Free Speech Week

October 20-26, 2014

Free Speech Week is an annual, non-partisan national event that seeks to raise awareness of freedom of speech in the United States, and gives organizations and individuals an opportunity to celebrate that freedom. Free Speech Week was created in 2005 by The Media Institute and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation and takes place during the third week of October every year.

 

Directors Guild of America National Executive Director Jay D. Roth is a member of the Free Speech Week Advisory Council. (Click here for press release)

 

To learn more about Free Speech Week and find out how you can participate, please visit www.freespeechweek.org.

 

The Directors Guild of America has a long history of protecting and vigorously defending the right to free speech. A sample of the DGA’s public statements, magazine articles and National Board actions is below:

 

DGA Quarterly Spring 2011 Loyalty Oath

DGA Quarterly, Spring 2011

A Guild Divided

How a fractured Guild battled over a loyalty oath 60 years ago—and ultimately came together.

  
Iranian Filmmakers Support

Entertainment Industry Organizations Unite in Support of Imprisoned Iranian Filmmakers

DGA joins AMPAS, ACE, ASC, IDA, PGA, SAG, WGAE and WGAW in support of the rights of imprisoned Iranian filmmakers and call for their immediate release.

  

Statement by DGA President Taylor Hackford in Support of Filmmaker Joe Berlinger

The DGA, in support of filmmaker Joe Berlinger and the First Amendment, objects to a judge's decision that Berlinger must turn over 600 hours of raw footage from his documentary Crude: The Real Price of Oil to Chevron.

  
Capitol

DGA Joins ACLU, Creative Arts, Media and Free Speech Groups In Urging Supreme Court to Reject FCC Censorship

The DGA was one of several organizations that joined the ACLU's brief criticizing the FCC regulation of "indecent speech" as arbitrary, inconsistent and irreconcilable with core First Amendment values.

  

Guilds Respond to Appeals Court Ruling on FCC Indecency Fines

The AFTRA, DGA, SAG, WGAE and WGAW jointly responded to an Appeals Court decision overturning a new FCC policy on decency standards.

  

DGA Urges Court to Overturn FCC Indecency Rulings

The DGA, SAG, and WGA argued in a legal brief filed that new standards adopted by the FCC to censor “indecency” in TV, film, and radio are overly vague and unconstitutional.

 


Statement of Principle adopted by unanimous vote of the DGA’s National Board of Directors in Los Angeles on February 2, 1974:

The impact of Supreme Court decisions and the threat of restrictive legislation in many state legislatures may deeply affect all creative people. As members of the Directors Guild of America we cannot countenance any encroachment upon our creative rights – be it legislative or judicial.

Little creativity can emerge if Directors are required to run the gauntlet of standards erected by self-appointed guardians of public morality in every local community or in every state in the country.

We believe in the First Amendment.

We believe in freedom of speech.

We believe in the right to hold any view – and express it.

We believe in the right of all mature people to choose freely what they will read, hear or see.

As citizens and artists we will speak out to retain our heritage of freedom.

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