Aggrieved: How Prisons Suppress Reading and Writing

About This Event

The First Amendment's right to freedom of expression is only enforceable if people have a way to challenge suppression of expression when it happens. While people outside of prison can challenge the government in a variety of ways, people inside prison can only do so in one way: filing an appeal. Appeals are internal to prison systems paperwork that fulfills the state’s obligation to provide a way for imprisoned people “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” as required by the First Amendment. But looking at the rate of appeals and the rate at which appeals overturn censorship decisions in prisons reveals this process is rubber stamping carceral censorship, rather than providing a valid method for challenging censorship. In this conversation, formerly incarcerated author Stevie Wilson and Dr. Moira Marquis, scholar of carceral censorship, will discuss the ways the appeals system functions to further the suppression of expression for people in prisons and jails.

Featured Guests

• Moira Marquis is Clinical Assistant Professor of Writing and Applied Humanities at New York University. She founded and directs Prison Banned Books Week, an annual campaign designed to raise awareness that prisons and jails are the largest censors in America. Her book, Thought Threats: Carceral Censorship in America, is being published by UNC Press in October 2027.
• Stevie Wilson is a formerly imprisoned Black queer abolitionist writer and organizer who resides in Philadelphia. Currently, he is a fellow with Critical Resistance and the fellowship coordinator for The Work and Us, a capacity building project that seeks to grow the skills and capacities of imprisoned people so they can be full partners and leaders in our social movements.

Co-sponsors

• Project Mend