Protests were out in full force against a far right-wing advocacy group holding their national summit in Philadelphia June 29-July 2. Self-proclaimed parental-rights group Moms for Liberty (M4L) held their “Joyful Warriors” summit at the Philadelphia Marriott...
Book Bans
Battle for the 2024 mom vote comes to Philadelphia
People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy group, is organizing demonstrations outside the Moms for Liberty conference with help from allied groups including the Campaign for Our Shared Future, MomsRising, and Red, Wine & Blue. A “Drag Queen Story Hour”...
The Book-Bans Debate Has Finally Reached a Turning Point
Across multiple fronts, Democrats and their allies are stiffening their resistance to a surge of Republican-led book bans. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the past month have conspicuously escalated their denunciations of the book bans...
Op-Ed: Lessons for Becoming a Public Scholar
Academics at many colleges and universities today face an uncertain future. Rising tuition and falling enrollments, the lack of tenure-track positions, the dwindling student interest in the humanities in favor of business and STEM degrees, and growing questions about...
Students, authors fight censorship in PA schools
About four hours before the Central Bucks School District passed a new library policy in July, local high school junior Lily Freeman warned a crowd of about 100 what would follow. The policy, passed by a 6-3 vote, targeted books with explicit or implied depictions of...
The day the book banners lost in Pennsylvania’s culture wars
If you ban it, they will come. For the better part of an hour Saturday, dozens of teenagers and their parents snaked around the towering stacks of tomes inside Kutztown’s Firefly Books and sometimes spilled onto the sidewalks of this quaint Berks County college town —...
Commentary: Banning books is a futile practice serving no deed
Last March, I was invited by Christine Pearl ’11 to facilitate a book club session on my second favorite Toni Morrison novel, “Beloved.” The session was an extension of the efforts of the nonprofit organization Red Wine & Blue, whose mission is to empower and...
‘Too Hyperbolic’? School Board Parental Rights Push Falters
State teachers unions have increased spending on their candidates, and grassroots groups including Red Wine and Blue have rallied liberal suburban parents.
PRESS RELEASE: On Day Education Board Meets to Enact DeSantis’ Extreme Agenda, FL Moms Release Six-Figure Ad Buy to Stand Up and Fight Back – Especially With Suburban Women
“We may just be moms, but come November, you’ll be just a former governor.” Suburbs across Florida, October 19, 2022 - Today, Red Wine & Blue released “Just Moms,” a new ad featuring Florida moms fighting back against Ron DeSantis’ education extremism. The ad,...
How to protect schools from right-wing extremists
Reader Commentary in the Balitmore Sun. My thanks to Dhruvak Mirani for his clear and extensive commentary on the current right-wing attacks on public education (“Don’t get distracted by Dan Cox; Maryland boards of education are under threat from right-wing...
Recent Posts
Okay, But Why Is Autism in the Headlines?
Millions of Americans are pushing back against claims made by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and President Donald Trump about finding the cause of autism and their promises to find treatments for the disorder. Trump has called the rise in diagnoses of autism “a tremendous horror show.” Many autism advocates – and people with autism themselves – say Kennedy’s and Trump’s statements are misinformed and even dangerous. So what’s the truth? Are autism rates rising? Do we know why? Is it even something that needs to be “cured”?
Do This: Unite Against Soft Censorship
The only way to end censorship, whether it’s the quiet removal of books from library collections or in-your-face book bans, is to fight it head on. We saw a huge example of this – and a big win for free speech – this week when ABC and Disney returned Jimmy Kimmel and...
Watch This: Learn How to Spot Soft Censorship
A lot of people are talking about freedom of speech right now. As Americans, it's a right that has always defined us and that we all hold dear. That’s why the majority of us oppose book bans and censorship. The rise in book bans over the past few years has been well...
Read This: The Quiet Danger of Soft Censorship
We’ve been fighting the explosion of book bans since Red Wine & Blue started. PEN America reports 16,000 book bans in public schools since 2021 — a level not seen since the 1950s during McCarthyism. This increase has been driven by organized groups with a...
Okay, But Why is Gerrymandering Legal?
Lawmakers in Texas made headlines for leaving their state to protest the unfair re-drawing of district maps, known as gerrymandering. Almost all Americans, regardless of political party, are against gerrymandering. But over the past few decades, it’s gotten worse and worse.
So… what exactly is gerrymandering? Why is it legal? And how do we get back to a fair system where all of our votes matter equally?