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Written by David L. Hudson Jr., published on January 1, 2009 , last updated on February 18, 2024

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The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) is a New York–based organization that serves as a national resource center and information exchange for groups and individuals combating censorship. Founded in 1974, the NCAC comprises fifty nonprofit organizations. The NCAC focuses its support of freedom of expression on three activities — action, advocacy, and education.

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) is a New York–based organization that serves as a national resource center and information exchange for groups and individuals combating censorship. Founded in 1974, the NCAC comprises fifty nonprofit organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the First Amendment Lawyers Association, People for the American Way, and the Student Press Law Center. The NCAC alliance is dedicated to the promotion and defense of “First Amendment values of freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression.”

NCAC focuses on action, advocacy, and education

The NCAC focuses its support of freedom of expression on three activities — action, advocacy, and education — in more than 20 areas, ranging from academic and religious freedom to video games and youth. Its advocacy programs include The Arts Advocacy Project, which helps individual artists and curators embroiled in censorship conflicts, and its Youth Free Expression Network, which is dedicated to defending the free expression and access rights of youth. The NCAC’s wealth of educational and research information includes a war and speech database that tracks censorship during wartime (including data on the current “war on terror”), an art law library, and Censorship News, a quarterly publication that highlights major First Amendment issues.

David L. Hudson, Jr. is a law professor at Belmont who publishes widely on First Amendment topics.  He is the author of a 12-lecture audio course on the First Amendment entitled Freedom of Speech: Understanding the First Amendment (Now You Know Media, 2018).  He also is the author of many First Amendment books, including The First Amendment: Freedom of Speech (Thomson Reuters, 2012) and Freedom of Speech: Documents Decoded (ABC-CLIO, 2017). This article was originally published in 2009.​

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