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Jul 29, 2024 | 
pen.org | J.D. Salinger |Erica Galluscio
HomeLocal no longer: 4 new laws and policies bring book banning to the state levelLaura Benitez contributed research to this post. A new spate of state laws and policies is giving lie to the idea that banning books is about families making decisions for their own children. In Utah, Tennessee, Idaho, and South Carolina, state lawmakers have actually moved away from so-called “parental rights” – and into government-mandated book bans.
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Jul 26, 2024 | 
pen.org | Samantha LaFrance |Erica Galluscio
HomeUniversity of Alabama campuses didn’t have to close their DEI offices. They did anyway. Since we last wrote about Alabama SB 129, the bill has become law. And as it has been implemented, universities themselves have gone even further than the bill demands, resulting in the full closure of DEI offices on all three University of Alabama campuses. SB 129 defines prohibited DEI programs or groups as those “where attendance is based” on a specific identity category.
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Jul 16, 2024 | 
pen.org | Erica Galluscio
Students at Columbia University erected their ‘Gaza solidarity encampment’ in April, and within a month more than 200 campuses in 25 countries and 45 states had followed suit. To those familiar with the campus upheavals of the 1960s, history seemed to be repeating itself.
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Jun 24, 2024 | 
pen.org | Jeffrey Sachs |Jeremy Young |Erica Galluscio
This post is part of a series from PEN America tracking the progress of educational gag orders and censorious legislative efforts against educational institutions nationwide. These bills are tracked in the PEN America Index of Educational Gag Orders. The 2024 state legislative sessions have featured some of the most significant and effective resistance to efforts to pass higher education censorship bills that we have seen in recent years.
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Jun 7, 2024 | 
pen.org | Erica Galluscio
Presented by Factchequeado with support from PEN America — empowering Latino and Spanish-Speaking CommunitiesFactchequeado launches #FactChallenge, the first WhatsApp Media Literacy Course in Spanish, specially designed for Latino and Spanish-speaking communities in the United States. With support from PEN America, a nonprofit organization committed to protecting freedom of expression, we have developed and are offering a 7-day course on WhatsApp.
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May 21, 2024 | 
pen.org | Erica Galluscio
RUBY:Thank you! It is wonderful to be here tonight with all of you. Thank you. Thank you for… well, to get right to the point of it, for caring about what matters, especially right now. The freedom to speak truth. The freedom to stand up for what is right. And to know that your steps are ordered by the Lord and walk right on through it. It’s not easy. I had no idea what awaited when we, my daughter Shaye and I, signed up for a sacred civic duty: counting votes. Who could know what lay ahead?
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May 21, 2024 | 
pen.org | Erica Galluscio
Home2024 PEN America Literary GalaPhạm Đoan Trang Acceptance Speech | 2024 Freedom to Write AwardKính thưa Quý vịCảm ơn Quý vị đã vinh danh cho cô Phạm Thị Đoan Trang. Không chỉ với tư cách là luật sư bào chữa cho cô ấy trong các phiên tòa mà chính quyền Cộng Sản Việt Nam đã xét xử, giam cầm, ngược đãi cô ấy một cách đầy bất công. Mà còn là nhân chứng về quá trình đấu tranh của cô ấy cho các giá trị tự do.
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May 21, 2024 | 
pen.org | Jennifer Boylan |Erica Galluscio
Hello everyone. I wanted to begin my remarks to you all with something light and humorous, so let’s start by talking about the new memoir by Salman Rushdie. The title of which is KNIFE: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. In his new book, he writes this: “Language too, was a knife, It could open theworld and reveal its meaning, its inner workings, its secrets, its truths. It could cut through from one reality to another, It could call bullshit, open peoples eyes, create beauty.
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May 21, 2024 | 
pen.org | Almar Latour |Erica Galluscio
Thank you Andrea, and congratulations to all of tonight’s honorees. Thank you, Suzanne Nossel for your leadership during these tumultuous times. And thank you, PEN America for your support for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones during what is truly a difficult chapter – for Evan, for the Journal and for press freedom around the world. And thank you to News Corp for your ongoing support. Thirteen months ago, we received a phone call that marked the beginning of a nightmare scenario.
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May 10, 2024 | 
pen.org | Madison Markham |Erica Galluscio
HomeThe State of Book Bans: South Carolina Is Poised to Get WorseA crisis grows in South CarolinaBetween Fall 2021 and Spring 2023, there were 128 book bans across the Palmetto State. But while South Carolina lags behind Texas and Florida in terms of the number of book bans, it’s poised to get worse.
