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 published a new report, America’s Censored Classrooms 2024: Refining the Art of Censorship. The annual report examines academic censorship in higher education and this year found that tactics have evolved. In addition to overt educational gag orders, stealth tactics include the forced closure of university cultural centers in Utah and the nation’s most extreme DEI ban in Iowa. Despite these dire trends, the report also identifies a growing resistance against extreme measures.
- The Escambia County (Florida) School Board returned 24 previously restricted books to library shelves, a move PEN America called a victory for the freedom to read. In an ongoing case, along with Penguin Random House, authors, and families, PEN America is suing the school district for restricting over 100 books. Consequently, the plaintiffs in PEN America, et al., v. Escambia County School Board filed a motion with the District Court on Friday seeking to amend their complaint to challenge the school district’s indefinite review process. “Let this be a lesson that you cannot ban books because you disagree with the ideas in them,” said Katie Blankenship, director of PEN Florida, on behalf of PEN America and Penguin Random House.
- PEN America proudly endorsed the Magna Charta Universitatum (2020 version), a document that emphasizes the autonomy universities have from direct political control and signed by thousands of universities across the world. PEN America also called on more universities in the United States to consider joining the charter as only 22 American universities are a part the MCU so far.
- PEN America condemned the decision by Wake Forest University to cancel an Oct 7th lecture by Rabab Abdulhadi, a Palestinian-American activist and scholar, after an online petition from Jewish student organizations. “Stifling speech can never be the answer to painful or contentious issues,” said Kristen Shahverdian, Campus Free Speech program director at PEN America. “It is especially concerning that Wake Forest leaders have justified this cancellation by saying this lecture may be “inherently contentious” and “stoke division.”
- Florida International University’s (FIU) Board of Trustees recently voted to cut 22 courses that focus on race and ethnicity, LGBTQ+ studies, anthropology, and sociology from their core curriculum. “This is a harmful and discriminatory continuation of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ‘culture war’ playing out on our college campuses, where students’ educational opportunities and faculty scholarship and expertise are being sacrificed for political power plays,” said Katie Blankenship, director of PEN America’s Florida office.
- PEN America said sanctions against the University of Pennsylvania’s Amy Wax raise alarms for academic freedom. “It’s easy to understand why many in the University community campaigned to have Wax disciplined for all of her offensive statements and actions,” wrote Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms managing director of U.S. free expression and education programs, and Kristen Shahverdian is the program director of campus free speech. “But there is no way to square the breadth of the resulting investigation nor its outcome with principles of academic freedom and free speech.”
- In a new Facts Forward interview, award-winning journalist Mathew Ingram discussed the rise of misinformation and the underlying beliefs fueling partisan falsehoods ahead of the election with Journalism and Disinformation program consultant Mina Haq. “If a piece of information sounds a little too good to be true, then you should question it even harder than you would otherwise,” said Ingram, who has covered digital media for over two decades.
- In a new PEN Ten interview, award-winning Chilean author, Alejandro Zambra, and his translator, Megan McDowell, discussed their latest work–Childish Literature (Penguin Books, 2024). “They say a picture is worth a thousand words,” said Zambra, “but writing is what I do, so I’m passionately writing those thousand words anyway.
- PEN America participated in a panel, From Howl to Now: Book Bans in the U.S. hosted by City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco as a part of Banned Books Week 2024. With Trey Walk from Human Rights Watch and writers Ronald Collins and David Skover, authors of the book The People v. Ferlinghetti: The Fight to Publish Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019), the session traced the history of book bans and placed it firmly in the present–where PEN America’s latest reports have recorded over 10,000 instances.
