The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), founded in 1974, is an alliance of 50 American non-profit organizations, including literary, artistic, religious, educational, professional, labor, and civil liberties groups. The coalition works to defend freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression from censorship and threats of censorship through education and outreach, and direct advocacy. NCAC assists individuals, community groups, and institutions with strategies and resources for resisting censorship and creating a climate hospitable to free expression. Their main goal is to defend the first amendment, freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression. NCAC's website contains reports of censorship incidents, analysis and discussion of free expression issues, a database of legal cases in the arts, an archive of NCAC's quarterly newsletter, a blog, and Censorpedia, a crowdsourced wiki.
Focus
NCAC is concerned with censorship across all media including art, literature, and film; it works on several fronts through its programs, working with artists and curators through the Arts Advocacy Program (AAP), addressing young people and youth culture through the Youth Free Expression Program (YFEP) and Kids' Right to Read Project (KRRP). Past initiatives include defending researchers with The Knowledge Project: Censorship and Sciences, and addressing the rights of people of all sexual orientations through the Sex and Censorship project.
NCAC's online resources include CENSORPEDIA, a crowdsourced Wiki for Censorship Incidents, and Artists Rights, a guide intended for artists and arts professionals containing explanations of art that is (and is not) protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.