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Founded in 1920, the ACLU is a non-profit, non-partisan membership organization with affiliates in all 50 states dedicated to defending and expanding the civil liberties of all Americans.
The following community forums were hosted by the ACLU of Ohio, and are offered here as a public service for those interested in learning more about individual rights. Programs feature community leaders, scholars, and activists sharing their expertise and unique perspectives in specific areas of civil liberties.
To listen to our audio podcasts, click here.
11.10.11
Take It To The Streets: The Occupy Movement and Free Speech - Cleveland
This country was built on dissent, yet permit schemes and “reasonable” time, place and manner restrictions have increasingly restrained free speech. Now, proposed legislation may chill the use of social media to organize dissent.
Join the ACLU of Ohio, members of the Occupy Movement, and constitutional and criminal defense attorneys in a discussion about movement-building and the First Amendment.
To play this video, click “Play in Popup” link below.
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09.27.11
Word Warriors: Banned Brilliance of African American Authors - Cleveland
Books by African American authors that highlight inequality have been banned or challenged in many libraries, classrooms, and communities, often because of concerns that they will “inspire racial tensions.”
Join the ACLU of Ohio and Karamu House for Word Warriors: Banned Brilliance of African American Authors, as community leaders read with passion from select works by these treasured African American intellectuals and writers.
Banned Brilliance is part of Banned Books Week, the celebration of the freedom to read, which was launched in response to a surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries.
To play this video, click “Play in Popup” link below.
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09.30.10
Books Behind Bars: Banned Brilliance of African American Authors - Columbus
Join us for Banned Brilliance of African American Authors.
American society ignores the incarceration system, refusing to acknowledge, confront or address problems that lead to the disproportional representation of African Americans in prisons. We are so reluctant to address incarceration issues that we ban books that talk about race and incarceration, particularly those written by African Americans, from library shelves, bookstores and classrooms.
The ACLU of Ohio, the King Arts Complex, and the OSU Department of African American and African Studies Community Extension Center will reveal the cracks in the criminal justice system with Books Behind Bars: Banned Brilliance of African American Authors. This program weaves together facts about Ohio’s justice system with readings from banned literary works which discuss incarceration.
09.29.10
Books Behind Bars: Banned Brilliance of African American Authors - Cleveland
American society ignores the incarceration system. We refuse to acknowledge the problems in the system that lead to the disproportional representation of African Americans in prisons, refuse to do anything to change that system, and even refuse to have books that talk about race and incarceration written by African Americans on library shelves, bookstores and classrooms.
Join the ACLU of Ohio and Karamu House for selected readings from banned and challenged works that provide cultural commentary on incarceration.
Readers include:
- Prisscilla Cooper, CEO & president, Family Connection Center
- Mansfield Frazier, reentry advocate and writer
- Basheer Jones, community activist, poet, and radio personality, WERE
- Dontavius Jarrells, youth activist
- Peter Lawson Jones, Cuyahoga County Commissioner
- Dr. Rhonda Williams, director, Social Justice Institute, Case Western Reserve University
- Mexie Wilson, hip hop activist
- Mittie Imani Jordan, President of Restoration Fource, Inc. and Deuteronomy 8:3
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07.31.10
Conference Plenary - Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, on free speech, the first amendment, and the freedom of reporters to speak the truth.
This session was offered as part of ACTION! A Conference for Civil Libertarians held July 30-31, 2010 in Columbus. Find conference highlights here.
To play this video, click “Play in Popup” link below.
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07.15.10
Putting the “F” in Free Speech: Taboo Language and the First Amendment - Columbus
Join us for a lively discussion with Christopher Fairman, law professor at Moritz College of Law, on the First Amendment and controversial words. The importance of protecting words — even the four-letter ones — is at the heart of Fairman’s most recent work, Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting our First Amendment Liberties. Fairman is adamant that our government should keep out of the censorship business. He writes, “Words are ideas. If the government can control the words we say, it can also control what we think.”
To play this video, click “Play in Popup” link below.
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10.01.09
Banned Brilliance of African American Authors
A celebration of Banned Books Week, Banned Brilliance of African American Authors features Columbus-area community members reading passages from books removed from the shelves of schools and libraries throughout the U.S.
Participants include:
- Dr. Valerie Lee, professor and former chair of English at the Ohio State University (OSU), emcee
- Rev. Dr. Charles Booth, senior pastor at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, reading from the Autobiography of Malcom X, as told to Alex Haley
- Rep. Tracy Maxwell Heard, state representative of the 26th District, reading from Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
- Charity Martin-Via, president of Urban Spirit, reading fro Push, by Sapphire
- Dr. Viola Newton, senior lecturer of OSU Dept. of African American and African Studies, reading from A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines
- Council Member Charleta Tavares, member of Columbus City Council and executive director of Competence, reading from Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
- William Evans, poet, writer, and 2007 Columbus Black Pearl Grand Slam Champ, reading from Black Boy, by Richard Wright
This event was sponsored by the ACLU of Ohio and the Ohio State University Department of African American and African Studies Community Extension Center. In partnership with Columbus Branch of the NAACP, King Arts Complex, The Book Suite and Urban Spirit.
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05.15.09
Deadline Now: Mary Beth Tinker and Susan Carter
WGTE Public Media
Free Speech icon Mary Beth Tinker and ACLU of Ohio immediate past board president Susan Carter discuss civil liberties issues on Deadline Now, a public affairs program broadcast on WGTE Public Media in Toledo. Thanks to WGTE for permission to podcast this program.
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05.14.09
Stand Up. Speak Up.
Toledo area civil libertarians celebrate activism with free speech hero Mary Beth Tinker and LGBT advocate Brenda Spurlin..
03.19.09
Not in Front of the Children: Civil Liberties and Internet Censorship
Imagine not being able to read the latest on Salon.com, express yourself on websites like UrbanDictionary.com, or get information on sexual health.
In 2000, the ACLU challenged the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a piece of legislation making it illegal to distribute content on the Internet acknowledged as protected speech for adults but deemed “harmful to minors” (including the above stated web content.) If implemented, it would have imposed harsh criminal sanctions, like huge fines and prison time.
In January 2009, the United States Supreme Court announced that it will not hear the government’s appeal of COPA, officially ending the ten year legal battle.
In this video, Chris Hansen, senior national staff counsel at the ACLU, shares his experience challenging COPA and other internet censorship efforts.
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Watch the video from Case Western Reserve University School of Law here
07.30.08
Free Speech on the Net: Myspace and Facebook
C. Antoinette Clarke, professor of law, Ohio Northern University, discusses the parameters of free speech when using social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook.
This event is part of the Brown Bag Lecture Series.
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07.16.08
Expression, Not Suppression!
Dr. Chris Finan, author of From the Palmer Raids to the PATRIOT Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America.
This event is part of the Brown Bag Lecture Series.
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05.08.08
Two Generations of Youth Activists
Mary Beth Tinker, 1960s youth activist in Tinker v. Des Moines, and Jonathan Lykes, a current youth activist, join forces to discuss the importance of youth activism in today’s society.
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04.17.08
Free People Think Freely: Academic Freedom in Perilous Times
Listen to Steve Aby, professor at the University of Akron, former president of Akron-AAUP (the American Association of University Professors), and author of The Academic Bill of Rights Debate: A Handbook, for a discussion on academic freedom.
The freedom of inquiry by students and faculty is essential to many of the freedoms granted under the first amendment. When the free flow of ideas is stymied – when thought is controlled – we begin to lose control over all other aspects of our lives.
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03.25.08
From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act
Historian and activist Chris Finan shares a lively history of our most fundamental right – that of free speech. Chris is the president of American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), and author of From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America. He has been involved in the fight against censorship for 25 years.
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10.11.07
Banned Books Week Celebration
Author and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz and ACLU of Ohio Development Director Jason Jaffery are special guests at the Shaker Heights Public Library’s celebration of Banned Books Week. Hear their powerful testimony about our freedom to read.
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04.19.07
Freedom Talks
Free speech hero Mary Beth Tinker recounts how she successfully challenged a school suspension all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court after wearing a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War.
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12.14.06
Freedom Talks! A Conversation with Mary Beth Tinker
A plaintiff in the landmark free speech case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, Mary Beth Tinker recounts how she challenged a school suspension all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court after wearing a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War in 1965.
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09.25.06
Free People Read Freely! Banned Books Week 2006
Local actors and activists read from works that have been challenged or removed from school and public libraries. Subversive characters such as Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn, Captain Underpants, Harry Potter, and Holden Caufield are featured.
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