Read No Evil: Censorship in High Schools

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.