The Cop in Your Head: On Andy West’s “The Life Inside”
PEN America's Tomás Miriti Pacheco reviews Andy West's "The Life Inside: A Memoir of Prison, Family and Philosophy" (Picador, 2022). More
A Movement to Bend the Arc: Keeda J. Haynes’ Memoir on Second-Chance Culture
Emma Stammen reviews Keeda J. Haynes' memoir, "Bending the Arc: My Journey from Prison to Politics" (Seal Books, 2021). More
“Do you really want to know why the caged bird sings?”: On Marlon Peterson’s Abolitionist Memoir
Emma Stamen reviews Marlon Peterson’s Abolitionist Memoir Bird Uncaged (Bold Type Books, 2021) More
Benevolent Terror: Dorothy E. Roberts on Reimagining the Child Welfare System
Sophia Ramirez reviews Dorothy E. Roberts' new book Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World (Basic Books, 2022). More
5 Myths about Educational Gag Orders
The legislators behind these gag orders are not interested in a productive back-and-forth with educators; what they want is simply to dictate the terms of teachers’ surrender. More
Introducing Mahogany L. Browne’s “Quilted Steel: A Choreopoem”
Caits Meissner introduces Mahogany L. Browne's choreopoem "Quilted Steel," premiering at Lincoln Center. More
For Educational Gag Orders, The Vagueness Is The Point
We find that instead of clarifying the laws, guidance documents have muddied the waters, further eroding academic freedom and students’ right to learn. More
Necessary Unlearning: On Derecka Purnell’s ‘Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom’
Prison and Justice Writing Postgraduate Sophia Ramirez Fellow reviews Derecka Purnell’s "Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom." More
Conservatives Oppose Educational Gag Orders, Too
Casual observers of the recent wave of educational gag orders could be forgiven for thinking that views on this issue are perfectly polarized along ideological lines. Conservatives support these… More
Banned in the USA: Rising School Book Bans Threaten Free Expression and Students’ First Amendment Rights (April 2022)
PEN America has collated an Index of School Book Bans, offering a snapshot of the trend of decisions to ban books in school libraries and classrooms in the United… More
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