Columbia High School Case Brief Summary

The Catcher in the Rye. The Scarlet Letter. Huckleberry Finn. Harry Potter. The Diary of Anne Frank. Animal Farm. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Da Vinci Code. The Grapes of Wrath. These literary classics have been vital to the education of many, especially children and adolescents (Banned Books). These great novels both teach important values and educate children about world affairs and classic themes. Unfortunately, each of these novels has been banned at one point in time. In a country where freedom is so adamantly advocated, it is a wonder that an issue like censorship would even come up, that such a controversy would sink its claws into the minds of states’ boards of education across the nation.

Issues of censorship in public schools are contests between the exercise of discretion and the exercise of a Constitutional right. The law

Brenyo, M. (2011). [Censored]: Book banning in the US education system. Journal of Law & Education, 40(3), 541–549.

All around the world, certain books are being banned or challenged in school districts often because the material is considered sexually explicit, unsuited for the age group, or includes offensive language or actions.

According to the American Library Association, the most common group of people, challenging a book being read in schools, was the parents of the students. Parents have a right to be in charge of what is put into the minds of their students, however just because one parent objects does not mean that the whole school should ban the book from the list. A solution for this book would be to enforce parental consent for books to be read in the classroom. If a parent does not want a book to be read in the classroom, then there should be other options for the student to read. The school and teacher should not trespass on a parent’s rights of raising their child. I believe that if a parent has a concern, they should go and discuss the problem with the teacher so that the teacher will be able to defend their reasoning for choosing the book to be read in the classroom.

Censors typically feel as though the subject material of controversial books in the high school English curriculum is too much for teenagers to handle (Shen, 2002).

In one particular instance, a bill was passed in Tennessee stating that teachers cannot encourage “gateway sexual activity” (Nazaryan). This bill resulted in Sumner County officials banning Looking for Alaska from the curriculums of all schools due to the book’s single, brief oral sex scene. The Tennessean covered the news of the ban in their newspaper and quoted parents who agreed with the ban, stating that the school board was right in banning the book from the young and impressionable minds of children, who could possibly be so influenced by this blip of a scene in a book, that they might go and immediately engage in the same, or worse, sexual behavior. The newspaper, did however point out that there were alternate ways to address concerns regarding the book, such as offering alternate books to students whose parents were against it. John Green’s YouTube channel, “vlogbrothers”, features a video, “I Am Not A Pornographer”. In it, Green, referring to the ban, states that “there is one frank sex scene. It is awkward, unfun, and wholly unerotic.” (Green). Green goes on to say that the only reason for the existence of that scene is show a contrast between a very physical scene that contains no emotional intimacy and a very non-physical scene that is full of emotion. In another video, “On the Banning of Looking for Alaska”, Green says “text is meaningless without context” (Green) . Green is speaking to his opinion that books are banned most of the time because a parent decides to show a school principal or administrator a single excerpt or page of a book. Without proper context, that excerpt or page can appear to represent a very inappropriate book. Alternatively, if a reader were to assess a book in its entirety, while keeping an opening mind, they could glean important and valuable lessons from

Many schools are taking books out of their curriculum because of the harsh and uncomfortable language and topics. The Biloxi School District had taken To Kill A Mockingbird out of their classrooms and Drake High School had even burned all copies of Slaughterhouse -Five. It is wrong that schools began taking books like that from their lesson plan because students should not be oblivious to these kinds of topics and it is sending the wrong message about the authors and their books.

The school board has made these decisions themselves (about banning books), because it is the schools library and should only have books that are approrpriate and have the proper material inside.

Banning or challenging books is an occurrence that has been taking place for years in America’s school systems, but often parents and teachers are not in agreement concerning censorship. The National Council of Teachers of English position statement is “We can safely make two statements about censorship: first, any work is potentially open to attack by someone, somewhere, sometime, for some reason; second, censorship is often arbitrary and irrational.” One such challenged book is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, which was “banned from an eighth-grade classroom in Arizona due to profanity, sexual content, and rape theme” (Lesesne and Chance 48). Even though it presents difficult topics, Speak could be a benefit to students in a

I believe the court made the right decision. It is the school’s job to incorporate books of good moral value in their curriculum, but when the issue is optional books, such as library books, the Board of Education should back out. Many books include swear words or racial phrases in order to portray the time or setting of the book. Some books have offensive words or phrases without reason, but it should be up to the student to decide whether to put the book down or to keep reading. I think the solution to this problem would be rating books as movies are rated. The rating would be put on the book as a warning, but the students

At 14:32 Haring was arrested for OWI and fleeing the scene of an accident. He was taken away for booking and a Data Master Breathalyzer test.

School boards, principals, and teachers have a responsibility for protecting the minds of their students by covering grade and age appropriate material in the classroom. However, does this given responsibility cover the act of banning books from their classrooms? As an advocate for each student, does the teacher not have a duty to introduce the students to a these words issues in order to help the student cope with the different problems in the world? How does a school decide which books should be banned and how much say does the teacher have what should be left up to the teacher? Some say that banning books from the classroom, we prevent them from learning about different controversial topics in a safe and secure environment. In this paper I reflect on my research question: Why do schools ban books in the classroom?

As I sided with the students in the case of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, I represent the minority opinion. While proponents of the school district’s decision would say that since the newspaper is being published by the school and the school is paying for it, the school should be able to dictate what can and cannot be put into the paper. By those same guidelines, the owner of any newspaper should be able to cut content from his newspaper simply because he did not like what it said. While it makes sense for the school board to cut the content that contained remarks about one student’s parents without their permission (as this may actually have been illegal), the section on teen pregnancy should not have been an issue. While younger students may indeed have read it, that would not have been an issue, as they have probably already heard about these things anyway. The main problem I have with this

Education is very important this day and age, especially in our society and culture. However many textbooks that are being used in American history classes are being reconstructed or rejected. These materials range from that of which local communities, state school boards, teachers and parents have decided is inappropriate for children to be learning, such as nudity, or teaching subjects that some may find objectionable, for instance evolution versus creationism. However censorship, the reconstruction, and rejection of course material in American schools, tend to be more prevalent in social, political and religious issues, with many materials