censorship

Religious authoritarianism at San Francisco State

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged censorship education religion on by

It’s not just Hamline University. A professor at San Francisco State University is being investigated for failing to comply with the rules of some conservative branches of Islam. The Office of Equity Programs and Compliance has launched an investigation of him. 14th century Islamic art showing Muhammad receiving Quranic revelation from the angel Gabriel

San Francisco State University is, as the name implies, a government-run institution. It has no business requiring its faculty to comply with religious rules. Maybe the investigators think they can require compliance with a Muslim law because the professor was born in Tehran. It doesn’t work that way. The First Amendment protects him in the United States regardless of what country he came from or what ethnic group he belongs to.
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Florida bill seeks to intimidate bloggers

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged censorship Florida law on by

Politicians don’t like critical articles about them. Mike Masnick writes that Jason Brodeur, a Florida state senator, has introduced a bill to force bloggers to register if they write about DeSantis or other elected Florida officials and get any payment for it. They would then be ordered to file monthly reports on their blogging.

As Masnick notes, the bill is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Its purpose is obviously to scare bloggers out of writing about DeSantis. The bill text is available on the Florida Senate’s website.
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The Chengdu Worldcon’s speech code

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged censorship China conventions fandom on by

The China Worldcon finally released a progress report, much later in the cycle than normal. The prospect of heavy Western attendance at the con is dead, but I’d like to focus here on the Code of Conduct, and in particular on the speech-related rules. The PR says:

Discrimination (based on but not limited to, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation,
gender identity, neuro-diversity, physical appearance, body size, or physical/mental disability) will
not be tolerated. Racism and politicization are where discrimination prevails.
 

Any acts of aggression, contempt, indifference or offensive words and abusive behavior are
unacceptable, such as judging people of color as less knowledgeable about fannish topics, or
provoking unrelated political topics to attack people of different beliefs. [Emphasis added]

The list of prohibited behaviors includes “comments that belittle or demean others” and “Costumes/Cosplay that are historically or otherwise offensive.”
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Penguin Random House announces unbowdlerized Dahl books

This entry was posted in Commentary News Writing and tagged books bowdlerization censorship publishers on by

Penguin Random House, which holds the publishing rights to Roald Dahl’s books, had replaced Dahl’s texts with bowdlerized versions. They wanted to “make the books suitable for modern readers,” who evidently have reverted to the Victorian era. They discovered, though, that a lot of people today aren’t “modern readers” and can stand to read what an author actually wrote. As a result, Random Penguin has announced it will issue editions with the original text along with the sanitized versions.Stack of Roald Dahl books. Source: Wikimedia

Perhaps I should mention I’m not a fan of Dahl as a person. His reaction to Khomeini’s murder contract on Salman Rushdie was “This kind of sensationalism does indeed get an indifferent book on the top of the best-seller list — but to my mind it is a cheap way of doing so.” He characterized himself as antisemitic and said, “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity.” The portrayal of the Oompa Loompas is creepy, no matter how movie makers dress it up. For that matter, the punishments inflicted on the “bad” children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are rather horrible. They didn’t do anything that bad!
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Fayneese Miller’s obsession 3

This entry was posted in Censorship Writing and tagged censorship education Hamline religion on by

The situation at Hamline University, which I blogged about a few days ago, has gotten stranger. President Fayneese Miller’s recent statements suggest that the non-renewal of the contract of a lecturer for including Islamic art in an art course is the manifestation of some strange obsession.

The lowliness of the lecturer plays an important role in Miller’s raving. She emphasizes repeatedly that the lecturer was a mere “adjunct instruction” and insists that “the adjunct instructor chosen to teach the course in art history did not ‘lose her job.'” Easy for a university president to say. Not so easy to hear when you’re told you aren’t coming back next term. Miller adds that “the decision not to offer her another class was made at the unit level and in no way reflects on her ability to adequately teach the class.” That’s exactly the issue. A fully competent lecturer isn’t coming back, not because of any problems with her teaching, but because she didn’t follow the commandments of a conservative branch of a religion. But defending a lowly lecturer against a university president’s wrath is, says the university president, a “privileged reaction.”
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Student journalism and cowardice 1

This entry was posted in Censorship Writer ethics Writing and tagged censorship Hamline religion on by

You may have heard about Hamline University’s recent outrageous action. Not everyone has, though, and there’s been misinformation going around, so let me start by summarizing it. A lecturer (not a professor), in a course on art history, devoted a session to Islamic art. Aware that some Muslims regard it as improper to portray Muhammad visually, he informed the class that he would be presenting such an image, a classic Islamic work from the 14th century, and gave people a chance to leave before showing the picture. A student complained anyway. The university announced that it would not renew the untenured lecturer’s contract, so strictly speaking, it didn’t fire the lecturer. The action, however, was intended as punishment for violating Islamic law. Hamline is a Methodist school, not an Islamic one, in Minnesota.

Since this is at least nominally a blog on writing, my focus won’t be on the university’s vile action, but on what played out at the Hamline Oracle, a student news publication. I suspect they took the actions they did under extreme pressure from the administration, but their rolling over as they did was an act of gross cowardice regardless.
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New York’s threat to free speech on the Web 1

This entry was posted in Censorship News and tagged censorship law liberty on by

A law recently passed by the New York State Legislature poses a serious threat to online speech. FIRE is already challenging this outrageous law, which I doubt can survive a legal battle, but in the meantime, it poses a threat to anyone running a site that’s read in New York and allows user input.

The law applies to the ill-defined category of “social media networks.” That doesn’t just mean Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It could apply to anyone who runs a Mastodon instance or even runs a blog that allows comments. FIRE says:
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Gay rights and the China Worldcon

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged censorship China fandom science fiction on by

Till recently, I hadn’t paid much attention to the gay rights issue in China. It’s not as bad as in some countries, but it’s poor and may be getting worse with this year’s changes in the government. That’s a major issue for many fans, yet I haven’t seen any discussion of it in connection with the 2023 Worldcon in Chengdu.

The good news is that homosexuality isn’t illegal in China. However, same-sex marriage isn’t recognized, and same-sex couples aren’t allowed to adopt. This shouldn’t directly affect visitors, but it’s one more reason to question the choice of China as a host country for the Worldcon.
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Penguin Random House employees want it to be a partisan publisher 1

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged books censorship on by

There are 520 employees of Penguin Random House who think it should take a partisan position in what books it publishes. Hopefully the publisher will tell them it doesn’t take their orders. They want the publisher to drop Amy Coney Barrett’s upcoming book, which as far as I can tell doesn’t have an announced title yet.

Update: Good news! The publisher has effectively told that bunch to go to Hell.

It reminds me of some Amazon employees lying on the ground a few months ago and demanding that it not carry some books. Do some people get jobs in publishing and distribution because they dream of controlling what people can read?
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