Monthly Archives: April 2021

In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled in Reno v. ACLU that the federal Communications Decency Act (CDA) is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. The landmark ruling affirmed the dangers of censoring what one judge called "the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed."

The law, passed in 1996, made it a crime, punishable by up to two years in jail and/or a $250,000 fine, for anyone to engage in online speech that is "indecent" or "patently offensive" if the speech could be viewed by a minor. The ACLU argued that the censorship provisions were unconstitutional because they would criminalize expression protected by the First Amendment and because the terms "indecency" and "patently offensive" are unconstitutionally overbroad and vague.

The government appealed the case to the Supreme Court after a federal three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the law unconstitutionally restricted free speech. A later suit, filed by the American Library Association, was consolidated with Reno v. ACLU in the lower court.

In a landmark 7-2 decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court ruled that the CDA placed an "unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech" that "threaten[ed] to torch a large segment of the Internet community." The court also wrote that "the interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship."

The 20 plaintiffs in ACLU v. Reno represented a wide variety of online users, content providers, and Internet service providers, including Human Rights Watch, Planned Parenthood, EFF and EPIC (national cyberspace rights groups), Critical Path AIDS Project, Wildcat Press (a gay and lesbian publisher) and the ACLU itself. ALA v. DOJ plaintiffs comprised nearly 30 organizations, including the American Library Association, various internet companies, public interest groups, commercial and non-commercial content providers, and more than 50,000 individual Internet users.

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Reno v. ACLU Challenge to Censorship Provisions in the ...

The principal of Cordova High School in Memphis, Tennessee, is suing his school district and its superintendent for suspending him after he taught students about big tech censorship in the wake of the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill.

PrincipalBarton Thorne delivers a weekly principals message to students, which, according to the lawsuit, are meant to inspire, educate, inform, and challenge his high school students.

After the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, our country experienced a teachable moment around the importance of Free Speech and the dangers of cancel culture and deplatforming as social media moderators reacted to the content of various accounts, the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit goes on to note that several social media platforms, such asTwitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon had blacklisted individual accounts including the President of the United States as well as an entire social media platform, Parler.

Principal Thorne used this teachable moment to talk to his students about the importance of Free Speech in a democratic society, in line with Tennessees standards for teaching social studies to high school students and in line with generally accepted civics curriculum, including resources recommended by Defendant Dr. Ray for teaching about January 6 and its aftermath, states the lawsuit.

For sharing this message with his students, Principal Thorne was subjected to a professional misconduct complaint and internal disciplinary investigation, the lawsuit adds. SCS [Shelby County Schools] placed him on administrative leave, where he has languished for six weeks without any closure to his case.

During that time, SCS officials lambasted his message in the news media while telling him to stay silent, the suit continues. SCSs actions violate Principal Thornes First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by subjecting him to viewpoint discrimination. They further constitute a breach of Principal Thornes employment contract.

In a virtual classroom, Thorne talked to students about the threat of big tech censorship, stating, Im not going to tell you what to think, I just want to help you think, according to a report by Reclaim The Net.

Shortly after that, the principal was put on administrative leave by the SCS pending a professional misconduct investigation.

The report added that on January 25, Thornes lawyerssent the SCS a warning letter demanding his immediate reinstatement, and to publicly apologize for suggesting his actions were inappropriate.

In the letter, Thornes lawyers argue that the principal merely followed superintendent Joris Rays instructions to use theCapitol Hill riot as a teachable moment for students.

Thorne ended up filing a federal lawsuit at the Western District of Tennessee District Court against the Shelby County Board of Education and Superintendent Joris Ray, after the school districts inaction.

The lawyers argue that based on theemployee handbook, Thorne did not tell his students anything that was irresponsible or untruthful obscene, profane, or discourteous harassing, discriminatory, or intimidating towards students or staff in his building dangerous or disruptive.

The principal also did not violate any ethics code for teachers or anything that constituted incompetence or improper conduct. Moreover, the lawyers argue that his swift placement on administrative leave was in violation of the school districts procedures.

You can follow AlanaMastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler @alana, and on Instagram.

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Lawsuit: Memphis School Principal Suspended After Teaching ...

Before COVID, Gates planned social media censorship of vaccine safety advocates with Pharma, CDC, Media, China and CIA --In October 2019, shortly before the COVID outbreak, Gates and other powerful individuals began planning how to censor vaccine safety advocates from social media during a table-top simulation of a worldwide pandemic, known as Event 201. By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. | 12 March 2021 | (Opinion) Over the last two weeks, Facebook and other social media sites have deplatformed me and many other critics of regulatory corruption and authoritarian public health policies. So, here is some fodder for those of you who have the eerie sense that the government/industry pandemic response feels like it was planned -- even before there was a pandemic. The attached document shows that a cabal of powerful individuals did indeed begin planning the mass eviction of vaccine skeptics from social media in October 2019, a week or two before COVID began circulating. That month, Microsoft founder Bill Gates organized an exercise of four "table-top" simulations of a worldwide coronavirus pandemic with other high-ranking "Deep State" panjandrums. The exercise was referred to as Event 201.

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Before COVID, Gates planned social media censorship of ...

The actions of Your T1 WIFI, which provides internet services to North Idaho and the Spokane area, could violate Washington state's net neutrality law.

SPOKANE, Wash. A North Idaho internet provider, Your T1 WIFI, confirmed it is still blocking Facebook and Twitter from its WIFI service for some customers who request it due to concerns over censorship.

Your T1 WIFIprovides internet services to North Idaho and the Spokane area.

In an email statement sent to KREM on Monday, Jan. 19, the company wrote:

"This was always an option for our customers where we block it on our network end which it is easier and faster for us to implement and was a time management decision.

We are a customer choice network and we will never force our customers to view something they do not want to view and dont have the technology know how to do it themselves!"

The company initially banned Twitter and Facebook after those sites banned President Trump from their platforms due to incitement of violence and undermining the transition of power to President elect Joe Biden. Your T1 WIFI said the change went into effect on Wednesday, Jan. 13.

Twitter and Facebook banned the President due to violations of their terms of service. Because Twitter and Facebook are private companies, their bans on the President do not violate the First Amendment, which protects speech from being limited by the government.

Your T1 WIFI's actions could violate Washington state's net neutrality law.

Your T1 WIFI said it decided to block Twitter and Facebook after the company received several calls from customers about both websites.

"It has come to our attention that Twitter and Facebook are engaged in censorship of our customers and information," an email to customers said.

In an email posted to Twitter by a customer, Krista Yep on Jan. 10, the company said it was fielding calls from customers asking that the service not display the sites on the internet. Customers said they didn't want their children to be able to access Twitter and Facebook.

"Our company does not believe a website or social networking site has the authority to censor what you see and post and hide information from you, stop you from seeing what your friends and family are posting," the email said. "This is why with the amount of concerns, we have made this decision to block these two websites from being accessed from our network."

Yep said she found the company's email to customers alarming.

"I was pretty shocked that they were just coming out and saying that," Yep said. "If it's not illegal, it's highly unethical."

Initially, Your T1 WIFI said too many customers requested the sites blocked, so the company would block them for all customers except for those who called the company and requested access. The company changed course on Jan. 11, it said customers who didn't request the sites blocked would still have access.

"Just because you don't like what Twitter and Facebook have done, then you decide to block it for everyone else, so in your opposition to censorship, you're going with censorship," Yep said.

Yep said she plans to cancel her service, regardless of the company's backtracking.

"Their original email was pretty alarming and I don't trust them anymore," she said.

Yep forwarded additional emails from the company to KREM. In them, the company states that two-thirds of customers asked for Twitter and Facebook to be blocked.

In the emails, the company also wrote that their contract and acceptable use policy allows them to block websites if they deem the content "break any rules (sic) or illegal or harmful to our customers and more."

In a phone call with KREM, the owner of the company again said the websites would only be blocked for customers who asked.

"We've had customers asked to be blocked by it. That is what the email was about, so no we are not blocking anybody, only the ones that have asked for it," Fink said.

While Your T1 WIFI says it acted in response to censorship, the company's actions could also be considered censorship. In addition, blocking the sites may violate Washington state's Net Neutrality law, which states that internet providers may not manipulate access to content.

The law contains the following language:

A person engaged in the provision of broadband internet access service in Washington state, insofar as the person is so engaged, may not:(a) Block lawful content, applications, services, or nonharmful devices, subject to reasonable network management;(b) Impair or degrade lawful internet traffic on the basis of internet content, application, or service, or use of a nonharmful device, subject to reasonable network management; or(c) Engage in paid prioritization

A spokesperson for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee's office said the attorney general's Consumer Protection Division was "taking a look at the matter." Brionna Aho, a spokesperson for Attorney General Bob Ferguson, said he takes enforcement of the net neutrality law "very seriously."

Ferguson's office has not confirmed whether Your T1 WIFI is formally under investigation.

Idaho does not have the same net neutrality law. A representative for the Idaho Attorney General said that office lacks the original jurisdiction to be the enforcement authority in this matter.

KREM has also reached out to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for comment.

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Idaho internet company blocks Facebook, Twitter over ...

MEDFORD, Ore. --Today were following up on a story we told you about late last month TheDove TV programming was removed from YouTube.

According to TheDove, more than 15,000 videos were removed following a violation of YouTubes community guidelines.

According to YouTube, in a statement sent to NewsWatch 12, the content was removed following three strikes within 90 days for repeatedly violating our covid-19 misinformation and presidential election integrity policies."

This is a local example of a global issue that has been debated in courts, in congress and among people and politicians the question being, how do you balance, or should there be a balance of regulating misinformation and concerns surrounding censorship?

NewsWatch 12's Alicia Rubin dug into this issue, with the goal of providing context and sharing what the debate is and both sides of it.

We spoke with Professor Anam Sinnreich at American University School of Communications; he specializes in whats called political governance issues, which is the study of how the law intersects with technology and how that impacts our culture.

According to professor Sinnreich, one of the challenges of living in a democratic society is that there are competing visions of what kinds of social goals are needed to make democracy work.

"One of those visions is enshrinedin the First Amendment, and that's the notion that we should have a free press and we should have freedom of speech. And that there's a marketplace of ideas and everybody should say whatever they think is right or true or good, and the best ideas will be debated and will rise to the top," said Sinnreich.

The other side of the argument: "In order to have a functional democracy, you need people to be informed. So that they can vote and make a deliberative decision together and figure out what kind of a society they want. And so, you need to remove disinformation from the public sphere because you don't want people to make decisions based on wrong information," explained Sinnreich.

According to Sinnreich, the two goals are fundamentally at odds with each other. Whats changed in our modern world is the creation of social media.

"What social media does is it exposes us to those divergent viewpoints and it creates an architecture that is very different than the architecture of democratic debate," said Sinnreich.

The basis of the marketplace of ideas, what Sinnreich refers to as a "Thomas Jefferson model," operates on the notion that the best ideas come to the top.

"You might say that lizard people are running the world, and I might say that economic inequity is a problem," said Sinnreich, "and then we debate and we come up with the solution that lizard people seem unlikely. Economic inequity is a demonstrable truth. My idea is better than yours and that rises to the top."

But social media isnt designed to bring the best idea to the top.

It rewards users, and ultimately financially rewards companies, for inspiring the greatest degree of emotional reaction; whether it's joy or outrage or fear or excitement. So when emotions are the most monetized aspect of human expression, that creates a public sphere where, instead of the best ideas rising to the top, the most sensationalistic ideas rise to the top," said Sinnreich.

That idea aligns with studies that have been conducted about social media. In 2016 a study was done by professors at Princeton, it analyzed 376 million Facebook users interactions with over 900 news outlets and found that people tend to seek information that aligns with their views

So where does the responsibility fall to regulate misinformation, if it should be regulated at all? Is it on the consumer or is it on the platform?

"One of the key questions that the courts keep coming back to over and over again is: does the first amendment prohibited private companies from regulating the speech that takes place on their communications platforms? The answer is 'sometimes,'" said Sinnreich.

As Sinnreich explains, courts have treated communication platforms, in regards to the First Amendment, based on size.

"The more that a communications platform becomes something that everybody in society has access to and that everybody needs in order to go about their business, the more expansively the courts interpret the First Amendment as applying to that platform," said Sinnreich, "The more private a platform is, the more it's like a private club or private residence . . . the less expansively the First Amendment tends to be applied to it."

Then the question becomes, are Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms more like the postal service or telephone system; a publicly accessed good that everyone has access to and needs?

"In which case the First Amendment limitations on censorship would apply more strongly to it," said Sinnreich, "or is Facebook more like a gym or a movie theater where a private entity owns it and invites you into it?"

Right now, social media platforms are allowed to remove content, as we have seen with the removal of TheDove's videos; it is allowed to do so because it is considered a private company, but that distinction is also being debated in court.

"You have Justice Clarence Thomas, basically arguing that it's more like a public good and they should not have the power to censor, said Sinnreich, "whereas you have other thinkers saying that it's, it's still private."

Justice Thomas statements issued on April 5th, regarding a case about former President Trump blocking critics on twitter, was thrown out; Justice Thomas calling it moot since the former president is no longer in office. However, the discussion of social media regulation being brought up in the supreme court increases pressure on lawmakers to change current regulations.

Its possible there could be a federal agency created for regulation, similar to the FCC being established to govern broadcast.

"We don't yet have a federal agency that can really wrap its head around, let alone effectively regulate social media,' said Sinnreich, "The idea of setting up a federal agency devoted to internet communications or even social media communications is still such a new idea that we don't even really know what that would mean."

As recent as March 25th of this year, there was a house subcommittee meeting about misinformation and social media's role. It addressed a wide range of issues and looked at how regulation could potentially help. The focus of the meeting was whether to strengthen Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to create new oversight of social media companies. Representatives on both sides of the aisle shed support for a revision but for different reasons.

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A deeper look at the debate surrounding misinformation, censorship and social media - KDRV

Since the beginning of the year, almost sixty-eight bills have been introduced in state legislatures that could infringe on the right to protest. Some of the bills seek to increase penalties for certain protests. Others aim to expand the definition of riot in order to criminalize certain protests. LegisScan only rates six of the bills as not clearly partisan. Based on the bills sponsors, LegisScan rated two as partisan Democratic and over fifty are ranked partisan Republican. A Florida bill (HB 1/SB 484) is particularly concerning and threatens to criminalize peaceful protestors present when others commit crimes. The bill has passed the state house and is headed to the senate for a full vote.

Several of the bills are backed by industry groups with a financial stake in silencing protest or by partisan political groups with a direct connection to industry stakeholders. For example, nine bills seek to increase penalties for protesting on the grounds of oil pipelines, and in many cases the legislators sponsoring the bills have received contributions from the oil and gas industry.

Floridas legislature is considering legislation, promoted by Governor Ron DeSantis, created in reaction to the racial justice protests of last summer. The bill expands criminal punishments for any involvement in protests during which violence occurs. Opponents of the bill argue that peaceful protesters could be arrested and imprisoned for up to five years and lose their voting rights, even if they didnt engage in any violent and disorderly conduct. Additionally, it could increase violence at protests and embolden vigilantes by shielding them from civil liability if they kill or injure protesters, protect confederate monuments, and allow the Governor to overrule local budgetary decisions.

Thirty-four of the bills include provisions that attempt to criminalize protest by expanding the application of anti-riot laws. Some seek to expand the definition of rioting or unlawful assembly in ways that could include lawful protest. Fourteen of the bills would effectively criminalize actions that encourage or aid protest by classifying them as incitement to riot or similar crimes. Thirty bills criminalize protesting in a manner which blocks traffic. Fourteen bills go so far as to provide either civil or criminal immunity for drivers who injure protestors who are blocking traffic or to individuals who use force to resist rioters. Finally, several of the bills encourage local officials to use force to silence protest by, for example, providing that local officials can be sued by anyone whose property is damaged during a protest if the official delays or limits police crackdowns on ongoing protests.

Although many of the bills have thus far failed to advance, twelve have passed at least one house of the legislature, and another twenty have either passed one committee or have been introduced only within the several weeks.

NCAC is paying close attention to the progress of these bills and all those who believe that the right to protest is fundamental to American democracy should be deeply concerned about these attempts to suppress political dissent.

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States Consider Bills That Threaten Protest Rights - Blogging Censorship

In Utah, many contradictions confound in their complexities. Mormonism champions its cosmopolitan outreach through its mission service, where members proselytize about the virtues of perfection, prosperity and duty of faith. Meanwhile, while immigrants and refugees are welcomed in the state, many also feel isolated and vulnerable, seeing clearly how lip service and posturing barely mask the borderline racism that runs through Utahs history. Utahs economy is touted for its potential, offering signs of an economic boom. Yet, in agriculture, an industry intertwined with the flourishing of Mormon pioneers, latter generations of farmers became disenchanted with the drudgery of daily farm tasks. Some of those disenchanted individuals leave behind the bleak prospects they see in their lives, occasionally finding the individual they believe will give them just enough luck and know-how to get ahead even if for a little while.

Likewise, the words of appreciation for education sometimes ring hollow in the most conspicuously unflattering ways. Teachers in Utah struggle to empower their own positions, a problem exacerbated by the states ranking near the bottom in terms of school funding. Even the bright spots in education cannot escape being tarnished. The quality of art education in the states schools is quite good. The Beverly Taylor Sorenson Art Learning Program, for example, has supported the placement of art educators in Utahs elementary schools. The Utah All-State High School Art Show, which is coordinated by the Springville Museum of Art in conjunction with the Utah Division of Arts and Museums, is among the nations largest and longest-running student art shows of its kind. However, stories also have gone viral nationally and internationally about art censorship in Utah, both in classrooms and libraries, thereby eclipsing opportunities to make more visible stories about creative entrepreneurship that could smooth the rougher edges of the contradictions mentioned above.

None of these stories occur in a vacuum, as playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett contends. In his newest play, Art & Class, the second premiere in Plan-B Theatres audio-only 30th anniversary season and directed by Jerry Rapier, Bennett builds an elegant theatrical edifice encompassing these complexities. This is channeled through the story of Luca, a Costa Rican immigrant and artist, who faces losing her job as a sixth-grade art teacher, as she is accused of showing pornography to her students. The images in question came from classic art books in the schools library collection.

The production, which requires digital tickets, will launch April 15 at 8 p.m. and will be available through April 25.

The incident in Art & Class is based on a news story from four years ago, when Mateo Rueda, an art teacher in Cache Countys Lincoln Elementary School, was accused similarly when he showed his students reproductions of classic art works, some of which portrayed nude figures, that were pulled from The Art Box postcard collection in the schools library. Rueda, a Colombian native who had completed his masters degree at nearby Utah State University, lost his job. However, school administrators alleged that the reasons for Ruedas removal were based more on parental complaints that he had spoken inappropriately to the children in explaining that there was nothing wrong with viewing art portraying the nude human figure than on the act of showing the postcards in the first place. In fact, police, acting on a complaint by a parent, searched the school for evidence of pornography and in the midst of its investigation, caught the principal in the process of destroying the postcards in question, which occurred at the school boards request. The story eventually went viral around the world, reinforcing public perceptions about Utahs obsession with pornography as the state defines it along with it unreasonable overreactions, which end up censoring even benign, artistic portrayals of bodies and nudity. Rueda now lives in Portland, Oregon, working as an artist and offering private art lessons.

The main character in Bennetts play shares several key traits with her real-life counterpart. Luca has an advanced degree. She is developing her own artistic portfolio. And, the play makes apparent her commitment as a teacher wanting to inspire her students to appreciate and engage with art. She spends quite a bit from her pockets to enrich the classroom experience, most of which is not reimbursed an experience also familiar to many teachers not just in Utah but elsewhere. However, the casting of a different gender for the teacher also opens up the narratives strategic creative purpose to explore why such incidents in Utah are not limited to the local cultures peculiarities and obsessions with cultural gatekeeping or outright censorship. Also, the principal in the original news story is a woman while the parallel character in the play is male (Leland).

Outsiders are welcomed in Utah but the extent and arenas to which they are welcomed narrow considerably. Immigrants will hear messages about being appreciated that sound good on the surface but eventually are unmasked for their insincerity. Even when outsiders express ideas, opinions or suggestions that sound good to the credentialed members of Utahs predominant culture, they hear sentiments that amount to saying, if only you were one of us. Flo Bravo, the actor who plays Luca and has lived in the U.S. for two decades, encapsulates the circumstances perfectly in a Plan-B blog post:

In my experience, being an immigrant can feel like being an underdog (in many ways, it is). For many, that chip on ones shoulder feeds a desire to achieve. I see that in Luca. She earned a graduate degree, traveled, and is committed to her students. But none of it is enough to earn the respect of her employers or her community and she struggles to carve out space for herself in her own life. Unfortunately, nothing she does, no advanced degree or acrobatic code-switching or smiling through gritted teeth, makes a difference in the eyes of those who see her as other. Even her closest friend encourages her to compromise her values in the name of not ruffling any feathers.

Just as integral to Lucas story is her relationship to her husband, Riley, a dairy farmer who also is hobbled economically while he recovers from an injury. Luca, who has been in the U.S. for six years, is just entering her thirties while Riley already is in his late thirties. On the surface, Riley seems to adore his wife but he also struggles with his own perceived shortcomings. Unlike Luca, he did not attend college. He is more motivated about hunting than in completing an application for a career program that Luca believes would be perfect for him. He also believes Luca could produce art bound to generate quick sales in their community. Meanwhile, he shows little interest in her current project, a series highlighting refugees. These tensions simmer throughout the play, eventually joining and heightening others arising directly from the central part of the drama in Art & Class.

As for the other characters in the plays central drama, Bennett fleshes out the dimensions of their basic traits which many Utahns will recognize. Mindy Van Tassel has a daughter, Payslee, in Lucas class. About the same age as Riley, Mindy fits in with Cache Countys main demographic: white, Mormon, conservative. She also is a part-time ballroom instructor. However, Mindy does not seem to be fully aware of what is happening to her daughter Payslee at school, including some issues that Luca has noticed and has sparked her own concerns. And, the intensity with which Mindy confronts Luca could be explained by other events which have affected the mother.

Meanwhile, Leland Hess, the principal, seems to appreciate Lucas contributions in the classroom, even trying to impress her with his own attempts to be seen as enlightened and cosmopolitan. Leland also cuts a figure recognizable in many Utah communities a liberal Mormon who strives to be a woke intellectual but also does not have the courage to go beyond the dont rock the boat mentality when some problems and controversies arise, for fear that they might be ostracized themselves.

The plays premiere is the culmination of a two-year workshopping process 13 drafts - that not only involved Plan-B Theatre but also the local Pioneer Theatre Company as well as The Constructivists in Milwaukee and the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha. Bennett, whose plays comprise some of Plan-Bs most success productions for artistic impact, exhaustively probes how to confer credibility not only to the characters but also their relationships in particular, the ways in which Mindy and Luca communicate. What stands out in Art & Class is that Bennett has the opportunity to expand these dynamics beyond what normally is possible in Plan-Bs Radio Hour Series episodes, which have strict time limits and include the station breaks as required during live broadcasts on KUER-FMs RadioWest program.

Bennett, who also spoke briefly to Rueda as he developed his script, recalls hearing the news of the incident on the radio during a car trip. I started to think about a play as I talked it out with my wife [Wendy Blankenship, who is a teacher and lived in Wellsville, which is located in the county], he says. This happened at the same time the #MeToo movement became more visible. And, Wendy and I talked about differences in treatment for male and female teachers involved in relatively innocuous infractions and it was a pretty disturbing gap.

In an interview on The Art of Education podcast, Rueda spoke about how he saw the incident as more than an issue of censorship and how he sought to process mentally and emotionally the controversy that had erupted. At one point, Rueda recalls, Luckily one of the parents contacted me through Facebook and she expressed that her daughter was in the classroom, that she heard my explanation, she understood it very well and that for her, she finds that she is not capable of giving her an explanation on why her art teacher is being removed. To me, that actually gave me some sense of hope about maybe being able to establish a better case about what happened.

Rueda adds, I wrote to her and I wrote to her a letter, a little long, but it also helped me to clarify the set of events, how things happened, how I felt and everything in a sense. It was helpful for me and Im glad that she was someone like minded and definitely decided to do something about it, which I admire and Im sure its a good lesson for her daughter to learn about tenacity and conviction about what one holds to be true in a rational manner for that matter, because all of this has been rather irrational, for lack of a more, how do you say, word.

That underlying sene of irrationality also sets up the story in Art & Class. Bennett looked forward to giving the issue of censorship a more multifaceted perspective. In 2010, for Plan-Bs And The Banned Slammed On, in which Utah playwrights were given 24 hours to write a short play and have it produced for a live premiere, he wrote Staged, a hilarious theatrical statement highlighting the absurdity of changing a word in the Broadway musical Avenue Q so as not to offend prudish senses.

Returning to the story about Rueda, I was so angry about the news story but I also did not want it to wind up being a play that preaches, Bennett explains. He adds that this led him to incorporating the tensions in Lucas marriage as well as other relationship dynamics where seemingly well-intentioned socially conditioned responses from those with whom she interacts actually are racist, condescending and oppressive. Thus, some of the most significant exchanges between the characters occur outside of the school, echoing just how embedded the roots of unintentional racism are in many communities. For example, a scene occurring in a Christmas tree lot bringing in a fifth character whose appearance in the play lasts less than two minutes punctuates a key thematic pulse that is present throughout the play.

In addition to Bravo, the cast includes Roger Dunbar, Bijan Hosseini and Stephanie Howell. Cheryl Ann Cluff handles sound design. David Evanoff is handling sound engineering to produce the master that listeners will hear. The production follows the same protocol as last months premiere of Julie Jensens P.G. Anon. That is, the actors and production crew never congregated in physical spaces but stayed separately while rehearsing and performing via Zoom in their homes. To augment the audio quality of Zoom, Plan-B invested in equipment provided to each actor.

The 10-day run of P.G. Anon produced encouraging results, indicating a total audience more than double Plan-Bs usual in-person attendance for a comparable run as live theater, Rapier notes. In addition to Utah, listeners came from Alabama, Arizona, California, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington.

Just as encouraging are the numbers for the audio stream and coloring sheets for Plan-Bs eighth annual but first virtual Free Elementary School Tour (FEST) production, Rachel Bublitzs Presenting: Super Cat and Reptile Robot, which Rapier says, has been enjoyed by elementary students in 283 classrooms at 172 schools in the state. The current FEST production is available through June 7.

Art & Class will be available for streaming as a podcast on the Plan-B website as well as on its free app. Listeners will be able to access the production within the specified run dates. Tickets for individual productions are available on a pay-what-you-can basis: As a guide, the regular ticket price would be $22 and there are no additional fees. Plan-B will send donation letters to individuals who pay an amount larger than $22 per ticket. For more information, see the Plan-B website.

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More than a story of censorship: Plan-B Theatre to launch April 15 world premiere audio-only production of Matthew Ivan Bennett's Art & Class -...