Cohen Conversation: Classroom Censorship in New Hampshire

Cohen Conversation: Classroom Censorship in New Hampshire (featuring Gilles Bissonnette, ACLU of NH)

This Cohen Conversation will address classroom censorship both in New Hampshire and nationally. Our featured guest, Gilles Bissonnette, is part of a legal team challenging New Hampshire’s classroom censorship law that discourages public school teachers from teaching and talking about race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and gender identity in the classroom. In this case, he is representing educators Andres Mejia and Christina Kim Philibotte—both New Hampshire school administrators for diversity, equity, and inclusion—who argue that the vague law is an unconstitutional chill on educators’ voices that prevents students from having an open and complete dialogue about the perspectives of historically marginalized communities. This event is hosted by the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College in partnership with the ACLU of NH and the KSC Office of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Lunch will be provided to our in-person attendees.

This event will be offered both in-person and via livestream. Limited seating is available for our in-person audience; please emailcohencenter@keene.edu ASAP to reserve your spot. The hard deadline to register to attend in person is Sunday, February 11, 2024. If you would like to attend virtually, please email cohencenter@keene.edu ahead of time for the Zoom link.

About the speaker: Gilles Bissonnette is the Legal Director at the ACLU of New Hampshire, where he leads a team of three civil rights lawyers. He has litigated cases on racial justice, the criminalization of poverty, voting, police and government accountability, public records, the First Amendment, immigrants’ rights, and criminal justice issues. Gilles has testified before the New Hampshire legislature on over one hundred bills impacting civil liberties. He has authored approximately 30 op-eds and other publications discussing civil liberties and civil rights issues. He has been with the ACLU since 2013.

This event is part of the Cohen Center calendar.