The Texas Civil Rights Project has won the 2011 Intellectual Freedom Award, given by the National Council of Teachers of English, for its work exposing book censorship by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The report (available at www.texascivilrightsproject.org/?p=2803) revealed that the TDCJ’s censorship of books available to prisoners is often odd and arbitrary. The agency blocks access to books by Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Peace Prize winners, for example, but approves access to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Che Guevara’s Guerrilla Warfare. TCRP’s Prisoners’ Rights Program Director Scott Medlock will accept the award for the group at the NCTE’s November conference.

This article appears in July 15 • 2011.

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