Organizations

LIBERAL ORGANIZATIONS American Civil Liberties Union – [|http://www.aclu.org] American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom – [] Electronic Frontier Foundation - [] National Coalition Against Censorship – [] People for the American Way – [|http://www.pfaw.org]
 * Liberal/Conservative: Liberal
 * Philosophy: Works to preserve equal rights, including first amendment, privacy and other individual rights. Although they do not solely focus on the work of fighting the banning of books, they do include that in their resume.
 * Analysis: Even the front page screams liberal tendencies: there is a video about how to start a “Gay Straight Alliance.” A little more searching finds articles supporting activities during banned books week, too.
 * Liberal/Conservative: Liberal
 * Philosophy: As the title suggests, ALA supports intellectual freedom: protecting students and adult’s right to read and research.
 * Analysis: The links listed on this site all lead toward tools, legal help, and other useful sites to help promote and keep intellectual freedom within your library.
 * Liberal/Conservative: Liberal
 * Philosophy: Defends free speech, privacy and digital rights in an increasingly digital world.
 * Analysis: After clicking around, I found a great article about Apple and the censoring it has done with its app stores ([]). It suggests that Apple had little right to censor political cartoons, graphic novels with ‘sexual’ and ‘homosexual’ content, and other apps. This, amongst other links in the site, leads me to believe they would support having controversial books in the schools.
 * Liberal/Conservative: Liberal
 * Philosophy: Against censorship “in all its forms.”
 * Analysis: The title, as well as the projects it supports, like “kids’ right to read” show that it supports having controversial material in the library and school
 * Liberal/Conservative: Liberal
 * Philosophy: Supports equality in speech, religion, justice. I like their comment that they oppose/combat bigotry and hatred, in support of nurturing creativity and diversity.
 * Analysis: An article about banned books, among others, quoted information on intellectual freedom, as well as statistics on why books were being banned. I infer from this website that they would, indeed, support having controversial books in the schools.

CONSERVATIVE ORGANIZATIONS American Family Association – [|http://www.afa.net] ClassKC.org - [] <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The Eagle Forum – <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">[|http://www.eagleforum.org] <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Focus on the Family – <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">[|http://www.family.org]
 * Liberal/Conservative: Conservative
 * Philosophy: Very religious-based, this group believes that people should bolster our morals and culture through the strict word of God.
 * Analysis: Their no-nonsense attitude toward topics like abortion and homosexuality in the community (from retail to scouts and schools) lead the reader to sense that they would be all //for// banning many controversial books on many topics, except maybe works based strictly on Christianity and God’s word (the Bible).
 * Liberal/Conservative: Very Conservative
 * Philosophy: Parents coming together to “clean up” what is being taught/allowed in schools. Specifically the novels students were //required// to read in the Blue Valley High School. This, I think, makes somewhat of a difference between novels that re being //taught// and novels that can be available to students as individual reading. They also believe that, because these vulgar books are being taught, there are plenty of other “wonderful” books are being filtered out in their stead.
 * Analysis: I wasn’t too fond of this website, as it hadn’t been updated in years. However, many specific examples of banned books and excerpts from them (for example, //Bless me Ultima//) show that they are for banning of books because of sexual content, language, and defamation to the Christian religion (or at least asking students to read about other religions).
 * Liberal/Conservative: Conservative
 * Philosophy: They oppose homosexuality, abortion, and feminist ideals (such as federally funded daycares). They also approve homeschooling without government regulations to protect students from the immoral “instructions and materials” that public schools provide students. In schools, they also oppose multicultural classes as a way of “dumbing down” education. I have to say… I deplore how this organization is presenting itself. Although I see some **__small__** nuggets of good intentions, I don’t like how far they take it. I hope that makes sense.
 * Analysis: The description above is from the “about us” page, and leads the reader to see that the organization would like to see controversial books be out of the reach of our students, and in the hands of the parents to decide.
 * Liberal/Conservative: Conservative
 * Philosophy: Believes all should live by the Christian word and to have a relationship with Christ.
 * Analysis: Through comments saying relationships should only be between a man and a woman (and that sex is a private act that should only be between those), I would infer that they would rather have controversial topics be out of the hands of our children.

PABBIS - <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">[]
 * Liberal/Conservative: Conservative
 * Philosophy: Removing “bad books” from public schools.
 * Analysis: A bit sarcastic in tone, “just give up and let the schools do what they want,” or be a “paranoid hawk” this organization believes schools are not doing their jobs in making sure documentation (to prove its place on the shelves) is available for each book in the district. Most definitely, they would be for removing material they believe inappropriate.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Parents Protecting the Minds of Children - []
 * Liberal/Conservative: Conservative
 * Philosophy: To review and remove books from the reaches of individual children. In other words, parents have the right to limit what their children reads.
 * Analysis: In addition to the above statement, they also say they would like to remove certain materials from a school library. Although I do question some of their examples, their pages describing the books they found only use excerpts from them—and one of the things they do not include, it seems, is to see the books AS A WHOLE. Not to mention, I don’t remember seeing anywhere the AGE LEVEL these books are for, except for the sex education ones.
 * The student “opt-out” notice is extreme ([]), in my opinion. Instructors can’t even ADDRESS ISSUES of a list of topics, including anything that is alternative to man/woman marriage. For example, homosexuality can’t even be brought up when learning about HIV/AIDS, Diversity, multiculturalism or even tolerance in class. That is, unless you get their signed permission 15 days ahead of time after the parent has read over the lesson plan/materials. Where’s that “teachable” moment gone? All I have to say is: WOW.