NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST CENSORSHIP INC
19 FULTON STREET 407, NEW YORK, NY 10038 www.ncac.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: NCAC PROMOTES FREEDOM OF THOUGHT, INQUIRY AND EXPRESSION AND OPPOSES CENSORSHIP IN ALL ITS FORMS.

NCACs 2019 Statement of Activities CORE Program

NCACs activities are dedicated to protecting the right to free speech and access to information by:Assisting students, teachers, librarians, parents and others opposing censorship in schools and librariesHelping artists, curators and museum directors resist art censorshipInforming public officials, the media and the general public about First Amendment rights and obligationsAdvocating for public policies and laws that respect First Amendment rights and principlesEducating young people and the wider public about the importance of free expression, claiming their rights and respecting the rights of othersEngaging with a nationwide network of activists and support local activismAnalyzing censorship trends, publishing analysis and developing new strategies to promote free speech rights Our work in 2019 focused on the following priority projects: The Youth Free Expression Program (YFEP) empowers youth with knowledge, tools and opportunities to assert and defend their right to free expression. YFEP believes that denying young people the freedom to create, explore and inquire is counterproductive and dangerous. The program works directly with students, teachers, parents, school administrators, and local community members on issues affecting a young persons intellectual and creative freedom, including the removal of books from school classrooms and libraries, the removal of student-produced visual art, interference with student-produced newspapers and journalism, the cancellation of student-performed plays and musicals, the restriction of student speech on social media, legislative proposals that seek to label controversial content in public schools, and the interference in health, history, and science curricula. In 2019, YFEP released a new resource, Defending LGBTQ Stories, in response to the continuing trend of censoring LGBTQ speech in schools and libraries and as part of a wider Uncensored Pride campaign. The resource is intended to be used by students, teachers and parents to strengthen their own defense of speech in their communities and is available for free. Throughout the year, YFEP and the Arts Advocacy Project also worked with advocates and intervened with administrators at George Washington High School in San Francisco where several historical WPA murals depicting the life of George Washington were threatened with destruction. The murals have been retained as the result of significant advocacy. The 2018-2019 Youth Free Expression Film Contest, a signature initiative of the program that provides a unique opportunity to engage youth on free speech issues in a creative medium and generates nearly 100 short-film submissions each year, centered on speaking Truth to Power and asked students under 19 to create a film that spoke directly to those with power to make change on a topic that matters to them. The winners of the contest, Molly Smith and Sage Croft, created a stunning, arresting film crying out for adults to listen to youth on just how deeply impacted they are by gun violence and the need for gun policy reform. A key initiative of YFEP is the Kids Right to Read Project (KRRP), which promotes the freedom to read and access information by offering support, education, and advocacy to students, teachers, and librarians facing challenges or bans to educational materials in public schools and libraries. In 2019, KRRP investigated challenges nationwide, defending material coming under attack for content about religion, race, sex, sexual orientation, explicit language, and violence. Examples of the dozens of books removed or threatened for removal included classics like All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Regeneration by Pat Barker, as well as more recent classics like Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. We also intervened, and continue to advise, when a full district-wide initiative to introduce diverse books to classroom libraries came under attack for including titles with LGBTQ characters and stories. KRRP is co-sponsored by American Booksellers for Free Expression and Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and partners with several of NCACs coalition membersnotably the National Coalition of Teachers of Englishto increase its impact on case intervention. NCAC continues to promote academic freedom for college students and faculty and to monitor and advocate against attempts to stifle speech in higher education. In 2019, NCAC intervened in several challenges to student art on college campuses as well as cancellations of student theater productions deemed controversial.

NCACs Arts Advocacy Project (AAP) is the only national initiative that works with individual artists and curators involved in censorship disputes to resolve controversy and develop strategic educational initiatives that equip artists and institutions with the tools to promote artistic freedom. In 2019, we launched the We the Nipple campaign, partnering with artist-photographer Spencer Tunick to create an art action calling on Facebook and Instagram to update their policies on artistic nudity. We advocated with the companies policy departments, arguing that marginalized artists are disproportionately affected by the current standards and pushing for better processes for artists hurt by the policies. We participated in a roundtable at Instagrams headquarters with artists, curators and activists. AAP also worked systemically to promote artistic freedom by helping institutions, including both private and public universities, develop sound free expression policies following censorship incidents. AAP also collaborates with Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), a collaborative project led by PEN America that supports artistic freedom globally.The Free Expression Network, an alliance of the 45 leading organizations dedicated to protecting and preserving First Amendment rights, promotes collaborative activities and information sharing under the leadership of NCAC. FEN members meet regularly to report on activities of mutual concern and to develop coordinated strategies. The FEN listserv facilitates collaborative activities, including joint campaigns and letters, amicus briefs, and legislative comments and testimony. Public Education and Advocacy: Each year, NCAC receives hundreds of requests for assistance on censorship and inquiries about free speech rights from teachers, librarians, artists, the media, researchers, students and others. In addition to mainstream press, NCAC utilizes its social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and its website, ncac.org, to educate and encourage involvement. NCAC also sends a biweekly e-newsletter to 12,000 email subscribers and biannual print editions of Censorship News to 8,000 direct mail subscribers. NCAC manages Censorpedia, an online participatory wiki of censorship incidents from the Iron Age to the 21st Century, and Artistrights.info, an online archive of artistic freedom cases coupled with resources on artists free speech rights. Public events included a panel on the challenges of #MeToo and the morally compromised artist, and a talk at Harvard Law School on cancel culture. In November, NCAC held its annual Celebration of Free Speech & Its Defenders event, co-chaired by executives from Simon & Schuster and honored author Jason Reynolds, artist Carolee Schneemann and Youth Free Expression Film Contest winners Molly Smith and Sage Croft. More than 230 luminaries from the worlds of literature, theatre, the arts, publishing, entertainment, law, and business attended this annual gathering to celebrate freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression.

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