Essays on Censorship, Slides of Technical English

Download Essays on Censorship and more Slides Technical English in PDF only on Docsity! Originally from The Phyllis Schlafly Report, February 1983. Taken from Censorship: Opposing Viewpoints (Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1990). Reprinted by permission of the author and Greenhaven Press, Inc. All those who spend taxpayers’ money are accountable to the public. (The “public” includes citizens, parents, private groups, and the media.) The public has a right to exercise its right of free speech on how taxpayers’ funds are spent and on what standards, to second-guess the judgment of the persons doing the spending, and to remove from office those responsible for any misuse of tax funds. Public supervision and criticism may be annoying, but they must be endured by all those spending tax funds, whether they be Presidents, Congressmen, bureaucrats, military, teachers, librarians, or others. Since parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their own children, schools should have a decent respect for the parents’ beliefs and attitudes. Schools should make every possible effort to avoid offending the religious, ethical, cultural or ethnic values of school children and their parents. Since presumably all educators would agree that [profanity] is not suitable reading for school children, it is clear that the issue over any particular book is one of appropriateness (which is a value judgment), not the First Amendment or “academic freedom.” Make Requirements Flexible Since thousands of good books and hundreds of important, educational books are easily available, and since a child can read only a small number of books prior to high school graduation, it is highly unreasonable and intolerant for a school or teacher to force a child to read a particular book as a precondition to graduation or to passing a course. When a book selected as course material or supplementary reading offends the religious, ethical, cultural or ethnic values of a child of is parents, an alternate book should be assigned or recommended which does not so offend. This substitution should be made without embarrassing the child. This same respect for parental values and the assignment of alternate books should apply when the question is raised as to the assignment of a book at a particular grade level. Many books are appropriate in the upper grades which are not at all appropriate for younger children. Parental decisions about the maturity of their own children should be respected by the schools without embarrassing the child. Public libraries should adhere to a standard like the Fairness Doctrine which governs television and radio broadcasters; i.e., they have the obligation to seek out and make available books on all sides of controversial issues of public importance. For example, libraries should present a balanced selection of book titles on sensitive current issues such as the morality or nuclear war, women’s liberation, basic education, evolution/creationism, Reaganomics, and the Equal Rights Amendment. … No library buys every book published. Every day in the week, librarians, teachers and school administrators are making decisions to select some books for library shelves and school classrooms while Essays on Censorship 1. Libraries Should Reflect Majority Values Phyllis Schlafly