CCSU Elihu Burritt Library Presents:

Sicko Silenced: The Perils of Censorship in 21st Century America

March 16, 7:00 pm, Vance Academic Center, Room 105

Join us for a conversation with those who are at the forefront of the censorship battles, followed by a screening of SICKO. The panelists will discuss free-speech and community standards issues as well as the balance between the two. Our panelists include:

Nels P. Highberg, Chair of Rhetoric and Professional Writing and former Director of the Program in Gender Studies at the University of Hartford.

Marcus Hatfield, Reporter from the Journal Inquirer.

Peter Chase, Director of the Plainville Public Library and Chair of the Intellectual Freedom Committee for the Connecticut Library Association.

Our moderator will be John Dankosky, WNPR News Director and Host, and CCSU Faculty.

SICKO, released on June 29, 2007, is an Independent film that tackles health care issues in America. The facts according to Academy Award winning filmmaker Michael Moore’s research are controversial to some. The recent cancellation of a library screening of the film by the Enfield Town Council prompted Reporter Marcus Hatfield to break the story about the incident. This reminds us that censorship does indeed occur, even in a state with a highly-educated populace such as Connecticut.

This disturbing incident was preceded last November by the National Portrait Gallery’s removal of David Wojnarowicz’s video A Fire In My Belly from the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference And Desire in American Portraiture in response to complaints from the Catholic League as well as incoming House Speaker John Boehner, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s declaration that the video is a form of “hate speech.”