle turf over mask mandates, vaccines and inclusive education. Locally, conflicts over book bans are often framed simply as the next in that series of culture wars. But to some political science experts and historians, the book bans resemble censorship campaigns that could strike at the very heart of democracy.

"I called the organization Red Wine & Blue because when these women would get together there would be wine and there would be some pretty good snacks," says Katie Paris, the group's founder. Paris, a mom in suburban Cleveland, previously worked in Washington, D.C., for left-leaning causes. She established the group to build on the political engagement of suburban women who rejected former President Trump's attempts to win over "suburban housewives" during the 2018 midterm elections. She says the network now includes more than 300,000 parents.

"The suburbs [have] really been shifting and changing," Paris says. "They've always, traditionally in politics, been seen as these sort of conservative bastions. But the suburbs are becoming more diverse. They're shifting ideologically."

Katie Paris speaks to members of Red, Wine and Blue during a meeting, Monday, Sept. 28, 2020, in Cleveland. Tony Dejak/AP hide caption

Katie Paris speaks to members of Red, Wine and Blue during a meeting, Monday, Sept. 28, 2020, in Cleveland.

For many parents at the local level, the push to remove inclusive materials from schools looked, from the beginning, very different from the contentious debates over masks and vaccines.

"It seemed to happen everywhere, all at once. It was clearly organized," Paris says. "So we knew pretty much off the bat that this is an orchestrated effort."

That impression is born out in the data. More than 330 unique books were challenged from September through November last year, according to the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. That's twice as many as the entire year before.

Paris says moms in the Red Wine & Blue network were among the first to see the effort take shape. Early last summer, several began surfacing questions to ask if anyone had heard about something called "Critical Race Theory." The term has been incorrectly applied by rightwing pundits seemingly to anything relating to race, diversity and equity. To some experts, the campaign carried all the hallmarks of a different controversy that played out years earlier.

"All of these organizations that appear to be 'grassroots parent organizations' that are outraged about what their [children] are learning, they all have ties to exactly the same donors that have been behind the campus free speech crisis," says Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

"It's the same network of people, the same funders that are kind of manufacturing this false narrative and then using this dense network ... in order to demand that society and the public take it seriously," he says.

Kamola, who co-authored the book Free Speech and Koch Money, says that many institutions and people connected to the CRT debate have ties to the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund. Those organizations have facilitated huge contributions from ultra wealthy libertarians toward rightwing think tanks such as the Manhattan Institute, policy outfits like the Goldwater Institute, media outlets and legal organizations to advance an extreme conservative agenda.

Ralph Wilson, who co-authored the book with Kamola and co-founded the Corporate Genome Project, has traced links between some of these entities and parents groups organizing to restrict instruction related to race in schools. As an example, he says that the group No Left Turn in Education offers model legislation with sections that closely mirror wording in an Academic Transparency Act proposed by the Koch-funded Goldwater Institute. No Left Turn in Education did not respond to questions from NPR.

Wilson says many parents in these organizations may not be aware that their activism is around an issue that was manufactured to serve the interests of wealthy, corporate elites.

"They view critical inquiry, free inquiry that's done in the academy as a threat to their wealth, they see it as a threat to the future of capitalism and free enterprise in this country," Wilson says. "The end political agenda that's being served doesn't actually help those parents that are involved in it. It doesn't actually help those children. It helps a larger political movement that's trying to capture the culture and ultimately capture the state."

Book challenges have a long history in the U.S., with calls for censorship coming from the left as well as the right. There also have been precedents for the kind of legislation that would restrict public speech about certain topics, says Eric Berkowitz, a human rights lawyer and author of Dangerous Ideas: A Brief History of Censorship in the West.

"In the 1830s, all discussion of abolition was barred from the House of Representatives," Berkowitz says. "It was for the purpose of 'restoring tranquility to the public mind.' So the notion of abolishing slavery was not only a political threat, but it was also advanced and, I suppose, sold on the belief that divisiveness, discomfort, things along those lines are bad for the public mind and a more docile population is a much more easily governed one."

The nonprofit education news website Chalkbeat has tallied 36 states as of early February that had adopted or were considering legislation to put limits around teaching about race or racism. But Berkowitz says history has shown that these type of "gag rules" rarely work in the long run.

"These kinds of ham-handed efforts to mold discourse through the banning of books or through the banning of movies or through the banning of entire subjects only causes greater interest in them," he says.

Political scientists, nonetheless, have been particularly troubled by how the recent spate of state legislation and policies to circumscribe discussion of race in schools has happened amid a tide of rising anti-democratic populism around the globe. The measures fall into a category called "memory laws," says Harvard government lecturer George Soroka.

"Memory laws, in the sense of official prohibitions on how the past can be talked about, are very much a modern phenomenon, and until quite recently, they were primarily a European phenomenon," Soroka says.

According to Soroka, who has helped build a database to track memory laws, there has been a relatively recent proliferation of this type of legislation particularly in post-communist European states. Countries such as Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Hungary have enacted measures to downplay the role some of their countrymen had in the Holocaust and to foster a single, heroic narrative about those countries' experiences in World War II. Soroka says there are parallels to the U.S., where so-called "anti-CRT legislation" and censorship ultimately may serve to whitewash the realities and legacy of slavery.

"Pluralist ideas about the past, multivocality of narratives are threatening ... when you are trying to foster a nation that is really exclusive in terms of its identity," he says.

Soroka says the rise of these measures in the U.S. and elsewhere signals a troubling political shift.

"This is part and parcel of a crisis of democracy," he says. "We see this with the rise of more xenophobic types of nationalism, this idea that how the past is remembered can be weaponized and can be specified by governmental decrees."

Back in Florida, Stephana Ferrell says she sees efforts to erase or minimize marginalized voices from the classroom as clear attempts to undermine the values of a pluralist democracy. Ferrell points to the recent passage of HB1557, which opponents have dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, as an example. The legislation would restrict discussion about sexuality and gender in the classroom.

"They're leaving people out of the conversation completely," she says.

"We have whole swaths of communities completely excluded and teachers tiptoeing around what they can discuss about LGBTQ+ people and Black and Indigenous people here in this country."

Original post:
Suburban parents are fighting book bans because of the threat of censorship - NPR

There has been much in the news lately about censorship. The major media have been reporting on Vladimir Putins efforts to keep the Russian people from hearing the truth about his war against Ukraine and what President Biden has called war crimes.

Dictionary.com offers this definition of a censor: an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds. That official can be a head of state, like Putin, the head of a news operation, or even an individual reporter. Anyone who chooses to suppress a story or fails to investigate one because it does not conform to their worldview could be labeled a censor.

Which brings me to the Hunter Biden laptop story the discovery by The New York Times that his laptop and its contents are real, after all. Not only did the Times and other major and social media ignore the story, in some cases the story was deemed fraudulent and blocked on several platforms.

I think the more accurate explanation as to why the story was censored by these entities is that it was broken by The New York Post, which the mainstream media deem a conservative newspaper and by their standard, unreliable. The line favored by much of the suppression press was that the laptop story was Russian disinformation.

The real unreliable purveyors of disinformation (or no information) are those who failed to do their journalistic duty and investigate. That the story was not followed up on during the 2020 presidential campaign adds to the suspicion, especially among many conservatives, that the information suppression was deliberate. NPR last year, corrected an online article that falsely asserted that documents from first son Hunter Bidens laptop had been discredited by U.S. intelligence. The correction came after the election. It took the Times and others until this year to fess up. According to the NY Post, 51 intelligence officers who signed a public letter claiming the laptop story was Russian disinformation have so far refused to apologize.

Fact-checkers published what they said were lies told by Donald Trump. The Washington Postcalculated Trump had lied or uttered misleading statements 30,573 times during his four years in office. No such diligence has been conducted by the major media of Hunter Biden and his familys alleged business and personal relationships with nefarious individuals and corrupt governments.

For years the legacy media has seen itself as the only legitimate source of news. In a type of if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, does it still make a sound? scenario, if The New York Times, The Washington Post, broadcast and some cable news networks dont report it, is it still news? Yes, it is and the source whether it be The NY Post, UK Daily Mail, or talk radio should not matter so long as the story can be independently verified.

That The New York Times failed to do so until now is a dereliction of newspapers journalistic duty. Had the information been known before the election, it conceivably might have changed votes in some states where Joe Biden won by narrow margins.

The tardy tacit admission by the Times that the NY Post was right will add to the view of many that todays journalism is driven mostly by agendas and not facts and when information goes against the worldview of reporters and their bosses it is to be ignored.

(c) 2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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The many forms of censorship | Opinion | jonesborosun.com - Jonesboro Sun

A bill that could limit conversations about race and sex at public universities passed the state Senate on Monday and in House earlier this month.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Mike Bell (R-Riceville) and House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville), is similar to legislation passed last year that limits divisive topics from being taught in K-12 schools. The prohibited topics of this years bill include 16 tenets, which are the same as the K-12 version with two additional points. Among them: An individual, by virtue of the individual's race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously, and An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual's race or sex. The bill states that students and employees cannot be penalized for their stance on any of the divisive topics employees cant be required to endorse them in order to get hired or promoted, and students cant be required to do the same in order to graduate.

The House and Senate versions of the bill are slightly different, and their differences need to be resolved before moving on to the governors desk for a signature. The House version of the bill requires a college or university to investigate related complaints, but the Senate version does not according to the latters summary, An individual who believes that a violation of these provisions has occurred, may pursue all equitable or legal remedies that may be available to the individual in a court of competent jurisdiction.

Additionally, the legislation states that colleges and universities cannot mandate training that includes any of the divisive concepts. They must also perform a biennial survey that measures campus climate with regard to diversity and campus freedom of speech. The Senate version of the bill would require institutions to present their findings to the General Assembly.

If the two versions of the bill are not resolved, then the legislation will go to a conference committee, and would ultimately be voted on again.

The whole bill is remarkably vague and to my mind, it's intentionally vague, Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) tells the Scene. As we saw with the K-12 version of this legislation, the way its actually communicated to the public and used by political actors takes advantage of that vagueness to challenge the curriculum thats used in schools.

Bill sponsor Sen. Bell noted in the Senate chamber on Monday that, unlike last years K-12 legislation, This bill is not directed at what can or cannot be taught, but it's directed at any adverse action that would take place against somebody who didn't conform to these ideas or didn't accept these ideas and concepts.

This legislation does not hinder endeavors within higher education aimed at combating discrimination, state House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) said in a statement. It is a proactive solution that puts guardrails in place to ensure any diversity efforts by our colleges and universities do not become divisive by casting shadows upon groups or individuals for circumstances that are beyond their control.

Though critical race theory is a term often used to describe these kinds of topics, its worth noting that CRT is a legal term meant to examine how racism can be perpetuated through legal frameworks. CRT is not specifically mentioned in the bill.

It puts a chilling effect on our professors and our universities, said Sen. Brenda Gilmore on Monday (D-Nashville). And I also think that we're taking a lot of the latitude and the freedom away from our professors and administrators to teach without feeling like they're going to be jeopardizing their funding in their colleges and their universities.

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College Censorship Bill Advances | Pith in the Wind | nashvillescene.com - Nashville Scene

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Cal Thomas: The many forms of censorship | Commentary - myheraldreview.com

The First Amendment applies to school classrooms.

That principle is foundational for Prof. Catherine J. Ross of George Washington University Law School in her explanation of the attempts by government bodies to limit what students can learn or even mention in public schools.

For decades, federal courts have dealt with disputes between school authorities and the people they serve and employ that is, students, families and teachers.

As Ross notes, Supreme Court decisions have provided guidance on when schools can restrict expression in the classroom. Based on a ruling made in 1969, schools are allowed to prohibit speech that materially and substantially interferes with appropriate discipline in the operation of the school.

In later decisions, the Supreme Court modified this basic principle, effectively allowing schools more authority to censor classroom speech. Schools cannot require students or teachers to forfeit freedom of speech altogether, but the limits to school authority are not perfectly defined.

As several states move to limit their schools curriculum on subjects like race and LGBTQ+ issues, Ross anticipates different federal appellate courts may reach contradictory decisions. And at that point, Ross explains, the Supreme Court could choose to take up the issue.

Find out more in the video above.

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Schools, censorship, and the law | TheHill - The Hill

Yesterday, Twitter suspended the account of satirical site The Babylon Bee for a post that jokingly named Rachel Levine, the transgender Assistant Secretary for Health, Man of the Year. Here, editor-in-chief Kyle Mann, co-author of The Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness, explains why he isnt going to back down to the social media giants demands.

Well, it finally happened (were kind of surprised it didnt happen sooner): The Babylon Bee has been locked out of our Twitter account.

The satirical article that offended the Twitter overlords? The Babylon Bees Man Of The Year Is Rachel Levine. For the simple offense of labeling a biological man a man, through a satirical headline, we have lost access to all 1.3 million of our followers on Twitter.

A world where you can state a simple biological fact and face censorship, the loss of revenue and your livelihood, and excommunication from the public square for stating truth, no matter how satirical tongue-in-cheek your tone is, is a scary one indeed. As the famous Ron Paul saying goes, Truth is treason in the empire of lies.

Boy, are we feeling that today. (Can I still say boy or will that get me banned too?)

Of course, theres some nuance here: were satire. Were comedy. The primary goal of our satire is to bring levity and laughter to our audience. The fact that a purely comedic account can get banned for a joke admittedly one thats particularly spicy in our current cultural climate should worry everyone about the health of our society. When cultural revolutions happen, the comics and entertainers are the first to be targeted by the revolutionaries. Those looking to upend our society know the power of entertainment and satire, for they use it to great effect as they spread their ideas to the next generation.

Control the comedians, control the messaging, and you control the minds of the people.

And indeed, its control over our minds that Twitter wants. They cant just delete the offending tweet and let us back in. They want us to go into our account and click the delete button ourselves. We have to bend the knee, kiss the ring, bow to the towering statue of LGBTQ politics when the trumpets play, or we stay on timeout indefinitely. We have to promise to do better, implicitly agree that calling a man a man is hate speech, and then well be allowed the right to speak on Twitters platform.

Well, were not going to do that. Were fighting back. Well do whatever we have to do to retain our integrity here. As Orwell wrote, Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

If we give that up, if we agree to succumb to their ideological madness simply to access a wider audience, were giving up our minds, the last holdout against tyranny. Well wait Twitter out, well appeal Twitters decision, well spread the message far and wide that weve been kicked out for hate speech simply for telling a joke Big Tech did not like.

Its time to take a stand, and that time is now. If we wait any longer, we may no longer have that chance. Weve been incredibly blessed at The Babylon Bee in that we have a healthy number of paying subscribers who help us keep the lights on, and were going to use that to stand firm here and do whats right. Well continue to spread our comedy and tell our jokes that communicate truth to a culture that hates truth on whatever platforms will allow us to, and were grateful for those who stand alongside us in this fight.

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Babylon Bee editor: We refuse to bow to Twitter's censorship of a joke - New York Post

Apple has stopped political censorship of terms that buyers choose to have engraved onto its products in Taiwan but has kept the policy in both mainland China and Hong Kong, leading an academic research group to wonder whether Apple does not fully understand its own censorship policies and applications, or is bowing to Beijing's wishes.

In August 2021, Citizen Lab a research group based out of the University of Toronto conducted extensive research into how Apple filters terms submitted to its engraving services. Apple allows buyers to have custom messages etched on the exteriors of iPhones, AirPods, iPads and other Apple products, but even in the most liberal democracies it places some limits on what it will engrave no swear words, for example.

That research found Apple inconsistently applied content moderation going beyond legal requirements in Hong Kong while disallowing terms likely to anger Beijing for Taiwanese customers even though it had no obligation to do so.

Furthermore, the researchers could find no public document listing terms that Apple refused to engrave. The lack of guidelines or policy led Citizen Lab to conclude "Apple does not fully understand what content they censor."

"Rather than each censored keyword being born of careful consideration, many seem to have been thoughtlessly re-appropriated from other sources," wrote the researchers.

At the time, Apple responded [PDF] by stating that it created its own list of forbidden words, and always applies local laws as required.

Citizen Lab has now revisited the matter and found China-friendly censorship has ceased in Taiwan. Script like "StandWithHongKong" and "8964" a reference to Tiananmen Square can now be engraved onto iThings in Taiwan. But not in Hong Kong or mainland China.

Hong Kong has, in recent years, been shorn of promised autonomy. China has also cracked down on big tech when companies act against Beijing's wishes trouble follows swiftly./

Apple, meanwhile, wins approximately 20 per cent of its revenue in China and is dependent on many Middle Kingdom companies to produce its products.

Citizen Lab has come up with several guesses why Apple has decided to keep censorship strong in Hong Kong, but not Taiwan. The group notes that while company policy could be designed to follow the law strictly or to protect consumers, both of these hypotheses seem unlikely. Hong Kong law requires companies be responsible for internet content, but there is nothing within the law obligating business to proactively apply censorship in all spheres.

"We are aware of no other major US-based tech company applying automated political censorship to users in Hong Kong," noted Citizen Lab, adding "Companies Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Twitter stopped responding to Hong Kong data access requests related to the law."

A hypothesis that Apple "is negligent in understanding the content that they censor" seems more likely, given that Citizen Lab was able to find lists of terms not to be used published by other companies, but was denied access to such a list by Apple.

"Together, this problematic process would explain how Chinese political censorship and other content which Apple poorly understands could have slipped into both Taiwan and Hong Kong's lists, and our finding that Apple no longer politically censors in Taiwan would appear to be a tacit acknowledgement of Apple that their political censorship in Taiwan was negligent," wrote the researchers.

"However, despite Apple being equally informed of their political censorship in Hong Kong as that in Taiwan, our findings in this report show that they have not similarly abandoned it," they added.

The group's last hypothesis is that Apple is attempting to appease Beijing.

In the past, Apple has removed around 1,000 apps from its App Store in the Middle Kingdom at the government's behest, while also going above and beyond the minimum required to comply with Chinese law and regulations despite advice to the contrary from human rights groups.

So keeping China happy may go some way to explaining at least some of Apple's policy behaviour here.

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Apple stops censoring terms it etches onto iPhones in Taiwan - The Register

Llano Countys Library Advisory Board will meet behind closed doors in the future after members complained of being intimidated by interruptions during regular public meetings, officials explained.

The board is exempt from the Texas Open Meeitngs law because it isnt a rule-making body.

That law defines a governmental body as, among other things, a deliberative body that has rule-making or quasi-judicial power and that is classified as a department, agency, or political subdivision of a county or municipality.

The library board is none of those things.

Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham said interruptions to board meetings in the past had the potential to lead to violence.

He said any recommendation made by the board to Llano County Commissioners Court would have to be acted on in open court sessions; otherwise, theres no way for the public to know what happens in Library Board meetings.

Cunningham also declined to discuss the firing of former Kingsland Library Director Suzette Baker other than to confirm that she was terminated. He couldnt comment further because of possible pending litigation, implying the Baker had threatened to sue the county.

Baker was reportedly fired earlier this month when she refused to remove books from library shelves as she was told to.

Jeanne Puryear, a Llano library patron who objects to not only the meeting closure but to the way the book removals have been handled, said shes never seen anything in a library board meeting that amounted to a threat.

There are those (people) that went direct to the (county) commissioners and the judge calling some books pornographic, she said.

She added thats not the process that should have been followed because the county had set up a system for patrons to ask that books be reviewed.

To be considered pornography, Puryear said, material has to incite people to indecency.

She said she, and others who also believe the library board is not acting properly, are thinking of filing a lawsuit against the county.

However, Puryear said no decision has been made about that yet.

Baker, the Kingsland librarian who was fired for refusing to comply with what she called censorship by taking books from the library shelves, said shes also consulting legal counsel about the possibility of filing suit against the county.

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Censorship controversy leads to ousting of Kingsland librarian - The Highlander

A public artwork by Asian American photographer Tommy Kha has been unceremoniously removed from the Memphis International Airport in response to complaints from visitors.

The artwork, a performative self-portrait, depicts the artist dressed as Memphis icon Elvis Presley. Commissioned by the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority (MSCAA), it was installed in the facilitys new B concourse in February.

But this week, Khawho was born in Memphis and has long had an interest in the iconography of Elvistook to social media to note that the artwork was no longer on display. After some disturbing complaints about my work, the artist wrote, it was decided, and without my knowledge, the pictures were removed.

Online, social media users speculated that the disturbing complaints related to Khas work had to do with the artists Asian American identity. Ive taken pride that [Kha] makes art on a national stage representing the unique view of Asians in the American South, said one Twitter user. Removing his work like this is hurtful.

Representatives from the MSCAA did not immediately respond to Artnet Newss request for comment, but in a statement shared with local news outlet ABC24, the organizations president and CEO Scott Brockman said that the Airport Authority has received a lot of negative feedback from Elvis fans in response to Khas artwork.

While we understand that the artist created the piece as a tribute to Elvis, the public reaction has been strong, leading us to revisit that original goal of avoiding the depiction of public figures in our art collection, Brockman continued. As a result, the airport determined it was best to temporarily remove the piece while we determine our best path forward.

The executive acknowledged that there were a small number of comments that included language that referred to Mr Khas race, which he called completely unacceptable. He said those comments did not form the basis of the authoritys decision.

Urban Art Commission, an independent public art non-profit based in Memphis that recommended Khas artwork and others for the airports newly established art collection, issued a statement yesterday condemning the works removal.

We worked very intentionally with the airport authority and selection committee to curate an art program that speaks to a diverse and authentic creative community representative of Memphis, the statement read. We are opposed to Tommy Khas installation being removed from display, especially considering the openly racist comments made online in the development of this situation.

The statement noted that the non-profits leaders have been in contact with MSCAA about re-installing the work.

Im quite disappointed as it was one of many artworks selected to hang in the new concoursean honor that connected me to the place where I grew up (having grown up in Whitehaven, minutes away from Graceland), and the opportunity gave me hope that artists like myself could be represented, Kha went on in his post. While I believe people are free to speak their minds, I do not agree that the removal was the right solution.

The artist did not immediately return an email from Artnet News.

Earlier today, an online petition was started demanding that Khas artwork be returned to the airport wall.

See the original post here:
The Memphis Airport Is Facing Allegations of Censorship After It Removed an Asian American Artists Portrait of Himself as Elvis - artnet News

Cancel-culture on the political Left, generally defined as the shouting-down of dissenting voices, is real, and it's disturbing. But some of the conservatives who most loudly decry this phenomenon are themselves promoting even more disturbing versions of it.

The latest example is an unprecedented attempt by a Missouri legislator to outlaw any kind of speech that informs Missouri women about out-of-state abortion services. Taken together with conservative attempts to ban certain books and classroom discussion from schools, it's clear it isn't just the Left that's trying to stifle free speech. The Right is doing it, too, in ways that are demonstrably worse.

That's not to minimize the damage to free speech that occurs when dissenting voices are "canceled" by liberals on college campuses. The disturbing trend was explored in a recent New York Times op-ed by a University of Virginia senior, a self-described liberal, who has nonetheless felt pressured to self-censor on any issue that strays from liberal orthodoxy, even such questionable violations as defending Thomas Jefferson.

But one can recognize the dangers of socially coerced self-censorship while also understanding how much more dangerous it is when elected officials seek to impose the real thing by law on others.

That's what Missouri Republican state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman seeks to do in a measure moving through the Legislature that has received national attention for its bizarre attempt to enforce Missouri's abortion restrictions even when Missourians go to other states, a clear violation of the Constitution.

A little-discussed aspect of the measure is an even clearer constitutional violation: It would criminalize "giving instructions over the telephone, the internet, or any other medium of communication regarding self-administered abortion or means of obtaining elective abortions; Hosting or maintaining a website, or providing internet service that allows Missouri residents to access any website, that encourages or facilitates efforts to obtain elective abortions." Coleman herself has said the measure would outlaw even the posting of billboards in Missouri providing information about out-of-state abortion services.

An elected official with a law degree is promoting a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Scarier still is that it's not significantly worse than some of the censorship her fellow elected Republicans are attempting around the country.

From the since-abandoned attempt to pull classic literature off the school shelves in Wentzville, to Florida's "Don't say 'gay' " bill, to growing restrictions around the country on teachers' ability to discuss race in any way, today's GOP has sought to cancel the free-speech cornerstone of the Constitution, using the hammer of law to do it. Voters should remember that the next time some conservative snowflake cries "censorship" because someone said something mean to them on Twitter.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Photo credit: stevepb at Pixabay

Read more:
Self-censorship on the Left Is Bad, but the GOP Is Attempting the Real Thing, by Daily Editorials - Creators Syndicate