CANCELED, CENSORED, BANNED

From city and state legislative efforts to control content in public libraries to local universities blocking conservative speakers on campus, “Canceled, Censored, Banned” picked apart our growing reluctance to tolerate divergent viewpoints and to silence voices we disagree with.

Kansas City PBS, the National WWI Museum and Memorial and American Public Square at Jewell partnered to offer this citizen engagement event featuring a wide-ranging panel of politicians, educators and thought leaders, including Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft; executive director – ACLU Kansas, Micah Kubic; business owner and longtime conservative political advisor, Sally Bradshaw; and author and journalist, Michael Ryan.

The “Canceled, Censored, Banned” discussion will be re-airing on KC PBS Channel 19.1 on April 7 at 7:30 p.m. as part of a special Week in Review episode.

This event was brought to you by KC PBS, the National WWI Museum and Memorial and American Public Square at Jewell.

KCPBS Re-broadcast of the Canceled, Censored, Banned Program:

Images from the program:

John R. “Jay” Ashcroft is Missouri’s 40th Secretary of State, elected in November 2016, and again in 2020. Each year Secretary Ashcroft makes it a priority to visit all 114 counties in the state to thank Missourians for their hard work and talk about ways to make Missouri better.

Secretary Ashcroft leads an office with more than 200 employees taking an active role in its administration. Divisions in his office include: administrative rules, business services, elections, publications, archives, securities and the state library.

As a lawyer, educator and engineer, Secretary Ashcroft works to strengthen Missouri making it an even better state to live, work and raise a family.

Prior to being elected, Secretary Ashcroft worked as an engineer, professor and attorney. Ashcroft attended Missouri University of Science and Technology (Rolla) where he earned degrees in engineering management. After graduating he moved to West Plains, Missouri, to work for a defense-based engineering company where he managed an outstanding team of individuals who worked to develop instruments used in vehicles for the Air Force.  In 2000, Ashcroft moved to St. Louis and began teaching engineering and technology courses for Saint Louis Community College. After a decade devoted to engineering, Ashcroft sought to bring his technical experience into the practice of law. He graduated from St. Louis University Law School in 2008.

Jay and his wife Katie have four children and reside in Jefferson City.

Sally Bradshaw is the owner and operator of Midtown Reader, an independent bookstore in Tallahassee, Florida.  Bradshaw opened Midtown Reader in November of 2016 to provide wide ranging content and programming that improves civil discourse in Florida’s state capital.  The opening of Midtown Reader was the realization of a dream for Bradshaw, who spent many happy hours as a child and young adult in her neighborhood bookstore in Greenville, Mississippi.

Bradshaw served two terms as a member of the Florida State Board of Education and as school board chairman for Holy Comforter Episcopal School.  She is currently serving on the Maclay School Board of Trustees. Bradshaw also serves on the Board of Trustees for Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, is a member of the WFSU (public broadcasting) Community Council, and serves on the Board of Directors for United Way of the Big Bend.  Sally has been named one of the “25 Women You Need to Know” by the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper.

Bradshaw has an extensive career in the political arena that has spanned three decades.  Bradshaw served as senior advisor to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign.  Bradshaw also served as Chief of Staff to Governor Bush during his tenure as Governor and managed two of Bush’s three runs for Governor.

She has previously served as Transition Director and senior advisor to Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford, served as a board member for Americans for a Conservative Direction, co-chaired the RNC’s “Growth and Opportunity Project”, providing an assessment and review of the 2012 election cycle to GOP leaders, and worked as an advisor to Governor Haley Barbour, Mitt Romney, the Republican Party of Florida, and the Minority Office in the Florida House of Representatives. She worked in both the 1992 and 1988 Presidential campaigns of George H. W Bush.  Following the President’s election, she worked in the White House as an Associate Director of Political Affairs.

Bradshaw attends Faith Presbyterian Church where she has served as both a Deacon and an Elder.  Bradshaw resides in Havana, Florida with her husband and their four children.

Michael F. Ryan is a career journalist, speaker and author of the internationally published “The Last Freedom”, a novel on legendary Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl.

A native of Kansas City, Michael was a reporter and editorial page editor at the Topeka Capital-Journal, editorial page editor of The Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle, and opinion editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram before becoming the lone conservative opinion writer at his hometown newspaper, The Kansas City Star, in June 2019. He has been named best editorial writer in Kansas, Georgia and Texas.

In February 2022, Michael left The Star to become executive editor at The Lion, a national online education news site of the Herzog Foundation in Smithville, Missouri, which exists to advance the cause of Christian education. He also is executive editor of the secular news site HeartlanderNews.com.

Michael has been a frequent speaker, and guest on radio and television programs, and was privileged to address an international conference in Vienna on the life and teachings of Dr. Frankl.

Michael has an incredible wife, Susan, and they have two grown children: Kevin, who lives in Georgia, and Amanda, who lives in Springfield, Missouri.

Dr. Micah W. Kubic has served as the Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas since January 2022. With more than twenty years of experience in civil rights and racial justice work, Micah leads one of the largest advocacy organizations in the state, defending and strengthening the rights that belong to everyone under the Constitution. Micah previously served as the ACLU of Kansas’s executive director from 2015 to 2018. From 2019 to 2022, Micah was the executive director of the ACLU of Florida, one of the largest ACLU affiliates in the country.

Prior to joining the staff of the ACLU, Micah was the Director of Planning, Development, and Evaluation at the Full Employment Council. Micah led the planning, research, evaluation, government compliance, program design, resource development, and community engagement activities of this $17 million Kansas City area workforce development agency. Micah previously served as a Senior Program Officer at Greater Kansas City Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), where he worked directly with six urban core neighborhoods to improve their quality of life. Micah has worked as legislative director for a Kansas City councilman, an analyst of education policy at the American Federation of Teachers, an analyst of housing policies at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and as a political consultant.

Micah holds bachelors’ degrees from the George Washington University, as well as a master’s degree and a doctorate in Black Politics from Howard University.

His first book, Freedom, Inc. and Black Political Empowerment, was published by the University of Missouri Press in 2016.

Nick Haines, KCPBS News Host, has led Kansas City PBS’ public affairs division for the past 20+ years. He has earned three regional Emmy Awards, most recently for his coverage of mental health issues. He is best known as the host of the weekly primetime public affairs program, “Kansas City Week in Review.”

Nick is a former BBC radio news reporter. He was born and raised in Port Talbot, a South Wales steel town that also produced actors Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins. Prior to joining KCPBS, Nick served as news director for KANU, the NPR affiliate in Lawrence, Kansas, and was Statehouse Bureau Chief for Kansas Public Radio in Topeka.

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