For the first time since it became an option in 2022, the Militant on April 28 requested the Florida Department of Corrections convene a special meeting of its Literature Review Committee. The paper is asking the three-member committee to reconsider and overturn its decision to uphold a ban on three issues impounded by prison authorities.
The review committee upheld a ban imposed on Militant issues nos. 4, 5, and 6 by the Taylor Correctional Institution in Perry, Florida, March 26, despite appeals from the Militant and letters of support from civil liberties organizations and others.
This special hearing means all three ranking members of the committee must be present. They are the Bureau Chiefs of Security Operations, of Policy Management and Inmate Appeals, and of Education. The Florida Department of Corrections rules also state that if a publisher’s appeal is rejected, it cannot request another special meeting for five years.
In the three issues Taylor authorities banned, they cited front-page articles reporting on labor-backed, disciplined protests against attacks on immigrants in Minneapolis and the Militant’s call for amnesty for workers in the U.S. without papers.
With no explanation or justification, the Literature Review Committee upheld the prison officials’ ruling that the articles are “dangerously inflammatory” and encourage “riot, insurrection, rebellion, organized prison protest.” They also upheld the ruling that two of the issues, nos. 4 and 5, are “a threat to the security, order or rehabilitative objectives of the correctional system.”
In the request for the meeting, Militant attorney David Goldstein wrote that the Militant’s coverage of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrests and the protests against them in Minneapolis came as the events “dominated mainstream newspapers, television news, and social media for several weeks.”
“Unless FDOC institutions banned most news media during this period (highly unlikely), inmates would have been regularly exposed to reporting on the events in Minneapolis, much of which was much more sympathetic to the confrontational tactics of the protesters than the Militant.”
These Militant articles criticized confrontational actions targeting ICE personnel, instead pointing to the importance of disciplined labor-led protests that were effective. “And if the Militant’s coverage was singled out for censorship, then the censorship would be unconstitutional,” Goldstein said.
He resubmitted and asked the Literature Review Committee to consider the many letters of support the Militant has received, including from the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, Florida Press Association, PEN America, Amnesty International USA, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, La Resistencia in Washington state, and Neighbors United in Minneapolis.
Leading up to the special LRC meeting, John Studer, editor of the Militant, is encouraging readers “to step up efforts to talk with trade unionists, co-workers, concerned or prominent individuals, churches, and Black rights, immigrant rights, civil liberties, and community organizations and ask them to write letters opposing the ban.
“This is a serious attack on the constitutional rights of freedom of the press and free speech, for the Militant as well as other newspaper and book publications,” Studer said. “It denies those who are behind bars the right to choose what they read and form their own opinions.”
The Militant is currently mailed to some 360 subscribers in 168 federal, state and local prisons in 35 states.
‘Needless cycle of censorship’
The Literature Review Committee overturned the impoundments of subsequent issues that had been banned for articles reporting on the fight against previous bans. In late March and early April it reversed the bans on issues 8, 9 and 10. It also overturned the impoundment by officials at Lancaster Correctional Institution in Trenton, Florida, of issue no. 7 for an article calling for “US hands off Cuba!”
But then authorities at Lancaster banned issues 11, 12 and 14 for exactly the same reasons given for 8, 9 and 10 — writing about the fight against the bans!
This “needless cycle of reporting, censorship appeal, review, reporting, censorship appeal, review, reporting, etc., can be laid to rest,” wrote Goldstein in the Militant’s April 23 appeal against the ban on issues nos. 11, 12 and 14.
Letters are needed now urging prison authorities to reverse the bans and cease the unconstitutional impoundments of the Militant. Please send them to the Literature Review Committee, Florida Department of Corrections, 501 South Calhoun St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-2500, or email Melvin.Herring@fdc.myflorida.com and Saritza.Legault@fdc.myflorida.com, with a copy to themilitant@mac.com.