Censorship In Public Schools Essay Research Paper

Censorship In Public Schools Essay, Research Paper

Censorship in Public Schools

-A principal in a California high shcool bans five books written by Richard Brautigan because he thinks they might contain “obscenities or offensive sexual references” (Berger 59).

-A Vermont high school librarian is orced to resign because she fought the school board’s decision to remove Richard Price’s The Wanderers, and to “restrict” the use of Stephen King’s Carrie and Patrick Mann’s Dog Day Afternoon (Jones 33).

-An Indiana school board takes action that leads to the burning of many copies of a textbook that deals with drugs and the sexual behavior of teenagers (Berger 61).

These cases of censorship in public shools are not unusual and there is evidence that such challenges are increasing (Woods 2). These challenges are actually typical o the ones being leveled against school libraries today. These challenges can come from one person or a group concerned with the suitability of the material in question. In almost every case, the efort to ban books is said to be “justified by fesr of the harmful effects that the books may haave on young children” (Berger 59). The result of therse censorship attempts has been two opposing sides: one side believes that “more suitable materials can usually be found from among the wealth of materials available on most subjects (Woods 1). In the simplest terms, the debate is between censorship and the freedom to read.

The most important question when discussing censorship deals with its constitutionality; does censorship violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. Censorship advocates actually use the words of the First Amendment to make their point; “the amendment reads, ‘Congress shall make no law…”, it does not say, “There shall be no law…” (Berger 69). They believe that, although the federal government is forbidden to censor, it is not unconstitutional for states and local communities to pass censorship laws (Berger 69). Also, since the US Supreme Court does not believe the First Amendment protects all froms of expression (child pornography, etc.), then proponents of censorship believe taht coensorship laws are constitutional (Berger 69). Anti-censorship has the upper-hand, constitutionally, at least, since “judges, from local courts to the Supreme Court, seem firmly on the anti-censorship side” (Berger 61). The courts have time and again ruled taht the Constitution prohibits Congress from censorship from censorship of any form.

These two opposing sides have butted heads again and again leaaving behind landmark cases for future legal actions. One of the most famous of thos ecases was Pico vs. Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26, which was the first school library censorship case to reach the Supreme Court (Jones 35). In March 1976, the Island Trees School Board in New York removed eleven books that they deemed “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy” (Berger 59) from the high school librarys helves. Among these books were Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, A hero Ain’t Nothing but a Sandwich by Alice Childress, and Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver (Jones 37). The board felt that it had “a moral obligationto protect the children in our schools from this moral danger” (Berger 60). Five students then sued the school board on grounds that their decision violated thir First Amendment rights. The suit was passed around the courts until June 1982 when the Supreme Court took up the cause and ruled that the school board would have to deend its removal of the books. The Supreme Court decided that since the library is used voluntarily, they can choose books ther freely and that, as Justice Brennan stated, “the First Amendment rights of students may be directly and sharply implicated by the removal of books from the shelves of a school library (Jones 45). The Supreme Court’s decision was that “courts may act out of concern for the First Amendment rights of those affected by school officials’ action” (Jones 45). On August 12, 1982, the school board voted to put the books back on the shelves; (special note: the librarian was told to inform the paarents of students who cheked out those books) (Berger 60).

The advocates of school library book censorship believe that adults must have control over what children read. They feel that unless responsible adults oversee what strdents are reading, students will be exposed to the wors in literature. this literature can go from simply causing ofense, to “resulting in emotional damage adn even leading to anti-social behavior” (Berger 61). Their beliefs lead them to pull the offending books from the shelves so that young readers are protected, as was the casse in Pico and as was the case when “Robin Hood was considered communistic, Tarzan wasl iving with Jane without benefit of clergy, and Huckleberry Finn was a racist” (Woods 13). Each time they use words like controversial, filthy, immoral, lascivious, lewd, obscene, sacrilegious, and violent, they are actually using only one word, censorship.

The anti-censorship group believes taht students have the same constitutional freedoms as everyone else, including the right to read whatever they want. They feel that it is only in this way “that children can develop the taste and understanding to distinguish between trash asn serious literature” (Berger