Ban on Militant overturned in Tennessee
Tennessee prison authorities informed the Militant’s attorney June 5 that the ban on the Militant in a prison there has been overturned. More in the next issue.
The Militant is encouraging its readers to help win support for the paper’s fight to reverse the monthslong banning of three issues by prison authorities in Florida. Letters have been sent by prominent civil liberties organizations, trade unionists and others backing this fight. More are needed.
In addition, the Militant is also challenging the ban on 10 issues by officials at the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville, Tennessee.
Officials at the Taylor Correctional Institution in Perry, Florida, banned issues no. 4, 5 and 6, for reporting on labor-backed protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement attacks on immigrants in Minneapolis and the Militant’s call for amnesty for workers in the U.S. without papers.
The Florida Department of Corrections Literature Review Committee upheld these impoundments March 26 without any explanation. A month later Militant attorney David Goldstein filed a request that the committee convene a special meeting to review and overturn its previous ruling. This is the first time the Militant has requested such a meeting since it became an option in 2022.
Michael Fitzsimmons, a recently retired nurse and former executive board member of the New York State Nurses Association in Albany, wrote the Literature Review Committee May 20 asking them to reverse the bans.
“At the hospital I worked at for 28 years in the ICU, I frequently took care of patients who were part of the NY State prison system,” he said. “Prisoners in the hospital are allowed to watch TV, which we know has a wide variety of information about what’s going on in the world.
“I strongly disagree with the Literature Review Committee’s categorization that articles about protests in Minneapolis covered in February issues of the Militant regarding the fight for immigrants’ rights are dangerously inflammatory or encourage riots, insurrection, or rebellion,” Fitzsimmons wrote. “The Militant articles talk about the need for broad-based peaceful actions that can be the most effective to get political change.”
The American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, Florida Press Association, PEN America, Amnesty International USA, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Neighbors United in Minneapolis have sent letters requesting the demands be overturned.
Banning of ‘Militant’ in Tennessee
From the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Tennessee, the Militant has received four unopened envelopes addressed to subscribers with each containing an issue of the paper. The envelopes were stamped “Not Allowed Due to Content” or “unapproved vendor.” Photocopies of six other envelopes containing impounded issues were also received.
In a May 18 letter to the Tennessee Department of Correction, Goldstein said the bans should be reversed because they violate the prison system’s own rules. Authorities are required to inform inmates and the publisher in writing of the reason that “specific issues or items” are being rejected and allow the publisher to file an appeal.
“Trousdale has violated the Militant’s due process rights to notice and opportunity to be heard,” Goldstein wrote, “so that it can contest such specific allegations.”
The Militant is an “approved publication,” a Tennessee prison official wrote to the paper in 2022 after an impoundment of the paper in the prisons was reversed that year.
Prisoners at the Trousdale facility “have received the Militant for several years without interruption or rejection,” wrote Goldstein. “The Militant is delivered weekly to hundreds of inmate subscribers across the country without challenge. In those few instances where issues have been impounded, in one prison or another, the bans have always been challenged by the Militant, and the publisher has been overwhelmingly successful in having them reversed.”
Send letters urging authorities to reverse the bans in Florida to the Literature Review Committee, via email to Melvin.Herring@fdc.myflorida.com and Saritza.Legault@fdc.myflorida.com, with a copy to themilitant@mac.com.
In Tennessee, write to TN Department of Correction, Attn: L.R. Thomas, Assistant Commissioner Prison Operations, 320 Sixth Ave. North, 4th floor, Nashville, TN 37243.
Letters urging authorities to reverse the bans should be emailed to: Saritza.Legault@fdc.myflorida.com and Melvin.Herring@fdc.myflorida.com, with a copy to themilitant@mac.com.