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 the Eleanor Roosevelt Center closed out Banned Books Week with the 2025 Eleanor Roosevelt Banned Book Awards. The ceremony recognized 10 individuals, including bestselling author Margaret Atwood, for safeguarding the freedom to read. Read more about the ceremony here, read about the awardee panel discussion here, and read Atwood’s acceptance speech here.
- Other highlights of Banned Books Week included a conversation with George Takei, screenings of The Librarians and Gen V, a literary salon in Washington and a fundraiser for young patrons in New York. Catch up on all the ways PEN America commemorated Banned Books Week 2025 here.
- PEN America filed an amicus brief supporting an appeal to the Supreme Court in the Little v. Llano County case, which challenges book removals from the Llano County, Texas, public library. In the brief, PEN America urges the Supreme Court to overturn the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal’s alarming opinion, emphasizing the harms that library book removals pose to authors. “It should be axiomatic that government officials cannot remove library books because they disapprove of the viewpoints expressed in them—that is what decades of First Amendment precedent require,” said Elly Brinkley, staff attorney. Read the full statement here, and read the brief here.
- PEN America condemned Indiana University’s order that editors of the student newspaper “print no news in the paper” and the school’s subsequent firing of student media adviser Jim Rodenbush, who pushed back against the order. “This move is a direct attack on the independence of student journalism and a blatant violation of the principles of free expression that public universities are bound to uphold,” said Kristen Shahverdian, program director of the Campus Free Speech Program. Read the full statement here.
- PEN America expressed dismay over the Pentagon’s decision to shut out journalists who refused to agree to its new restrictions on reporting, stating that it was “a dark day for U.S. press freedom.” “This move is designed to suppress critical coverage of the nation’s largest federal agency, one with a budget nearing $1 trillion and influence that spans the globe,” said Tim Richardson, journalism and disinformation program director. Read the full statement here, and read PEN America’s criticism of the revised press policy here.
- Director for Digital Safety and Free Expression Viktorya Vilk was a guest on The Healthier Tech podcast discussing PEN America’s work regarding digital safety and press freedom. Listen here.
- Freedom to Read Director Kasey Meehan spoke about a lawsuit against the Pentagon over book bans in Department of Defense military schools and book bans at the federal level in an interview with USA Today. Read it here.
