President of Maine College of Art Condemns Censorship of Maine Labor Murals

Update:

As the Boston Herald reports, Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree has issued a statement insisting that the Maine Department of Labor mural (removed in late March by order of Gov. Paul LePage), should be put back up in the Department so the state won’t have to repay to the federal government most of its $60,000 cost. She adds, “Public art belongs to all of us and I don’t think the governor should have acted so hastily in taking it down. It wasn’t a decision for one person.”

Criticism of LePage is coming from his own party as well. In a Portland Press Herald op-ed column eight Republican Senators are openly criticizing the Governor for making demeaning comments about members of the public, and they are urging him to take a more civil tone. The column was written by Sen. Roger Katz of Augusta and Sen. Brian Langley of Ellsworth and signed by Sens. Thomas Saviello of Wilton, Chris Rector of Thomaston, Nichi Farnham of Bangor, Earle McCormick of Gardiner, Roger Sherman of Houlton  and Thomas Martin of Benton.

Tea party activists like Richard Ashcroft from Richmond, have sprung to the defense of the Governor. Writing for theMaineteaparty.com website, Ashcroft called the senators the “gang of eight” and “a bunch of R.I.N.O.s” — Republicans in name only — and suggested working for their removal from office in the next election.

The debate goes on… And, in that spirit, check out Marshall Reese’s article on “labor” as the 8th dirty word.

Previously:

In an open letter published 03/30/2011, Don Tuski, president of Maine College of Art, correctly identified Gov. Paul LePage’s removal of the mural as “an act of censorship.” Kudos to Don Tuski!

Here is his letter:

“Maine College of Art believes that art and artists play a critical role in society. The removal of the mural from the Department of Labor in Augusta illustrates just how powerful art can be: it can incite controversy, galvanize communities, inspire dialogue, and serve as a catalyst for social change.

As part of their arts education at MECA, our students learn to understand and respect process because it is a crucial component of any civil society.

Gov. LePage’s demonstrated lack of respect for the process of commissioning artwork is an act of censorship.

In the original call for art, the Department of Labor asked for a mural in which ‘the value and dignity of workers and their critical role in creating the wealth of the state and nation should be emphasized. In essence, Maine workers should strongly be portrayed as more than an “impersonal cost of production.”’ It was the responsibility of the art review committee, consisting of representatives from the Department of Labor, to select the proposal which best met these criteria. They selected Judy Taylor who created the site-specific artwork depicting the requested theme.

Four years later, newly elected Gov. LePage reacted to the content of the mural calling it ‘one-sided’ and had it removed it from the lobby of the Department of Labor and asked instead for a neutral decor. Art is not decoration, nor is it neutral. It is provocative and should elicit a response from individuals. It is not created to please all who view it. Art, like democracy, allows for differing opinions, for discourse, for expression of personal beliefs.

Art serves as a mirror that reflects a moment in time. This mural captures a piece of history. Gov. LePage did not like what he saw. By removing the mural, he smashed that mirror – an attempt to rewrite history.

This public mural is meant for the people of Maine. Maine College of Art requests that Gov. LePage respect the process by which the artwork was selected and installed. Put the mural back.”

Wikileaks and “mutual knowledge”

When it comes down to it, most of the documents in Wikileaks’s Cablegate release refer to issues that had already been covered in the press.

Did we really need Wikileaks to tells us that Mexico isn’t doing a great job combating corruption and cartels?  Or that the war in Afghanistan is going poorly?  Or that Pakistan and North Korea and Iran are all major areas of concern?

Yes, and no.

Stephen Pinker was featured in an RSAnimate segment called “Language as a Window into Human Nature,” which provides a little insight into why it’s so important that Wikileaks told us what we already knew.

(If you’re in a hurry, click here to skip to the point in the animation addressing how mutual knowledge and dissenting speech contribute to popular uprisings.)

Indirect statements (euphemisms, innuendos) don’t create “mutual knowledge” – that is, the recognition that Person A knows X, and Person B knows X, and both Person A and Person B are  aware that  the other knows X.

The explicitness of the Cablegate documents served the same purpose of the little boy who told the kingdom “The Emperor has no clothes on!” - creating mutual knowledge.

After Wikileaks, not only did we all know the information, we knew that everyone else knew.  It’s easy to deny knowledge when information is coded in overtones or related through anonymous sources.  But when the information is fixed, as in the case of Wikileaks, plausible deniabilty becomes… significantly less plausible.

The information about global affairs in the Wikileaks data not only created mutual knowledge, but also created accountability.

Ideological Exclusion and Malalai Joya

Though the U.S. military has occupied Afghanistan for nearly a decade, we have rarely received the opportunity to hear about the lives of every day Afghans from the mouths of everyday Afghans. On the eve of one such opportunity, the book tour of Afghani activist and politician Malalai Joya, the State Department decided to deny her a visa. In 2007, Joya’s brave criticisms of her warlord-ravaged country led to her expulsion from the Afghan Parliament, an account that the State Department documented in a report on Afghanistan it released last year.

However, Joya has also been critical of the U.S. and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, which has led to speculation that her views may have been the real reason that she was denied the visa. The State Department’s reasons for the rejection seem to be that Joya is “unemployed” and “lives underground” though a report issued by the State Department acknowledges the dangerous conditions in Afghanistan. The State Department’s concern with Joya’s lack of employment is adequately addressed by the fact that the purpose of her trip was a book tour.  These reasons are paranoid, xenophobic or emblematic of bureaucratic stupidity at best, or so incredible that they invite the speculation that the State Department is in fact exercising “ideological exclusion.”

The exclusion of individuals seeking admission to the United States based on their political viewpoints was authorized under the Patriot Act and used during the Bush administration. However, the Obama administration has pledged to change course and “promot[e] a global marketplace of ideas.” Earlier this week, free speech organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Association of University Professors, and the PEN American Center, wrote the State Department, reminding it of its own promises:

In a constructive response to that letter, State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh wrote in a December 2010 letter that, in assessing whether to recommend a waiver of inadmissibility, the State Department would consider “the recent nature and seriousness of the activity or condition causing the visa inadmissibility, the reasons for the proposed travel, and the positive or negative effects, if any, of the planned travel on U.S. public interests.” Mr. Koh also wrote: “In evaluating the reasons for the proposed travel, the Department will give significant and sympathetic weight to the fact that the primary purpose of the visa applicant’s travel will be to assume a university teaching post, to fulfill speaking engagements, to attend academic conferences, or for similar expressive or educational activities.”

Last week, Joya was finally granted a visa and so will be able to appear in-person for part of her scheduled tour. For those appearances that have already passed, organizers have used internet communication services such as Skype to teleconference her in where possible.  However, the State Department owes the American public a response as to whether it has reneged on its vow not to engage in “ideological exclusion.” The State Department also needs to recognize that ”ideological exclusion” by any other name is still exclusion based on ideology, which is nothing but government censorship.

PFAW Releases “How Not to Respond to Political Bullies” On Hide/Seek

NCAC participating organization, People For the American Way, has developed a detailed summary of the events around Hide/Seek complete with suggestions as to “what to do next time.” PFAW was one of the organizations who signed NCAC’s joint letter to the Smithsonian Board of Regents (PDF download).

Click here to read the PFAW report online.

WEAR IT PROUD

Button brought back from the March 2011 Culture Wars symposium with the Corcoran and Transformer DC.

Culture Wars Live Stream Today!

Can’t make it to Culture Wars: Then and Now at the Corcoran today in Washington DC?  Follow the discussion on Twitter (#CultureWars) or live stream (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/culture-wars-then-and-now-symposium) and submit your questions to @CorcoranDC, @TransformerDC, or @ncacensorship for a live Q&A throughout the day!

Maine Governor to censor labor mural

Panel 1-3 of the mural

Earlier this week, Maine Governor Paul LePage ordered that a mural in the Department of Labor depicting scenes from Maine’s labor be removed. Why?

Because the mural “sends a message that we’re one-sided, and I don’t want to send that message.”

Of course – why else would the Department of Labor have a mural of labor history, if not to show bias? Artist Judy Taylor suggests, perhaps, history. “It’s episodes pulled from history,” she said, “It’s based on historical fact. I’m not sure how you can say history is one sided.”

LePage’s Press Secretary, Adrienne Bennett, said that they were looking for places to move the mural.

Censorship and International Women’s Day

Today is the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day! Censorship is about who has permission to speak about what in public. Women, both as speakers and subject, have often been marginalized or stricken from the public sphere, and so we’d like to provide some choice selections from NCAC’s work on censorship as it specifically impacts women.

Censorship Hurts Women

From the NCAC statement:

“We are feminists who believe the First Amendment is good for women. Women’s freedom, equality, and safety are best served by the broadest availability of sexual speech — that means Our Bodies, Ourselves, Debbie Does Dallas, lesbian strip shows, the novels of Judy Blume, and Andrea Dworkin’s antiporn polemic Intercourse.

To be sexually free, women must be able to discover and legitimate their own sexualities through representing and seeing them represented in a vast variety of ways. We don’t want the U.S. government, or Andrea Dworkin, telling us which representations are “good” and which ones “degrade” us.

To be equal, women must take control of their bodies, aided by information about contraception, abortion, and AIDS that today, as in the past, is so often attacked.

To be safe from sexual violence, we must be able to publicly describe it in every obscene detail.

We know that when the censors are unleashed, they censor us. Jesse Helms’ attacks on the NEA targeted lesbians, gay men, and feminists making art about sex and sexual violence. Since Canada’s Supreme Court upheld censorship of pornography, using MacKinnon and Dworkin’s arguments, there have been prosecutions and convictions against lesbian and gay expression, and Canada Customs has seized much lesbian literature at the border. They also seized two books by Andrea Dworkin.

We anticensorship feminists hate misogynist representations of women — whether in advertising, sitcoms, or pornography. But we don’t all agree on what’s misogynist.”

When Female Speakers Are Targeted For Censorship

Teacher censors copy of Jeanette Wall’s The Glass Castle:

V-Day Articles Censored at Grover Cleveland High School:

Students at Grover Cleveland High School decided to use the Valentine’s Day issue of their school paper to talk about VDay, a national movement to raise awareness about violence toward women. The article featured a diagram of a vagina and accompanying articles about the 10th anniversary of VDay and nation-wide performances of The Vagaina Monologues. Concerned about this content, the principal confiscated all copies of the paper.

Female Hip-Hop artist Sarah Jones censored for lyrics routinely used by male rappers:

Of all the odd “indecency” rulings that the Federal Communications Commission has issued over the years, the silencing of Sarah Jones’s rap poem Your Revolution is the most deeply suggestive of the discriminatory nature of American censorship. Your Revolution was essentially banned from the airwaves for nearly two years before the FCC, in February 2003, reversed itself under pressure from a lawsuit by Jones.

Your Revolution is an explicitly feminist critique of misogyny in popular music. It starts: “Your revolution will not happen between these thighs,” and continues: “The real revolution ain’t about booty size/The Versaces you buys/Or the Lexus you drives “— Admittedly, the rap has sexual content, but it’s precisely Jones’s imaginative use of racy language that makes Your Revolution relevant, particularly for young African American women.

Videos by internationally exhibited artist Amy Greenfield removed by YouTube because their subject is the female body.

Censorship, Female Sexual Identity and Reproductive Rights

“Sexual freedom and freedom for sexually explicit expression are essential aspects of human freedom.” –Nadine Strossen, professor, New York Law School and president, ACLU

• Resources: Fighting abstinence-only education
• Tampon incites controversy at Fashion Institute
• SUNY Chancellor disparages academic freedom and Women’s Studies conference

On this day we celebrate those who have fought for women’s rights to speak and be heard, and recognize the ongoing battle to defend those rights!

Thanks to Amanda Levendowski for compiling this research.

Victory Over Transnational Libel Case Brought Against Book Review

In a victory for academic freedom, the Tribunal de Grand Instance de Paris has ruled against a libel case brought against Prof. Joseph Weiler for  GlobalLawBooks.org’s review of The Trial Proceedings of the International Criminal Court. ICTY and ICTR Precedents, by Dr Karin N. Calvo-Goller.

The judge ruled that Calvo-Goller engaged in forum shopping by selecting France as the venue for the suit, and that Weiler’s online publication was protected by academic freedom:

It is therefore with just cause, that Joseph Weiler believes that the [Complainant] has abused her right to bring legal proceedings, on the one hand by initiating an action for defamation in relation to words that do not go beyond the limits of academic criticism, an essential element of academic freedom and freedom of expression and, on the other hand, by artificially bringing proceedings through the French criminal justice system.”

It’s worth mentioning that more people are now aware of the critical review against Calvo-Goller’s book than there ever would have been without the lawsuit — a classic case of the Streisand effect.

(Image from Alan Light via Flickr)

Highlights From Texas Prison System’s Banned Books List

The Texas Civil Rights Project has released a fascinating, detailed report on the nearly 12,000 books banned by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice from entering the state’s prison system. The arbitrary nature of the list, including Shakespeare’s sonnets and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Wistlestop Cafe, defies any security-based explanation. Check out the searchable Zoho spreadsheet to see if inmates have been barred from reading your favorite works.

Why should you care whether the prison population has access to books? For a start, they have a right to them. The Supreme Court has ruled prisoners must even be allowed materials espousing “inflammatory political, racial, religious or other views.” Additionally, reading provides clear educational and rehabilitative benefits that are even more important as many rehabilitation programs are threatened by budget cuts.

Books on civil rights refused from entering the prison system include:

• History of Black America by Howard Lindsey
• Politics of Rage: George Wallace and the Origins of New Conservatism by Dan T. Carter
• Race: How Blacks and Whites Feel About the American Obsession by Studs Terkel
• Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle
• Finding Oprah’s Roots, Finding Your Own by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

And here are some rehabilitation books kept from prisoners:

• Stopping Rape: A Challenge for Men by Rus Ervin Frank
• Why Me? Help for Victims of Child Sexual Abuse Even if They Are Adults Now by Lynn Daugherty
• Men Who Rape by A. Nicholas Groth
• Too Scared to Cry: Psychic Trauma in Childhood by Lenore Terr
• Handbook of Clinical Intervention in Child Abuse by Suzanne Sgroi, M.D.

The TCRP report details how books will be banned for even the briefest sexually explicit passages, without regard to whether the context is clinical, artistic or educational. And yet, Guns Illustrated magazine is allowed! While an appeals process exists, many prisoners are not aware of how to use it and, since they often have never seen the book in question, cannot effectively argue why a decision to ban should be overturned.

With the publication of this list, at least senders of books to the incarcerated in Texas will know which works will never reach their intended audience. Hopefully the continued organizing around this issue will result in reforms for a more consistent and logical application of guidelines for prisoner access.