Paper Title: Censorship in Public High Schools: The War For Our Children’s Minds
For centuries, parents have wrestled with the question of how to raise their children with the best moral and ethical standings. Along with this question come others such as, “What are the right morals?” Today’s parents are no different than they were in the past and the struggle continues. It’s tempting to try to protect children from the perceived evils in modern society. One such moral issue is the banning of books from high school libraries and sometimes even classrooms, which may represent some of those aforementioned perceived evils. As long as humans have sought to communicate, others have sought to keep them from doing so.
Every day, someone tries to restrict or control what can be said, written, sung, or broadcast through censorship. Almost every idea ever thought has proved offensive or worthy of objection to one person or another, and almost everyone has sometimes felt the world would be a better place if only certain things did not exist. Some people deem censorship a necessity, while others claim that these actions impose upon their First Amendment rights. Both sides have worthwhile viewpoints, but unfortunately, what the First Amendment stands for is lost in the shuffle – that each of us is free to decide for ourselves what to read and think.
No matter how convinced some may be of the rightness of their own views, they are not entitled to impose those views on others. We all have the right to attempt to convince others of our views, but that doesn’t imply a right to blindfold or silence others in the process. On the anti-censorship side sits the American Library Association, along with a number of other organizations. Part of this group’s attempt to further awareness of censorship takes place in the last week of September. This campaign is known as National Banned Book Week.
This is a weeklong event organized by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. The purpose of this event is to raise awareness about censorship and promote First Amendment Rights. The organizers showcase a list of books that have been banned in libraries and schools across America. They also express concern about the rise of censorship from what they consider to be ill-informed enemies of freedom and American democracy. This group includes conservatives, parents, and school officials.
However, many Americans have serious concerns about the radical libertarianism that the ALA represents. A majority of Americans do not agree with the idea that public libraries should purchase anything, regardless of how pornographic it may be. Similarly, they do not believe that schools should teach anything, no matter how controversial. Most Americans believe in community standards and insist that schools, libraries, and other social institutions should support those standards.
Even so, the real difficulty with the American Library Association’s Banned Book Week isn’t its philosophy. However, some people may question the ALA’s approach to building a library collection and managing a school’s curriculum. The real problem is the dishonesty involved. In my opinion, Banned Book Week isn’t really what it says it is. It isn’t a model for freedom of speech, but rather the ALA has gone in for some serious mislabeling here. It has misleadingly categorized the week – a serious charge when you remember that librarians are supposed to be accurate catalogers and labelers of things.
In all honesty, where do censorship and book banning really stand in America? Very few books in this country are currently banned. You can buy almost any title that you want, download a multitude of information from the Web, and check out all sorts of things at your public library. Nor is censorship dangerously on the rise, as the ALA would have you believe. The difference between what is true and what the promoters claim stems from their exaggerated notions of what constitutes censorship.
In the eyes of the ALA and its Office for Intellectual Freedom, any kind of challenge to a book may be considered an effort at banning. Any complaint about a title is called an attempt at unconscionable censorship. For a book to be labeled a banned book in their mind, someone needs only to question its place in a given library’s collection.
