This can’t wait, ACLU Supporter: The school year has just begun, and we need your help to combat an unprecedented effort to infringe on students’ right to learn.
Though censorship is nothing new, according to reporting by PEN America, the current push to ban books is stronger than ever before, with government officials removing books from school and public libraries at record numbers. One politician in Virginia to make it a crime to distribute “Gender Queer” and “A Court of Mist and Fury” in the state. Police officers in Massachusetts, Texas and elsewhere have investigated libraries and librarians for making books about race and gender available.
The ACLU has more than a 100-year legacy of winning free speech cases, and we’re continuing the fight today – because everyone’s freedom to read, learn, and express their beliefs without government censorship must be protected. But to fund our nationwide network of attorneys and advocates, we need to raise $75,000 before our fundraising deadline on Saturday.
The ACLU is uniquely prepared to respond to these infringements of our First Amendment rights, and we’re fighting back – challenging a book ban in Iowa that would take hundreds of books off the shelves, supporting a fight to stop censorship in Texas public libraries, working to block unconstitutional book bans in South Carolina, and more.
But if we’re going to keep up with this onslaught of school censorship, we need grassroots advocates like you to donate before our fundraising deadline at midnight Saturday.
Thanks for helping us defend free speech in schools and protecting all of our rights and liberties.
Vera Eidelman
Pronouns: She, her, hers
Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project
American Civil Liberties Union
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10004, USA