What Does PEN Stand for in PEN America? The most striking development to date in 2022 has been the sheer volume of bills introduced. As originally introduced, Kansass HB 2662 would have redefined the states obscenity law to make it a class B misdemeanor for a teacher to present in the classroom any depiction of homosexuality.88Kansas HB 2662, https://legiscan.com/KS/text/HB2662/id/2551295/Kansas-2021-HB2662-Amended.pdf. Key Findings Educational gag orders are state legislative efforts to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, American history, and LGBTQ+ identities in K-12 and higher education. The entire year can be summarized in a single word: escalation. Could the Next Great Author Be a Robot? Educators might well conclude that a ban on compulsion will in practice be interpreted to mean something far more censorious than the plain language suggests. Instead of prohibiting the inclusion of certain concepts, they would require that instruction be consistent with those concepts ideological opposites. By Caits Meissner and Nicole Shawan Junior Published: Sep 14, 2022 Journalism as Storytelling: A Press Freedom Celebration, Break Out: Voices From the InsideMinneapolis, Big Ideas: Bunk, Featuring Kevin Young & Marlon James, Our Stories: Our News: A Conversation About The Power of The Story, Banned Together: A Censorship CabaretSt. Anyone who believes in free expression or enjoys literary events is welcome to join PEN America. Let us know! In 2021, the PEN Freedom to Write index counted at least 277 imprisoned writers, academics, and public intellectuals, an increase from 2020 and 2019.Presenters included actress Ruth Negga,. Most state legislatures meet during the first half of the year; additional educational gag orders could become law before the end of 2022 via special sessions or in the few legislatures that meet year-round. (Note that PEN America tracks only those anti-LGBTQ+ bills that censor speech in educational institutions; this is only a small fraction of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills filed across the country in 2022. For example, under the law, public universities in Tennessee may no longer discuss in a seminar or assign for an orientation any material that promotes division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social class, or class of people. This provision could be construed to mean that a historian of the US civil rights era or of the Holocaust cannot include in a course historical sources that might inspire resentment of the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis, each of whom might be considered a class of people, a term that is not defined. But in a democracy, the response to these disagreements can never be to ban discussion of ideas or facts simply because they are contested or cause discomfort. PEN America (journal) - Wikipedia Most state-level educational gag order bills in 2021 targeted similar topics, with a secondary focus on patriotism and US history. I joke, I feel like we are potentially entering an era of socialist realism without the genocide.. After Florida passed HB 1557, the "Don't Say Gay" bill, signs and billboards reading "Say Gay" cropped up across the state in protest. We take what I think is an enlightened approach, attuned to the interplay of competing values., The onstage discussion reflected those tensions, as well as less savory aspects of PEN Americas history. such student or employee to believe certain concepts about race, color, national origin, or sex.45Florida HB 7, https://legiscan.com/FL/bill/H0007/2022. These laws and executive orders are summarized below. HB 1557 was introduced in the Florida House of Representatives on January 11, 2022. The magazine received a nomination for an Utne Independent Press Award in 2010 for its international coverage. Soon after taking the stage, the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie brought up the brutal attack on Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed onstage last month at a literary event in upstate New York. The combination in 2022 educational gag order bills of extreme vagueness and extreme penalties would virtually guarantee a significant chilling effect on teachers and schools were these bills to become law. Over 1,600 books were banned in U.S. school districts in one year - and . Not all of these bills are considered by PEN America to be educational gag orders, a term we reserve for legislation prohibiting the expression of certain ideas in a school or university. September 2, 2022 They join lawsuits already underway in New Hampshire and Oklahoma against last years laws. July 28, 2022 The PEN America Literary Awards occupy a unique space in American letters: Though host Kal Penn said they've been described as "the Oscars for books," the books honored are staunchly. More about Anna Grace Lee. November 10, 2019 Free Expression Programs (Note that PEN America tracks only those anti-LGBTQ+ bills that censor speech in educational institutions; this is only a small fraction of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills filed across the country in 2022. Private rights of action have appeared in 37 educational gag order bills introduced in 2022. Dallas, Texas, William Johnson In the midst of the buzz around the awards and questions about what theyre currently reading, we asked attendees about the future of literature, specifically, the potential role that artificial intelligence might play. Without these freedoms, university educators would be unable to engage in rigorous scholarship or effective teaching, intervene critically in public debates, invite speakers representing a range of views to campus, or distinguish forcefully between truth and falsehood. Of the educational gag order bills introduced in 2022, 55 percent have included some form of explicit punishment. 588 Broadway Suite 303 New York NY 10012 212-334-1660 City State | IRS ruling year: 1992 | EIN: 13-3447888 Organization Mission Founded in 1922, PEN America is the largest of the more than 100 centers worldwide that make up the PEN International network. Indianas HB 1040 would have prohibited them from discussing sexual orientation, transgenderism, or gender identity without parental consent.86Indiana HB 1040, https://legiscan.com/IN/text/HB1040/id/2462805/Indiana-2022-HB1040-Introduced.pdf. Ideas related to race, sex, and gender have continued to be the most common target of educational gag order bills. Some of these policies have borrowed language from state bills and have proposed prohibitions on teachers related to instruction about race and sex. Because theres not much more of this I can take.. With mounting threats to a free press, breakdowns in civil discourse, and the marginalization of important voices, PEN America has a vital role to play in defending free expression. will really be able to do poetry, said the actress Molly Ringwald, a presenter at the awards. Every other gag order bill introduced in 2022 across the country has been written and sponsored exclusively by Republican legislators. While governments have greater leeway to determine what is taught in K12 schools, that does not mean that prohibitions on promotion are wise. PEN Americas free expression and education team advocates for access to diverse literature in schools by tracking, book bans in libraries and classrooms across America. PEN America said the analysis of book titles was based on "standard publishing information provided through marketing and sales materials by publishers for books, as well as relevant reading and . Heterodox Academy, On South Dakotas HB 1087 and Legislating Viewpoint Diversity, June 17, 2019, Perhaps most ambiguous are the prohibitions on compulsion. One Indiana bill states that students must be taught that. Indianapolis, IN, Censorship in Medical Education and the Humanities, Banned Book Week Social Hour in Durham, North Carolina, Linda Villarosa in Conversation- Chapel Hill, Linda Villarosa in Conversation- Greensboro, [VIRTUAL] Environmental Journalism in North Carolina Consequently, it is now illegal in that state for public K12 teachers to, any instruction suggesting that racism is systemically embedded in American society and the American legal system to facilitate racial inequality.. Each of these mechanisms could be used to punish a nonpublic school or university. South Carolinas H 4392, for example, would have forbidden educators from making use of any instructional material that could lead students to believe that slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.. As Justice Robert H. Jackson declared in his majority opinion, If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in matters of politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word their faith therein.. But as FIRE itself acknowledges, we have seen instances when universities misapply these laws, and elected officials have done the sameeither mistaking the definition of compulsion as constituting an outright ban on certain speech, or purposely misreading these laws in an effort to expand their prohibitions. (B) the provision of equal pedagogical instruction time and student curricula material content dedicated to political-economic systems based in the western tradition of constitutional representative democracy; (C) the preservation in law of civil, political rights, private property rights, intellectual property rights in constitutional representative democracies; (D) the historically documented greater efficiency and productivity of free enterprise, and free market capitalism in constitutional representative democracies; (E) the impact of monetary policy on pricing and inflation; and. Bills with such provisions are common in 2022. Recently Added Sources and Pages We are the most comprehensive media bias resource on the internet. No punishment is specified. Legislation of this type is not new; in Tennessee, for example, such bills have been introduced multiple times since 2013, without success.91GLSEN Condemns Reintroduction of Tennessees Dont Say Gay, February 1, 2013, https://www.glsen.org/news/glsen-condemns-reintroduction-tennessees-dont-say-gay. Two major mechanisms have been proposed. Share . Ideas related to race, sex, and gender have continued to be the most common target of educational gag order bills. It forbids public colleges and universities from including certain divisive concepts in a seminar, workshop, training, or orientation.29Tennessee HB 2670, https://legiscan.com/TN/text/HB2670/id/2502636/Tennessee-2021-HB2670-Draft.pdf. My argument is not about censorship, she said. divisive concepts as part of a course of instruction or in a curriculum or instructional material.51Mississippi HB 437, https://legiscan.com/MS/text/HB437/id/2465352/Mississippi-2022-HB437-Introduced.html. Today, the PEN in PEN America does not represent an acronym. In another example, after Utahs HB 374, Sensitive Materials in Schools, became law this year, the state attorney generals office issued a guidance directing school districts to immediately remove books from school libraries that are categorically defined as pornography under state statute.. CRT Forward Tracking Project, https://crtforward.law.ucla.edu/. In the words of Justice William J. Brennan, writing for the majority in, Keyishian v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, Board of Education, Island Trees Union School District No.