Read No Evil: Censorship in American Schools
“Censorship is like telling a man he can’t have a steak
just because a baby can’t chew it.” This quote by Robert
A. Heinlein, an American author of over 59 stories, perfectly illustrates the
very essence of censorship itself. When a society deems that something is unfit
for some, it censors it from all. This blatant eradication of the First
Amendment is specifically seen in American schools today.
Censorship not only
personally affects students’ growth, but it is legally objectionable. Countless
court cases regarding schools and censorship have arisen throughout the years,
dealing with the elusive First Amendment Rights student so rarely receive. The
law guarantees free speech yet somehow, schools and their students are exempt
from the blanket of protection it offers. Instead of learning institutions
shielding Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, and countless
other classics that have become an integral part of literature, they are the
forces that drive the attacks.
Censorship in schools should be ended because is it stifles
student’s creativity, restricts teachers, and limits perspectives. Censorship
should not be tolerated under any circumstance, especially in a place that claims
to open young minds. By blocking topics, you only block understanding, and
without understanding, people can never truly grow wiser or come to accept each
other.
Some people may claim that students are too young to be able
to decide what they should read. However, this goes against the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines decision, where students should not
"shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at
the schoolhouse gate." (Ray) Another argument is that teachers have
the right to limit what the students can and cannot read. This has been refuted
by the Supreme Court when it was determined that
students had the right not to be coerced by school administrators to doing
something they disagreed with. (‘Rights’)
Students cannot be creative in an environment that is
constantly restricting their work and putting limits on what can be made. One
high school student in Pennsylvania wrote an article for her school paper, and
it was not allowed to be printed. The controversial subject? Ironically,
censorship in high schools. (Courogen) Sadly, this is not just one isolated
incident; cases like this are happing in high schools everywhere. The First
Amendment Center, a group dedicated to preserving free speech, states ‘Students
have been suspended for writing short stories, poems, and artwork that school
officials have deemed dangerous.’ (Artistic
Expression) Even students as young as the first grade are having their
rights questioned, and ultimately, taken away.
One first grader
wrote a poem honoring her grandfather’s service in the Vietnam War, where she
included the line “He prayed to God for peace, he prayed to God for strength.”
(‘WNP’) This seemingly innocent line ignited a fiery debate between whether the
school board should allow the young girl to recite it or not. The second grader
lost the battle and the right to recite her piece. By not allowing the poem
because of the word ‘God’, the school loses a voice filled with individual
thoughts and ideas.
Creativity is not only brutally slaughtered on the
student’s side, but it restricts teachers as well. Jane Agee, associate professor of Language in
Education at the University at Albany, states, “One teacher had to decide if
texts were ‘worth going for.’” (Agee) This quote shows that even if teachers
may be indirectly placing the censors; they are still affected by it. If a
teacher is put in the position to decide whether a book is worth the effort or
risk, it obviously means that restrictions have been put on their own
creativity in terms of teaching.
In another case, a school was to perform a play written
about the war in Iraq. Paul Rieckhoff, journalist for the Huffington post,
reports, “The school principal Timothy H. Canty feared the script's political
implications and chose to shut the play down before it was ever performed.”
(Rieckhoff) This example of a play being shut down is the epitome of creativity
being strangled by the noose of censorship. Performing a show is no small feat,
which takes and an immense amount of effort and collaboration from both
students and faculty, and to have the play shut down is an insult to everyone
that worked on it. In one fell swoop, an entire school lost expression and
creativity.
Censorship also limits perspective by
censoring what books student can and cannot read, and also what they can and
cannot write. The American Library Association, the
oldest and largest library association in the world, reports that this
year alone, U.S. schools have banned more than 20 books and faced more than 50
other challenges. (Diamond)
By banning over 20 books students lose
so much perspective and are missing out on what is censored. The National Guild
of English Teachers, a group founded on uniting American English teachers, states
“…To deny the freedom of choice in fear that it may be unwisely used is to
destroy the freedom itself.” (‘Censorship’) This statement is very powerful as
it expresses how crucial the right to read is. It also goes on to tell how by
denying students the freedom, is to take it away. By not allowing students to
read, that is exactly what schools are doing.
An example of losing a unique
perspective can be found in Krystal Meyers, a student at Lenoir City High
School in Tennessee, who had her editorial in her school paper removed because
it was about atheism. (Judge) This case
shows how original thinking and uniqueness is being stifled at school. Her
article was not specifically targeting, offending, or hurting anyone with opposite
beliefs of hers; she was only looking to express her feelings on a cause near
to her. If teachers and schools limit what students write about they are taking
their freedom to original thoughts away and also, depriving the rest of the
student body from gaining perspective on unpopular or controversially subjects.
In conclusion, censorship is a plague
that must be stopped because it stifles student's creativity, restricts teachers,
and limits perspectives. William Douglas, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States for 36 years, said
“Restrictions of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all
subversion. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” Despite warnings of censorship causing our own
demise, as stated in the previous quote, Americans, as they stand at the
crossroad between free speech and censorship, struggle with that choice. By releasing schools from the shackles of
censorship that weigh it down, America can truly learn what freedom is.
