The Results of Student Censorship

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

Many censorship occurs in schools today. As many are for the censoring of material, many are also against it. Behind each stand, are different opinions and reasons? The reasons to be against

In todayś society we face many objections, as to how things are and how it will effect others. Essentially, we can see censorship and other objections occuring more often throughtout our history. Movies, books, Plays, etc. are currently and continuously being revised and looked over for the reason of censorships that happen throughout the school in thus nation. This comenly is occuring more throughtout schools. As parents, and teachers don´t want to obeject there kids or students to things that ¨need¨ or should be censored; such as bad language, vulgur meanings/saying and more often sex and drugs. Which under many advisments could be a nessesarry thing. Overall I do not agree to the censorship in school to an extent.

Censorship cases often bring about debates over students’ first amendment rights. Students’ first amendment rights are important to preserve so that students can not be excluded from meaningful works or literature. It is understandable for the government to design educational plans as a way to get its voice into classrooms, but “the truth-promoting function of the First Amendment provides no reason, however, to question the right of students to explore a variety of ideas and perspectives, and to form and express ideas of their own” (Brown, 1994, p. 30). Schools already place a restriction on religious material or material addressing current political controversy (Brown, 1994).

Citizens in America are born with a various amount of rights. One of these rights include the freedom of speech and expression. However, school administrators have the ability to restrict a student’s expression. The Supreme Court Cases ‘Bethel School District v. Fraser’ and ‘Frederick V. Morse’ gave schools the right for the administrators to discipline children when they see fit. Students should be able to express themselves in any way without fearing that their school administrators will discipline

Knowledge is power. Using knowledge, people can reshape society and the world as a whole, changing it for the better. However, gaining access to the necessary wealth of information requires a full education: people should be taught multiple ideologies and topics from an unbiased perspective. They must receive access to various viewpoints in their entirety. Teaching only one worldview strips students of their ability to truly analyze the world and its issues, because they cannot look beyond the one restrictive narrative they learned and therefore cannot develop their own perspective. Censorship hinders schools, institutions with the purpose of informing students and helping them develop their beliefs. Therefore, schools should not practice censorship when selecting literature for students because censorship obscures the purpose of literature, because censorship fails to expose students to a variety of ideas, and because censorship removes students’ ability to develop unique opinions and worldviews; education should provide an unbiased view of the world and many ideologies, so students can take their own stance on various issues rather than blindly following what they learn.

Censorship has happened everywhere and happens everyday especially inside schools. In city schools there have been conflicts over what students should or should not learn. Censors decide that they should protect students from materials and activities that are upsetting and issue the wrong ideas. These ideas are said to "weaken parental authority, challenge students political moral, or religious views, or brainwash them into other ways of thinking (Sherrow10)." By protecting them they mean targeting academics. Courses that deal with drug prevention, sex education, development of character, or clarification of

‘’Students in school as well as out of school are persons under our constitution. Students do not give up the freedom of speech when they go to school. Justice Fortas said this means schools can interfere with free speech only when it is necessary to prevent actual disruptions. The evidence showed that the students had not caused any disruptions. Instead, they had made a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War. The schools stopped them because other students might not like a protest, but the freedom of speech protects the right to say things other people might not like to

Censorship has happened everywhere and happens everyday especially inside schools. In city schools there have been conflicts over what students should or should not learn. Censors decide that they should protect students from materials and activities that are upsetting and issue the wrong ideas. These ideas are said to "weaken parental authority; challenge students political moral, or religious views; or brainwash them into other ways of thinking (Sherrow10)." By protecting them they mean targeting academics. Courses that deal with drug prevention, sex education, development of character, or

Young journalists in schools around America feel like they are being denied their first amendment. In Ocean Lake high school 2 out of 5 school papers aren't published. Censorship issues have been going on for years. The "Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier" Supreme Court case, in 1988, states that students cannot be censored by student officials if they have established the paper as a public forum(Innterobang/2007/3). Two of the articles were about teen pregnancy in, which he interviewed some, and Parent divorce. The articles were thrown out because there was no time to edit it, in which lead to the students claiming their first amendment was violated. If the paper receives any funding from the school, the school can have special guide lines the paper has to follow. Some of the rules are understandable like promoting drugs, hate articles, and much more shouldn't be in a school paper.

“The Diary of Anne Frank”, “The Catcher and the Rye” and “Gone With The Wind” are examples of some famous books that have been made unavailable to students in public schools. These books, along with many others have culturally shaped America. Future students will now grow up without the knowledge these books have given past generations. This is due to censorship. According to Vocabulary.com “To censor is to review something and to choose to remove or hide parts of it that are considered unacceptable.” In public schools censorship is a big problem. The schools district will take a book out of students education because the books themes does not fit in with their ideals. Other times, a parent will complain because a book is being taught that does not support their religious beliefs. Public Schools should not censor literature based on intolerance for other viewpoints, because it disadvantages students education by not exposing them to world issues.

In a perfect world, student publications wouldn’t be censored, but as many people know, the world is far from perfect. Censorship is an unfortunate reality for many student publications across the nation and although it is perfectly legal for them to be censored, many advisors and publications staff members are unhappy.

In the December of 1965, Beth Tinker was suspended from school because she wore a black armband to support a truce in the Vietnam War. This was an injustice and a violation to her Constitutional rights as an American citizen. As stated by Bradley Steffens, “The First Amendment means what it says: Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. Censorship is unconstitutional.” This describes how students should have the freedom to say what they would like to say, as abridgement of speech by the government, or government backed groups, such as the school, is unconstitutional, and a violation of their rights. As citizens of the United States of America, the students are protected by the Constitution, their right to free speech, and are

What would you do if you went to your child's school and saw that they were looking at inappropriate material on the internet? Would you react the same way if they were in a public library? Who decides what is okay for your children to view? Who decides where they can view it? What can you do about them being able to view these things? Are there any laws that can prevent this from happening? What are some schools and libraries doing to help prevent children form looking at such material? These are all issues that will be discussed in the next few paragraphs, along with my opinions on the matter.

In today’s society, a lot of teens ages 12-18 are constantly associated with mass media. Whether it is books, movies, news papers, TV shows, or music, there are items of mass media that are censored and some that are not. There are always going to be things that need to be censored, but why should we ban these two books from the standard curriculum when they say racial slurs that were used at the time it was written?