News September 4, 2025

Shannon Moore Joins CFE Working Group on Schools and Intellectual Freedom

Shannon D. M. Moore, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba, is joining the Centre for Free Expression (CFE) Working Group on Schools and Intellectual Freedom.

“Shannon’s work both as an academic researcher and as a teacher in the public school system will be a valuable addition to the group which helps guide CFE’s work in defending and promoting intellectual freedom in schools.”

Prior to joining the Faculty of Education, Shannon taught social studies and English in the public school system in Vancouver. Drawing on her PhD research and K-12 teaching experience, Shannon teaches courses in media education, social studies education, social justice pedagogy, and research methodologies. Her research interests include: media literacies, the impacts of neoliberal and neoconservative reforms on public education, and consent education.

Shannon is the managing editor of the Manitoba Social Science Teachers' Association Journal. She is also the co-host of Public Good, a podcast about public education as a public good, and a founding member of People for Public Education. Recently, Shannon co-edited a special issue of Our Schools/Our Selves, Wrong, again: The political evolution of “parental rights.

The Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University is a hub for public education, research and advocacy on free expression and the public’s right to know. Its work is undertaken in collaboration with academic and community-based organizations across Canada and internationally.

Alberta’s Real Disgrace Is Not Banning Atwood & Huxley (Bad Though That Is): It Is Something Far Worse

Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides is responsible for arguably the largest ban of school library books in Canadian history. The first Alberta school board to apply his Ministerial Order has had to ban 226 of currently-held books from all its schools because they contained passages with “explicit sexual content” as defined by the Minister’s Order.

An Embarrassment to All Canadians

The Government of Alberta embarrassed itself and all Canadians when Education Minister Demetrios Nicholaides issued a directive in July to all Alberta school boards banning from all Alberta school libraries, both elementary and secondary, a wide array of books that met his definition of having any “sexually explicit content” or “non-sexually explicit content” whatsoever.

Alberta Returns to 17th Century Puritanism for Its School Libraries

17th Century puritanism has come back to life in the Alberta Government. Last week, its Minister of Education, Demetrios Nicolaides signed a Ministerial Order that is jaw-dropping. Concerned that some Alberta school libraries have books that are too sexually explicit, he decided to solve the problem.