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.

• Educators, authors, and activists are gathering in Orlando for the “Unified Voices Summit on Educational Freedom,” hosted by a nonpartisan coalition of organizations including PEN America. Featuring Jodi Picoult, Lauren Groff, and Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, among others, the summit seeks to push back against Gov. Ron DeSantis’ censorship agenda and protect public education and free speech. 
• PEN America announced its 2024 Emerging Voices Fellows, all of whom will participate in a five-month immersive mentorship program and receive $1,500, a professional headshot, and one-year complimentary PEN membership. 
• High schoolers attended PEN America’s Free Expression Advocacy Institute in New York City this week, where they studied the theories, law, histories, and methodologies behind free expression advocacy at no cost. The institute featured presentations by PEN America’s legal and policy experts, interactive workshops, and discussions sessions. Over the course of the week, all attendees simulated advocacy campaign projects, which they will present at the closing session.
• PEN America convened its Higher Education in Democracy Summit 2024 in Washington, DC, bringing together higher education and civil society organizations to discuss practical, community-level ways to combat educational gag orders.
• PEN America and the Artists at Risk Connection condemned a Moscow court for sentencing theater director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk to six years in a maximum-security penal colony on charges of “justifying terrorism.” “Today’s sentencing of Berkovich and Petriychuk will go down in history as a blatant attack on artistic freedom by Russian authorities who have targeted them as part of a broader campaign of suppression of any public dissent against government policies,” said Polina Sadovskaya, PEN America director for Advocacy and Eurasia.
• PEN America called a federal judge’s ruling that rap artist B.G. must turn over his written lyrics to probation officials before they are released a “slap in the face” to the right to free expression. “Monitoring the lyrics of a musician is a gross violation of artistic freedom; no artist’s creative work should be subjected to scrutiny by the law,” said Julie Trébault, managing director of Artists at Risk Connection. 

See previous PEN America updates

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 joined an amicus brief to support a federal lawsuit challenging the law that would ban TikTok across the United States in January 2025. The lawsuit argues that the ban, adopted this year by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden, violates the First Amendment. The Knight First Amendment Institute led the brief, which the advocacy group Free Press has also joined. “This act is exactly the kind of suppression of thought and ideas across borders that our organization was created to combat,” said Eileen Hershenov, deputy chief executive officer and counsel. 
  
  
• At the 56th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, PEN America sponsored “Based on a True Story” with PEN International, the Permanent Mission of Poland to the UN in Geneva, and the Permanent Mission of Estonia to the UN in Geneva. At the event, PEN Eurasia Director Polina Sadovskaya spoke alongside writers and human rights defenders including Ma Thida, Iryna Kozikava, and Fatemeh Ekhtesari about the necessity of protecting writers at risk across the globe. 

• PEN America called on the Israeli government to reject the Knesset bill that would allow communication minister Shlomo Karhi to shut down any foreign news network in Israel if it is perceived as a threat to the state. “This effort to silence voices that are critical of Israeli government decisions sets a dangerous precedent that not only compromises the watchdog role of the press, but also undermines democratic principles and the public’s right to be informed,” PEN America wrote in a statement. 

• PEN America welcomed the Supreme Court’s rejection of Florida and Texas laws that intended to restrict the power of social media companies to engage in content moderation. All nine justices concurred on the decision to vacate and return the cases to the lower courts.

• PEN America’s Artists at Risk Connection signed onto a letter organized by PEN Belarus to stop the extradition of Belarusian filmmaker Andrej Hniot from Serbia to Belarus, where he faces serious risks of torture and other forms of ill-treatment.

See previous PEN America updates

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.

Anh-This Vo, PEN America’s NYC-based Manager of Research and Advocacy for the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center, speaks to our 40+ Free Expression Advocacy Institute students about PEN America’s work supporting writers and artists at risk around the world.

• PEN America held its summer 2024 Free Expression Advocacy Institute in Los Angeles, educating high school students about theories, law, histories, and methodologies behind free expression advocacy. The programming included presentations by experts on legal and policy matters, interactive workshops, and facilitated discussion sessions that allowed students to dive deep into these issues. 

• PEN America hosted its Emerging Voices Workshop in Los Angeles, an in-person craft intensive that provides 15 writers the opportunity to develop a manuscript-in-progress with peers and expert instructors, culminating in a celebratory public reading of works-in-progress.
• PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel was interviewed on the Battles We Pick podcast with David Shorr about schools, libraries, and efforts to ban books as a key battlefront in the struggle to preserve freedom. 
• In a new blog post, Jeffrey Sachs and Jeremy C. Young break down jawboning, a chilling censorship tactic that happens behind closed doors. “Over the last year, public officials have aggressively (but often covertly) bullied university leaders into censoring faculty, shuttering university programs and offices, and firing unpopular employees,” they explain. “This sort of behavior rarely receives the public attention that comes with a new law or executive order, but it is no less damaging, and it can be even more difficult to combat.”

• The Free Narges Coalition condemned an Iranian revolutionary court for sentencing 2023 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award honoree and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Narges Mohammadi to an additional year of prison on charges of “propaganda activities against the state.” PEN America recently joined with Reporters Without Borders, Front Line Defenders, and the Narges Mohammadi Foundation to form the coalition.

• In a CityLimits op-ed, Sy Syms Managing Director of U.S. Free Expression Programs Jonathan Friedman urged against proposed budget cuts to New York’s libraries, which would lead to reductions in staff, weekend service, library materials, building renovations, and programming.

• PEN America called for India to drop the case against writer Arundhati Roy for comments she made about Kashmir in 2010. “This case demonstrates all too clearly how protracted legal harassment, now coupled with the threat of charges under the repressive UAPA law, can be used to inflict great professional and personal suffering for the simple act of free expression,” said Karin Karlekar, Director of Writers at Risk at PEN America.

• PEN America welcomed the reported plea deal between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the U.S. government. “It is critical that his guilty plea on the single count not be construed as setting a precedent for further prosecutions or convictions of journalists under the Espionage Act,” PEN America stated.

• PEN America criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after he vetoed the entire state arts budget — nearly $32 million in funding — without explanation. “DeSantis is taking his war on culture to a new level,” said Katie Blankenship, director of PEN America’s Florida office. “This decision will not only devastate the arts but add to his legacy of censorship and disregard for art, literature, and knowledge.

See previous PEN America updates

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 announced that Hadar Harris, a human rights lawyer with experience in over 25 countries, has been appointed the managing director of PEN America’s Washington, D.C. office. Harris has served in the role in an interim capacity since January and has previously worked on a number of human rights issues, including the freedom of expression and association, protecting civil society space, gender equality, and domestic implementation of international norms. 

• The Free Narges Coalition strongly condemned the additional sentencing of 2023 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Narges Mohammadi by an Iranian revolutionary court for charges of “propaganda activities against the state.” PEN America joined the coalition last week with Reporters Without Borders, Front Line Defenders, and the Narges Mohammadi Foundation. 

• PEN America held its third installment of the U.S. Election Safety Summer, a free webinar series co-hosted with the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Women’s Media Foundation. A recording of the most recent installation, which focused on protecting against hacking and doxing, will be available next week. 

• Senior Program Manager Kurt Sampsel, along with Marlissa Collier of the Dallas Weekly and Edwin Robinson of the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, hosted a webinar discussing how community members and news consumers could engage productively with local media. 

• PEN America criticized the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill for dismissing Professor Larry Chavis, a decision Chavis believes was based on comments he made in support of indigenous and LGBTQ+ rights that were secretly recorded. “This case is positively Orwellian,” said Jonathan Friedman, Sy Sims director of U.S. Free Expression Programs at PEN America. “This is an alarming violation of due process and academic freedom. Chavis deserves an explanation — and the university owes one to the public.” 

See previous PEN America updates

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 joined with Reporters Without Borders, Front Line Defenders, and the Narges Mohammadi Foundation to create the Free Narges Coalition, which is urgently calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the Iranian writer Narges Mohammadi. Mohammadi, the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, has been detained in Iran’s Evin prison since November 2021 — and a new case against her may further elongate her sentence.

• PEN America launched U.S. Election Safety Summer, a free webinar series—co-organized with the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Women’s Media Foundation—that aims to empower journalists covering the U.S. elections with concrete strategies to protect themselves and one another. If you missed these sessions, you can still catch recordings of Risk Assessment and Planning for Journalists in the Field and Online Abuse Self-Defense. 

• PEN America also launched an #ElectSafely campaign as part of our extensive engagement with the Coalition Against Online Violence (CAOV), a network of 85+ organizations worldwide. The campaign will provide crucial resources and guidance from members of the Coalition to protect and defend journalists against online abuse and other safety challenges.

• Hadar Harris, Washington Managing Director,  joined a discussion at the American Society of International Law (ASIL) on challenges to freedom of expression in Saudi Arabia. The event provided an opportunity to elevate and amplify the findings of the Freedom to Write Index along with some of our cases of concern.

• PEN America co-presented a Right to Read Celebration organized by The New Republic that featured writers whose books were banned, including Lauren Groff, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ellen Hopkins, George M. Johnson, Ashley Hope Perez, and Jacqueline Woodson, along with teachers, librarians, and students who have been directly impacted by the bans that are sweeping the country.

• PEN America criticized the Vietnamese government for arresting writer Trương Huy San, demanding that he be released and that all charges against him be dismissed. “These oppressive tactics targeting free expression do great harm not only to the brave people who dare share opinions contrary to the government line but to society as a whole,” said PEN America research and advocacy manager Anh-Thu Vo.

• PEN America condemned South Carolina’s decision to eliminate college credit and statewide funding for AP African American Studies. In an email that the state’s Department of Education sent to district superintendents, it cited “significant controversy surrounding the course” and “pending permanent legislation” as reasons for its choice. “This irresponsible decision cannot be separated from a national context in which Black history is under attack,” said Kasey Meehan, Freedom to Read program director at PEN America. 

See previous PEN America updates

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 joined hundreds of authors as well as advocacy groups and publishing houses to urge South Carolina lawmakers to block regulations that could restrict access to countless works of literature. The regulations, which are slated to take effect on June 25, “pose a threat to the freedom to read, to the detriment of students across South Carolina,” the letter states. Among the signatories are writers including Jodi Picoult, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Katherine Paterson and organizations including ACLU of South Carolina, Hachette Book Group, and MacMillan Publishers. 
• Summer Lopez, chief program officer of Free Expression Programs at PEN America, criticized Georgia’s new foreign agent bill, which puts writers, artists, and others who express beliefs at odds with those of the government at risk. The law mandates that organizations that receive over 20 percent of their funding from abroad register as “agents of foreign influence,” thereby stigmatizing individuals and groups who may not be able to secure funding within the country. “The foreign agent law is the latest sign of a decline in Georgia’s adherence to international human rights and democratic norms,” Lopez said. “We urge the Georgian government to overturn the foreign agent law.” 
• PEN America called upon DePaul University to reinstate an adjunct faculty member who was fired after using terms such as “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” while discussing Palestine in an optional course assignment. PEN condemned DePaul’s decision to fire the professor, which represents an unambiguous violation of academic freedom. 
• Moira Marquis, senior manager at the PEN America Freewrite project, spoke to The Washington Post about the decline in access to books in prison as well as the book she co-edited, Books Through Bars: Stories from the Prison Books Movement, which details the history of prison book programs. 
• Florida Director Katie Blankenship criticized new instructions to “err on the side of caution” when it comes to books in the state’s schools. 

See previous PEN America updates

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 said it is outraged by images of an Israeli soldier setting fire to books in a library in Gaza. Book burning and the destruction of libraries infringe on the human right to access and enjoy cultural heritage which is guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights are an expression of and a requisite of human dignity.

• A coalition of Florida and national organizations replied to a letter from the State University System of Florida, again urging Florida university leadership to adhere to constitutional obligations by rejecting the use of disproportionate police force and harsh tactics against student protests.

• In response to reports that Türkiye is considering a foreign agent registration law similar to ones in Russia, Georgia, and other countries, PEN America called the proposed law “a giant step in the wrong direction, furthering a global trend of labeling criticism as part of a nefarious foreign plot.” 

• Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms managing director, U.S. Free Expression Programs, expressed alarm about Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé’s account of being detained and questioned by U.S. border guards, seemingly because of his academic work and political views critical of the Israeli government. 

• PEN America’s Artists at Risk Connection called for the immediate release of Russian theater director Zhenya Berkovich and screenwriter Svetlana Petriychuk as they are on trial for terrorism charges. 

• PEN America’s Artists at Risk Connection called for the immediate release of Iranian rapper Saman Yasin, as well as immediate medical treatment.

• Friedman had a wide-ranging conversation about book bans and laws that censor teachers and classrooms with the American Alliance of Museums.

• Kasey Meehan spoke about how book bans censor history about race and racism with the Black Wall Street Times.

See previous PEN America updates

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.

• At our annual Literary Gala, we honored the indelible songwriting of icon Paul Simon with the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award for his bountiful and unparalleled songs and lyrics over a half century. Simon came to the stage, acoustic guitar in hand, and played and sang “American Tune,” which he wrote in 1972 after the re-election of Richard Nixon and with the Kent State shootings of student protesters fresh in his mind. “The mood today is uncomfortably similar to that time,” he said. 

• Other honorees included Dow Jones CEO and Publisher of The Wall Street Journal Almar Latour, who has been at the forefront of efforts for more than a year to secure the release of Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich from a Russian prison; mother-daughter Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who successfully sued to vindicate their reputations after being vilified and falsely accused of  election-related malfeasance in 2020, and Vietnamese writer Pham Doan Trang, imprisoned for her ideas about democracy and critiques of state repression.

• Anh-Thu Vo wrote about this year’s Freedom to Write honoree, Pham Doan Trang, the imprisoned Vietnamese author and dissident, in Just Security, saying Tran “epitomizes the relentless struggle of many writers and activists for free expression in Vietnam.”

• A delegation of PEN America staff held two very effective days of meetings in Washington with six congressional offices, the State Department, and civil society partners to advocate on Trang’s behalf.

• PEN America signed a statement from the American Council of Learned Societies expressing concern about university leaders’ response to recent campus protests. “While administrators have every right and duty to secure the safety of their campus communities,” the statement reads in part, “suppressing the expression of unpopular or uncomfortable ideas by students or faculty engaged in peaceful protest does not do justice to the values at the heart of the university.”
• CEO Suzanne Nossel spoke to The New York Times for a piece about PEN America grappling with dissent about the war in Gaza. “Defense of free speech, openness to wide-ranging views, faith in dialogue and a willingness to reckon with complexity — those for me are hallmarks of how we’ve gone about our work,” she said. 

See previous PEN America updates

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.

Jamie Wolf, recipient of PEN America’s Philanthropic Visionary Award

• At PEN America’s Spring Soiree in Los Angeles, we presented the inimitable Jamie Wolf with our Philanthropic Visionary Award, celebrating Jamie’s lifelong commitment to the Los Angeles creative community. Jamie’s leadership of PEN Center USA prior to its unification with PEN America in 2018 led to the creation of the Emerging Voices Fellowship Program. 

• PEN Across America co-sponsored an author event in our Tulsa Chapter with Tracie McMillan, author of The White Bonus, interviewed by Victor Luckerson, author of Built From the Fire: The Epic Story of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, America’s Black Wall Street. This event was hosted by our partners at Magic City Books. 

Victor Luckerson interviews Tracie McMillan interviewed in Tulsa

• For World Press Freedom Day on May 3, we collaborated with our colleagues in Dallas working on Disinformation to host Navigating Truth & Fiction, a panel discussion focusing on how local Black journalists in Dallas are cultivating resistance and resilience to disinformation in the press. 

Navigating Truth & Fiction, a panel discussion in Dallas

• Today the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education Farida Shaheed issued her preliminary findings after a 10 day official visit to the United States. PEN America staff met with the Special Rapporteur over two days for discussions in Washington, D.C.  She reported concern about a variety of issues ranging from the violent crackdown on peaceful student protesters to the independence of educators and academic freedom in the United States. She noted, “I am particularly concerned about the recent trend of introducing educational gag orders…The alarming trend of book bans has raised grave concerns about censorship, freedom of expression, and the very essence of education itself.” Attacks on protesters, she adds, “signal a concerning erosion of intellectual freedom and democratic principles within educational settings.” PEN America calls on the US Government to study carefully the Special Rapporteur’s preliminary findings and work to address her significant findings which echo many of PEN America’s continuing concerns.

• Tasslyn Magnusson, program consultant with Freedom to Read at PEN America, wrote that amid skyrocketing book bans in public school libraries, heightened rhetoric describing LGBTQ+ and sex education content as “obscene” or “pornographic” has also proliferated across public libraries from Alabama to California.

• Florida Director Katie Blankenship wrote a letter along with leaders from the Florida Youth Action Fund, the ACLU of Florida, the NAACP Florida State Conference and more to express concern over law enforcement cracking down on pro-Palestine demonstrators on campuses.

• Tim Richardson, program director of Journalism and Disinformation, spoke about our revamped guide to to misinformation specifically tied to the pro-Palestinian protests. 

• Jeremy C. Young and Sam LaFrance of the Freedom to Learn team wrote for The Des Moines Register that Iowa’s DEI bill, which is copied directly from model legislation written by the conservative Manhattan Institute, would prohibit public university administrations from expressing any “widely contested opinion” on a dizzying array of specific ideas – essentially a license to ban anything the government of Iowa dislikes. 

• PEN International, Cuban Writers in Exile PEN Centre, and Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) expressed deep concern over the increasing use of arbitrary detentions, threats, and summonses by Cuban authorities against dissident writers, journalists, and artists. 
• PEN America signed a statement from the American Historical Association endorsing concerns over the use of force against peaceful protests on college campuses related to the conflict in Gaza.
• Mina Haq wrote about a conversation hosted by the National Press Club Journalism Institute between journalists and experts who laid out the scope of the disinformation problem – and how reporters can combat it.
• PEN America partnered with Right To Be to host a Bystander Intervention webinar for World Press Freedom Day.
• PEN America’s Jeje Mohamed participated in the panel “Environmental Journalists on the Frontlines of Democracy” hosted by the Wilson Center.

See previous PEN America updates

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 released its annual Freedom to Write Index, revealing that in 2023, a record 339 writers from 33 countries were unjustly imprisoned, an increase of more than 20% over the previous year. The rise is partly attributable to the adverse impacts of war and conflict on freedom of expression, as the crackdown on dissent in both Israel and Russia placed both countries in the top 10 for the first time. China, already the world’s top jailer of writers, registered a significant increase, exceeding 100 writers behind bars for the first time. The crackdown on the creative community continued in Iran, with women who wrote or advocated against the compulsory hijab particularly at risk.
  

• PEN America said it is deeply disturbed by recent events at Columbia University, where a building takeover by students was followed by an excessive show of force by the NYPD, only deepening tensions and distrust on campus. Further, the request by President Minouche Shafik for the NYPD to remain on campus until May 17 is alarming. We are further disturbed by reports that press access to campus was limited during the arrests at Hamilton Hall and by allegations that student reporters were threatened with arrest. 

• PEN America said it was gravely concerned over adoption by the House of Representatives on Wednesday of H.R.6090, the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which it characterized as an overbroad bill that could harm academic freedom, free speech, and legitimate political speech.
• PEN America said it continues to be deeply alarmed by the decision of campus administrators across the country to deploy the police to detain, arrest, and remove peaceful student protesters. The use of excessive force against students and faculty on multiple occasions is shocking and unacceptable.

• PEN America mourned the loss of our longtime friend and former PEN America Vice President Paul Auster. “In addition to shaping the worldviews of generations of Americans through his bracing and beloved novels, Paul Auster was a writer’s writer, consistently standing in solidarity with authors in China, Iran, Russia and around the world who were persecuted for what he was able to do freely: exercise his imagination and tell stories,” said CEO Suzanne Nossel.

• PEN America called the sentencing by Thai authorities of poet and activist Arnon Nampa to two more years in prison, for a total of at least 10 years in prison “highly alarming and completely unjust.”

• After Russian journalists Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin were detained on charges of participating in an extremist organization, Polina Sadovskaya, PEN America’s Eurasia and Advocacy Director, said “The international community must hold the Russian government accountable for violating freedom of expression and the right of Russian citizens and people around the world to learn about what is happening in Russia.”

• For our latest PEN Ten, translator Luke Leafgren and publisher Judith Gurewich spoke with Prison and Justice Writing Director Sonya Soni about Nasser Abu Srour’s passionate, haunting autobiography, The Tale of a Wall: Reflections on the Meaning of Hope and Freedom.
• PEN America released a guide on combating mis- and disinformation during college campus protests.

See previous PEN America updates