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 and Bard College launched Kronika, a new digital resource that aims to protect media against state censorship. The initiative is an expansion of the Russian Independent Media Archive (RIMA), which was launched in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “By preserving independent reporting that authoritarian regimes seek to erase, Kronika strengthens the global ecosystem on which both writers and readers depend,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, managing director at the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center. Read more here, and read the AP’s coverage of the launch here.
- PEN America joined authors, educators, students, and librarians in Union Square to call on Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign the Freedom to Read Act into law. Read more about the event here, and send a letter to Hochul expressing support for the bill here.
- PEN America called the Trump administration’s proposal that tourists from 42 countries hand over the last five years of their social media posts “a brutal assault on freedom of speech.” “While these tactics are not entirely new, broadening them is a clear show of force and a continuation of the administration’s attempts to intimidate, humiliate, and silence critics of the U.S. government globally,” said Summer Lopez, interim co-CEO. Read the full statement here.
- PEN America decried the Supreme Court’s decision to decline to hear Little v. Llano County, a case challenging book removals from the public library in Llano County, Texas. “Leaving the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in place erodes the most elemental principles of free speech and allows state and local governments to exert ideological control over the people with impunity,” said Elly Brinkley, staff attorney. “The government has no place telling people what they can and cannot read.” Read PEN America’s full statement here, and check out coverage in the AP here. Read the amicus brief PEN America submitted in October urging the Supreme Court to hear the case here.
- After Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi and other human rights defenders and journalists were arrested in Iran, the Free Narges Coalition called for their immediate release. “Our mobilisation will continue until Narges Mohammadi and all detained human rights defenders and journalists are unconditionally free,” said the coalition’s Steering Committee, led by the Narges Foundation, PEN America, Reporters Without Borders, and Front Line Defenders. Read the full statement here.
- Amid escalating attacks on the freedom of the press, PEN America’s digital safety team spoke at a dozen journalism conferences in 2025. Read about their takeaways from the conferences here.
- Ahead of the fourth anniversary of the sentencing of prominent Vietnamese journalist and human rights defender Pham Doan Trang, an international coalition of non-governmental organizations, including PEN America, demanded her release. “The world must not look away,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, managing director of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center. “Securing her release is a global priority for free expression.”
- The Wall Street Journal cited PEN America’s research and quoted Laura Benitez, state policy manager for free expression programs, in a story about Texas Tech imposing limits on how race, gender, and other topics can be taught. “What we are concerned about is the remaking of the university into a megaphone for the government,” Benitez said. Read the article here.
- For the final installment of our interview series about the role sexual content plays in young adult literature, we spoke to author Bill Konigsberg about why queer teens need books about sex and sexuality. Read the interview here.
- In a new radio interview with the Business Standard, former PEN America President Salman Rushdie warned that U.S. book bans threaten global free expression. Check it out here.
- Inside Higher Ed and the Salt Lake City Tribune quoted Kristen Shahverdian, program director of campus free speech, in stories about Weber State University reconsidering its approach to implementing a 2024 anti-diversity, equity and inclusion law. Previously, PEN America denounced the university’s overcompliance with the law, which led author Darcie Little Badger to cancel her planned speaking appearance. Read the coverage here and here, and read PEN America’s earlier statement here.
- PEN America joined journalist and author George Packer at the Brooklyn Public Library to hear him discuss his new dystopian novel, The Emergency. Read about the talk here.
