Uncategorized
A Missouri school district could ban ‘Maus,’ citing concerns about whether it is ‘explicit sexual material’
(JTA) – A Missouri school board is preparing to vote next week on whether to ban Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic memoir “Maus” — even though no parent in the district has challenged it.
Spiegelman himself is among those exhorting the board of Nixa Public Schools, a district of about 6,000 students in Christian County just south of the state capital of Springfield, not to remove his book and several others.
“We haven’t learned much from the past, but there’s some things you should be able to figure out,” Spiegelman said in an interview with the literary free-speech advocacy group PEN America published as part of a campaign directed at the Nixa school board. “Book burning leads to people burning. So it’s something that needs to be fought against.”
Nixa is at least the third district in Missouri to seriously question whether current state laws allow it to stock “Maus” in schools. Its board will meet Tuesday to determine the fate of “Maus,” along with six other books including an illustrated adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which portrays a dystopian society in which the United States has been placed under a fundamentalist theocratic rule.
Spiegelman’s book was an early, visible casualty of the nationwide conservative-led movement to remove or restrict books from school libraries for perceived inappropriate content when a Tennessee district voted to remove “Maus” from its middle school curriculum last year. There, school board members cited profanity in the book and a drawing of a naked mouse, which represented the author’s mother after she died by suicide.
Books with LGBTQ content and books about race have been the primary targets of the movement, with graphic novels in particular facing frequent challenges. Over the past year, several other Jewish books have been caught up in purges across multiple states, including an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, a novel about the Holocaust by Jodi Picoult, and a children’s picture book about a Jewish family with two dads.
Unlike in many of these cases, no parent in Nixa challenged the appropriateness of “Maus” or several of the other books facing removal. Instead, the district is concerned that the book could risk violating a state law that establishes a criminal penalty and possible jail time for educators found to have provided children with access to “explicit sexual material.”
“Maus is pending review by the school district due to a recently passed Missouri state law making it a crime to provide materials of visual depiction of sexual act or genitalia to students. Any material that could potentially violate the law are being presented to the board,” Zac Rantz, a district spokesperson, said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Rantz emphasized that “Maus” was not being targeted because of its subject matter.
“These actions should not be viewed as an attempt to limit students’ access to information about the Holocaust or be viewed as antisemitic,” he said in the statement. “The district does not tolerate hate speech of any kind and has the teaching of the Holocaust as a part of various classes. The material is being reviewed solely on the basis of the new state law in order to help protect the staff from legal action and place the decision on the board of education.”
Nixa school board president Josh Roberts told the Washington Post the book was “potentially violative” of laws and policies but did not provide further detail. Roberts did not return a JTA request for comment.
Some other Missouri school districts have interpreted the law broadly to mean that comic books and graphic novels, in particular, could expose staff to legal liability. One district near St. Louis ordered staff to temporarily pull not only “Maus,” but also hundreds of other illustrated books, including several Holocaust history books for young readers and art history books featuring Jewish artists.
An email the Nixa school district sent to staff after the law passed instructs its staff to have all materials in their classrooms approved by the district.
“The law defines sexual material as a visual depiction of a sexual act or genitalia,” the email said in part. “There are exceptions for works of art that have serious artistic significance, or works of anthropological significance, or materials used in science courses like biology or anatomy.”
At the time of the Tennessee district’s initial removal of “Maus,” Spiegelman spoke to a local Jewish federation about the controversy, saying it was “about controlling.” He has since appeared on CBS and in other media outlets as a leading voice for authors opposing restrictions on their books in schools.
Now the Pulitzer Prize-winning comics artist is partnering with PEN America to decry attempts to remove the book. PEN has also launched a petition in an effort to convince the Nixa board not to remove the book.
Attacks on “Maus” and other books are “a real warning sign of a country that’s yearning for a return of authoritarianism,” Spiegelman told the Washington Post. Reflecting on the wide array of books that have faced bans, he said, channeling the view of the bans’ proponents, “It’s one more book — just throw it on the bonfire.”
At the Nixa board meeting, the seven-member board will vote individually on each book brought before them. Its vote for “Maus” will not consider questions of appropriateness, only whether the book could conceivably be found in violation of state law.
—
The post A Missouri school district could ban ‘Maus,’ citing concerns about whether it is ‘explicit sexual material’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
UK Announces Reforms to Accelerate Firings of Antisemitic Doctors
Wes Streeting, the British secretary of state for health and social care, is seen in Westminster as he appears on Sunday politics shows, London, England, United Kingdom, Oct. 26, 2025. Photo: Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The United Kingdom on Tuesday announced a series of reforms to empower its General Medical Council (GMC), a key regulatory body, to act forcibly in removing bigots who endanger patients.
The move followed several high-profile cases both in the UK and around the world involving medical practitioners promoting antisemitic beliefs online and even threatening or boasting about their hate for Jewish people as well as Israelis.
John Mann, who serves in the House of Lords and as the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, was tasked in October with reviewing the severity of antisemitism in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and exploring methods to counter it in October.
“There are just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said at the time, directing Mann to “root out this problem and ensure perpetrators are always held to account.”
The results of that investigation led to the new reforms unveiled on Tuesday — changes described by the UK government as “key” and “the most significant overhaul of the regulation of medical professionals since 1983.”
Specifically, UK Secretary Wes Streeting and his Department of Health and Social Care focused on three main changes.
First, the GMC should “retain its existing right to appeal decisions made by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) to the courts, ensuring there remains a robust check on fitness to practice outcomes.” The MPTS adjudicates on complaints made against doctors.
Second, the Professional Standards Authority (PSA), which oversees all health-care regulators, will gain expanded authority to challenge decisions from the MPTS.
Third, regulatory bodies must now share information with the PSA when requested, a move intended to provide greater scrutiny of regulatory decisions and potential times to intervene.
“Racism, including anti-Jewish racism, has no place in the health sector or our NHS, and those who engage in it should face swift and meaningful consequences,” Mann said in a statement. “For too long, the system has been too slow and too cumbersome to deliver that.”
The GMC’s chief executive and registrar, Charlie Massey, called the reforms a “long-awaited step” and explained how the changes would work.
“Patients rightly expect assurance that doctors, PAs, and AAs are safe to practice and can be held to account if serious concerns are raised,” Massey said. “These proposed reforms will allow us to respond more quickly and flexibly when patient safety is at risk. They will also allow us to further improve our efficiency and effectiveness, while at the same time enabling us to help patients navigate the complaints and concerns process more easily.”
Mann said the reforms “will help deliver change” and added he was “pleased” the government moved quickly to act on his recommendations.
The UK health-care system has been riddled with cases of alleged antisemitism over the past several months,
The case of Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, particularly drew public attention. In November, Aladwan was suspended from practicing medicine in the UK for 15 months over social media posts denigrating Jews and celebrating terrorism.
Aladwan had called online for the ethnic cleaning of Jews and celebrated the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. She also described Israelis as “worse than Nazis” and Hamas operatives as “oppressed resistance fighters, not terrorists.”
The anti-Israel activist also made explicitly antisemitic claims, such as labeling the Royal Free Hospital in London “a Jewish supremacy cesspit” and asserting that “over 90% of the world’s Jews are genocidal.”
On a Feb. 7, 2026, episode of the “Blood Brothers” podcast, Aladwan called on Muslims in the countries around Israel to wage a violent jihad.
British law enforcement had arrested Aladwan on Oct. 21, charging her with four counts related to malicious communications and inciting racial hatred.
Aladwan’s arrest followed the GMC’s clearing her to continue treating patients, finding that her conduct had not done anything to “undermine public confidence in the medical profession” and that her comments did not “amount to bullying or harassment.” The MPTS panel concluded that “a reasonable and fully informed member of the public would not be alarmed or concerned” by her being allowed to continue treating patients.
However, following widespread backlash, the GMC said it had re-referred Aladwan’s case to the MPTS for “an interim orders tribunal,” adding that such referrals are made when an interim order “is necessary to protect the public or public confidence in doctors during an investigation.”
The 15-month suspension came about two weeks after Streeting called it “chilling” that some members of the Jewish community fear discrimination within the NHS, amid reports of widespread antisemitism in Britain’s health-care system.
Other incidents in the UK included a Jewish family fearing their London doctor’s antisemitism influenced their disabled son’s treatment. The North London hospital suspended the physician who was under investigation for publicly claiming that all Jews have “feelings of supremacy” and downplaying antisemitism.
Uncategorized
Arabic Wikipedia Riddled With Terror Propaganda and Bias, New Investigation Shows
Avishek Das / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
Arabic-language Wikipedia is riddled with systemic bias and extreme terrorist propaganda, a new investigation shows, raising serious questions about the reliability of one of the world’s most widely used information sources and exposing millions of readers worldwide to potentially harmful content.
On Tuesday, the World Jewish Congress’s Institute for Technology and Human Rights released a report revealing that Arabic-language Wikipedia content repeatedly violates the platform’s core neutrality rules, specifically in articles covering the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Extremist influence runs deep in major Wikipedia articles, with 25 to over 50 percent of citations drawn from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist propaganda sources, spreading radical narratives and terror-supporting content to millions of readers worldwide.
The World Jewish Congress (WJC)’s latest findings also reveal that the terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are often described as legitimate resistance factions, while attacks on civilians are labeled “martyrdom operations.”
Some articles go further, not only referring to designated terrorists as “martyrs” but also celebrating suicide bombings and attacks on civilians as historical “achievements.”
“This report demonstrates that one of the world’s most trusted knowledge platforms is being systematically manipulated to promote extremist narratives,” Yfat Barak-Cheney, executive director of WJC’s Institute for Technology and Human Rights, said in a statement.
“When terrorist propaganda and hate-driven narratives are allowed to masquerade as neutral information, the consequences extend far beyond Wikipedia itself. These distortions shape public understanding and views of Jews and Israelis across the Arabic-speaking world,” she continued.
In one of its most recent controversies, Wikipedia came under fire last month after a human rights group allegedly linked to Hamas began training Palestinians to edit pages on Israel and the war in Gaza, raising fears of anti-Israel propaganda and antisemitic content on the platform.
According to WJC, the newly released report shows that manipulated Wikipedia content is creating worldwide risks by influencing public discourse and the AI systems that millions rely on, allowing biased information to extend far beyond the site itself.
The report recommends that technology companies and search engines put safeguards in place when using Wikipedia content for AI training and search systems until meaningful reforms are implemented.
“We call on [the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the Wikipedia website,] to take urgent action to restore neutrality and accountability on Arabic Wikipedia, including enforcing existing neutrality standards, removing administrators who enable extremist propaganda, and implementing centralized monitoring mechanisms for terrorism-related content,” the statement read.
Last year, the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, opened an investigation into the Wikimedia Foundation, demanding answers over concerns that hostile foreign actors are exploiting the online encyclopedia to insert anti-Israel or antisemitic framing designed to sway audiences.
Months earlier, the US Justice Department warned the Wikimedia Foundation that its nonprofit status could be jeopardized for possibly violating its “legal obligations and fiduciary responsibilities” under US law.
Specifically, US officials expressed concern about accusations that the online encyclopedia has spread “propaganda” and allowed “foreign actors to manipulate information” while maintaining a systemic bias against Israel.
“Wikipedia has long presented itself as humanity’s shared knowledge repository,” Barak-Cheney said in a statement on Tuesday. “Ensuring that this knowledge remains factual is particularly critical as emerging AI platforms increasingly rely on multilingual information sources to formulate responses to user queries.”
Uncategorized
Trump Administration Launches New Probes Into Discrimination at Harvard After Suing School Over Antisemitism
US President Donald Trump delivers an address to the nation from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA on Dec. 17, 2025. Photo: Reuters Connect
The US government has launched two new investigations into campus antisemitism and racial preferences — popularly known as “affirmative action” — at Harvard University, continuing the Trump administration’s legal barrage against the institution for allegedly not adhering to federal civil rights laws.
“Harvard University should know better. Its name will always be tied to the landmark Supreme Court case that found sweeping racial discrimination in admissions and the campus has been in the spotlight for tolerating egregious antisemitic harassment for years now,” US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement on Monday announcing the federal actions. “No one — not even Harvard — is above the law. If Harvard continues to stonewall as we try to verify its basic compliance with antidiscrimination statutes, we will vigorously hold them to account to ensure students’ rights are protected.”
This week’s newly announced inquiries will be led by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
In a press release, the department said Harvard has “refused” to cooperate with OCR’s attempts to verify that it no longer confers admission based in part on racial identity, as stipulated by a 2023 US Supreme Court ruling which said that the enterprise is unconstitutional.
“OCR will investigate whether Harvard continues to use illegal race-based preferences in admissions despite the Supreme Court’s definitive ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard,” the department said in Tuesday’s statement. “OCR will also investigate alleged ongoing antisemitic harassment on Harvard’s campus and the institution’s purported failure to protect Jewish students. The Trump administration will evaluate both complaints and, if continued discrimination is found, take action to hold Harvard accountable for any illegal policies or actions.”
Writing to The Harvard Crimson, the university’s campus newspaper, Harvard said the racial preferences investigation is “the government’s latest retaliatory” move “against [the school] for its refusal to surrender our independence and constitutional rights.”
McMahon announced the probes just three days after the Trump administration filed a lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts arguing that Harvard ignored antisemitism while extreme anti-Zionist activists subjected Jewish students to harassment and discrimination in violation of civil rights laws as well as the institution’s own purported commitment to anti-racism.
The complaint demanded the recovery of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded grants and other federal support Harvard received during the years in which it allegedly neglected to correct the hostile campus environment.
The lawsuit marked a shift in the Trump administration’s previous strategy of confiscating Harvard’s federal money and then defending the action in court. That policy has yielded mixed results, making a strong political statement while leaving Harvard strong enough to mobilize its GDP-sized wealth to sidestep the worst potential consequences by issuing bonds or bringing the matter before judges who have been sympathetic to their case.
As previously reported, by The Algemeiner, US federal judge Allison Burroughs ruled in September that Trump acted unconstitutionally when his administration impounded more than $2 billion in research grants from Harvard, charging that he had “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” Burroughs went on to argue that the federal government violated Harvard’s free speech rights under the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
The Trump administration maintains that pervasive antisemitism has been a major issue at Harvard,
“Harvard has been and remains deliberately indifferent to what its own Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Bias deemed the ‘exclusion of Israeli or Zionist students from social spaces and extracurricular activities,’” US Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon argued in Friday’s filing. “Harvard has failed to enforce its rules or meaningfully discipline the mobs that occupy its buildings and terrorize its Jewish and Israeli students. Harvard instead rewarded students who assaulted, harassed, or intimidated their Jewish and Israeli peers.”
In a statement, Harvard contested the government’s account of the facts, saying it “deeply cares about members of our Jewish and Israeli community and remains committed to ensuring they are embraced, respected, and can thrive on our campus.” It also argued that it enacted “substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism and actively enforces anti-harassment and anti-discrimination rules and policies on campus.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
Jewish members of the Harvard community have expressed concern about the climate on campus.
Last week, a new report issued by the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) revealed Jewish undergraduate enrollment at the university has plummeted to lows not seen since the eve of World War II and the Holocaust, falling to just 7 percent.
While the report denied that declining Jewish enrollment at Harvard is alone the result of racial preferences in admissions — which, in the name of “diversity,” affords preferential consideration to applicants whose academic achievement and standardized test scores fall outside the range of the typical elite students who schools like Harvard select for membership in the Ivy League — it found a similar trend occurring at Yale University.
Yale infamously adopted racial preferences under the leadership of President Kingman Brewster in the 1960s, despite growing evidence that the practice created an environment of academic maladjustment and racial division. This led to the creation of segregated programming and amenities for African Americans, as well as a summer remedial program for minority students — PROP (Pre-Orientation Program) — that was eventually rebranded in the late 1990s when its apparent subtext proved unpalatable to a new generation of students.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.