Awards

NCTE National Intellectual Freedom Award

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2024 Recipient: Henry “Cody” Miller

SUNY Brockport

Henry “Cody” Miller is an associate professor of English education at SUNY Brockport. He previously taught high school English at P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School in Gainesville, Florida.

During his seven years as a high school English teacher and in his current role, he has positioned texts as vehicles to discuss broader sociopolitical issues in students’ lives and worlds. Cody believes public education is vital in fostering a healthy, pluralistic democracy.

Cody has been a member of NCTE since 2013. He has served as the chair of NCTE’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee and the Nominating Committee in the past. He was awarded NCTE’s LGBTQIA+ Advocacy & Leadership Award in 2022. Miller is currently the editor of English Leadership Quarterly, and serves as a member of the New York State English Council’s executive board.

Teachers do the vital work of building the future with young people one day and one class at a time. The last four years have taught us that our teachers need more support, more love, more protections, and more resources. We’re witnessing a wave of attacks on teachers and intellectual freedom. We’re also witnessing resistance to those attacks. We’re seeing advocates for public education and the freedom to read win across the country.

We need everyone — educators, community members, families, and students — to advocate, organize, and vote for our teachers and schools. The work of literacy educators is powerful and transformative. There wouldn’t be a movement to ban our work if it wasn’t.

2024 Honorable Mention: Honesty for Ohio Education, cofounded by Lisa Vahey

Award Details

Established in 1997 by NCTE and SLATE—Support for the Learning and Teaching of English—this award is given to individuals, groups, or institutions that merit recognition for advancing the cause of intellectual freedom. A subcommittee of the NCTE Committee Against Censorship selects the recipient(s).

PURPOSE
The purpose of the NCTE National Intellectual Freedom Award is to honor individuals, groups, or institutions that merit recognition for advancing the cause of intellectual freedom. Award categories are (1) a national award and (2) an NCTE affiliate-based award.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE
Any member of the National Council of Teachers of English may make a nomination for the national award by following the specifications below.

FREQUENCY/NUMBER OF AWARDS
One national award will be given each year, with up to two honorable mentions.

AWARD SPECIFICS
The national award winner will receive a plaque from NCTE; honorable mention winners will receive certificates. Awardees will be acknowledged at the NCTE Annual Convention during the NCTE Awards Session on Saturday. The winner will receive complimentary Convention registration and will be mentioned in appropriate Council publications.

AWARD CRITERIA AND JUDGING
The eligibility criteria for the national NCTE Intellectual Freedom Award are as follows:

• the awardee has shown courage in advancing the cause of intellectual freedom or fighting censorship;
• the awardee can be an educator or noneducator;
• the awardee can be an individual, group, or institution;
• the awardee’s activity can be related to particular recent events (e.g., as in a censorship dispute) or it can be ongoing (e.g., as in leadership demonstrated over a period of years);
• the same awardee may not be named for two years in succession.

The procedural rules for the NCTE National Intellectual Freedom Awards are as follows: description of the activities or events that merited the award must be submitted by May 1. Please fill out the Intellectual Freedom Award nomination form provided, and include concise documentation and/or testimony of not less than one single-spaced page and not more than three double-spaced pages and three pages of attachments. This documentation can be uploaded in the form or emailed to NCTEAwards@ncte.org.

EXAMPLES

• a nationally syndicated columnist who has taken a stand for intellectual freedom
• an organization that has been active in censorship cases
• a legislator who has opposed censorship legislation
• an author or film producer whose work focused on intellectual freedom

Judges for the national NCTE Intellectual Freedom Award will be members of the Committee Against Censorship.

The permission of the potential awardee must be obtained in advance by the nominator. This specification acknowledges that many who act in defense of intellectual freedom remain under continued scrutiny and pressure. They sometimes choose to avoid public notice which, however supportive, places them under further duress.

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Application Deadline: May 1

Please contact NCTEAwards@ncte.org with any questions.