Judge Rules Termination of NEH Grants Was Unconstitutional
In a lengthy, detailed and often incredulous 143-page opinion, District Court Judge Colleen McMahon found in summary judgement that the mass termination of over 1,400 National Endowment for the Humanities grants in April 2025 by DOGE “was unlawful because it was undertaken in violation of the First Amendment, in violation of the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment, and without statutory authority.” Additionally, “DOGE officials lacked statutory authority to identify, select, or direct the termination of NEH grants” and “the resulting terminations were ultra vires [Latin for beyond the powers].” The two cases were brought by the Authors Guild […]
Mac Barnett Responds To Backlash
Children’s author and National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Mac Barnett has responded to the online controversy caused by an excerpt from his recently published book for adults Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children. He writes in the book, “I have a nagging fear that children’s literature suffers from a slightly higher crud percentage than literature as a whole…maybe more like 94.7 percent of kids’ books are crud.” Since the book was published on Tuesday, authors and readers in the kidlit community have compared him to pro-book banning organizations and called for him to resign from his ambassadorship. Author […]
Harper Gains in the Quarter
News Corp. reported earnings for their third quarter ended March 31, with sales at Harper Collins up 8 percent ($41 million) to $555 million, a new record for the quarter. Results were “driven by higher physical and digital book sales led by Rachel Reid’s Game Changers,” and helped by a $6 million gain from recent acquisitions and $12 million from currency exchange. (Adjusted sales were therefore up 4 percent.) EBITDA rose 14 percent to $73 million due (up $9 million). Increased ebook sales led to a 2 percent increase in digital sales. The company reports that digital made up 26 […]
Protecting IP at the AAP Annual Meeting
The Association of American Publishers’ annual meeting on Thursday honored two 2026 anniversaries: the founding of the United States 250 years ago and the passing of the Copyright Act in 1976. At the heart of both, speakers said, is the importance of protecting human expression. At the top of the meeting, AAP ceo Maria Pallante discussed the ongoing litigation related to using pirated books for AI training. Today, the AAP filed a motion for default judgment in their case against pirate site Anna’s Archive, since the site has not responded to the suit. “If the judge grants our motion, we […]
New PEN Book Ban Report Shows Increase in Removals for Nonfiction, POC, and LGBTQ+ Books
Book bans for nonfiction books more than doubled in 2024-2025, according to a new report from PEN America, while removals of books about people of color and LGBTQ+ identities also grew. PEN analyzed 3,734 titles that were removed from schools between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025. The organization found 6,780 instances of book removals from 23 states. While fiction still dominates book bans, the ratio of fiction to nonfiction changed markedly from the previous year. From 2023–2024, 85 percent of banned books were fiction and 14 percent were nonfiction; last year, the fiction percentage fell to 69 percent […]