Muzzle Awards Honor The Anti-Press Censure Efforts

You have to love the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in Virginia for pointing out some of the worst examples of press censorship in its annual Muzzle Awards.

Announced today, the awards range from the North Dakota school board that removed a school adviser because he allowed too much negative content in student-written editorial columns to a California principal who ordered the lockdown of a student magazine because it “glorified tattoos.”

“Public school administrators and schools boards often tend to follow the path of least resistance,” Robert O'Neil, founding director of the Thomas Jefferson Center, told the First Amendment Center. “As schools have moved toward policies of zero tolerance for controversial student speech, more incidents of censorship arise.”

The organization unveils its honorees today, April 13, as it is Thomas Jefferson's birthday.