The much overused word “censorship” reaches its height of silliness when it comes to the question of selecting books for use in public schools. Out of the 10,113, only a tiny handful could possibly be selected for use in the classroom. When a few score of books are chosen for classroom use out of the millions of books available, does that mean that the millions are “censored”? The word loses all meaning when put in that perspective.
We can probably all agree that “Playboy” and “Hustler” should be prohibited for use in the public school classroom. Once we make that admission, it is clear that we are not wrestling with weighty issues of academic freedom or freedom of the press, but merely with matters of judgment in dealing with other people’s children. A recent case in Wasco, California, makes this point. Two years ago, a student complained to the superintendent of Wasco Union High School about being required to read a book called “Grendel,” which contained obscenities and presented a grim, hopeless view of the world. The book was a 1971 purported rewrite of the epic poem “Beowulf,” but of course the modern book was not a classic at all. The school board then passed a policy that allowed the school to say that certain books could only be required for classroom use after parents had signed permission slips. The first books put on the list were “Grendel” and “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which the superintendent described as being about “a macho South American man who spends most of the book in bedrooms of women that he is not married to.”
The school board did not ban the books! No one was forbidden to read the books. The board simply stated that, before children are required to read certain questionable books, the teacher must obtain parental consent.
The teacher who used these books in her English class, joined by one student, then filed suit against the school district, claiming that the student’s constitutional rights had been violated. Predictably, they were joined in the lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association, and People for the American Way.
In December 1986, a California Superior Court dismissed the complaint that the school board had violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. In June 1987, the court ruled that the school board had NOT exceeded its discretionary powers.
The issue presented to the court was, did the school board abuse its powers of discretion in not including “Grendel” and “One Hundred Years of Solitude” in the required reading list for the English curriculum? The answer was no.
That answer is so obvious that the court gave summary judgment. The court pointed out that the school board has broad discretion in establishing the curriculum, and the courts should not interfere except where there is a “flagrant abuse of that discretion.” The burden of proof is on the plaintiff, and that burden was not met in this case.
The court noted that, in deciding this issue, it is not appropriate for the judge to inquire into “the individual motives and mental processes of the board members.” The court properly said it should look to the objective motivation of the board.
The losers have appealed this case. One wonders why, unless their game plan is just to promote publicity for their propaganda ploy that “censorship” is a threat in America today.
The notion that a teacher should be able to select a couple of books of objectionable morality and no proven literary merit and FORCE minor children to read them in class, over the objections of the parents AND the school board, is too ludicrous to take seriously.
