PEN America works tirelessly to defend free expression, support persecuted writers, and promote literary culture. Here are some of the latest ways PEN America is speaking out.
- PEN America filed a legal brief in an appeal by the state of Iowa to a federal judge’s ruling blocking enforcement of part of a 2023 law that led to the removal of thousands of books that depict or even mention sexual activity. “These restrictions deprive Iowa students of books that help them understand the world in which we live,” said Elly Brinkley, PEN America staff attorney. “We cannot allow a vocal minority of censorship proponents to have the final say over what tens of thousands of students can read in school.” Read more here. Read coverage in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
- PEN America expressed alarm over Harvard Educational Review (HER) cancelling the release of a planned special issue on education and Palestine. “This shocking move, coming during the final stages of copy editing, represents a blatant assault on academic freedom,” said Kristen Shahverdian, PEN America’s program director for Campus Free Speech. Read the full statement here.
- For this month’s Conversations in the Quad, PEN America’s Nicholas Perez spoke to Charlotte Hampton, a PEN America’s Advocacy Institute alum. Hampton, a Dartmouth senior and editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth, was taken into custody along with her colleague on the charges of trespassing while reporting on pro-Palestine encampments on their campus despite wearing press credentials.. Read more here.
- PEN America’s Liesl Gerntholtz, managing director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center, and Julie Trébault Executive Director of Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), wrote an op-ed in The Guardian about how President Trump’s withdrawal from Unesco is broader attack on democracy. “Culture comes under fire when democracy is dying,” they wrote. Read the full piece here.
- To celebrate Women in Translation month, PEN America and its translation committee announced a series of events and released a list of recommended reading. See the list.
- Insider Higher Education and The Iowa Capital Dispatch covered PEN America’s recent report covering bills that are changing the course of higher education in the United States. Read the Insider Higher Education story here and the Iowa Capital Dispatch story here.
- Campus Free Speech Program Director Kristen Shahverdian was quoted in a story by Vox about why higher education should be concerned over Columbia University’s deal with President Trump which serves as a blueprint for further attacks. Read it here.
- Viktorya Vilk and Amanda Wells wrote about the recent report from PEN America and Consumer Reports that urges tech companies to treat online abuse like spam—by proactively filtering harm before it reaches users. Read it in Ms. Magazine.
- For this week’s PEN Ten, we spoke to Katie Yee about Maggie; Or, A Man And A Woman Walk Into A Bar. Read the interview.
