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Campbell Hall |
Ahmanson Library |
Banned Books Week
"Not
every book will be right for every person,
but
the right to choose what we read is a freedom we
cannot afford to take for granted."
Judith Platt, Director, Association of American Publishers’ Freedom to Read program
“[I]t’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. Judy Blume, award-winning (and frequently challenged) children's author
It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read.
And all due to the fear of censorship.
As always, young readers will be the real losers.”
(To read about Judy's experiences with and attitudes toward censorship, including an op-ed piece in the New York Times about the Harry Potter series, visit http://www.judyblume.com/censors.html.)
What is a Book Challenge?
The American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom has recorded more than 7,000 book challenges since 1990, including 515 in 2002. It is estimated that less than one-quarter of all challenges are reported and recorded. Surveys indicate approximately 85% of the challenges to library materials receive no media attention and remain unreported. A challenge is a formal, written complaint requesting a book be removed from library shelves or school curriculum. About three out of four of all challenges are to material in schools or school libraries, and one in four are to material in public libraries.
A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. The positive message of Banned Books Week is that due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.
Why Do We Celebrate Banned Books Week?
Banned Books Week 2003 is the twenty-second annual celebration of the freedom to read. This freedom, not only to choose what we read, but also to select from a full array of possibilities, is firmly rooted in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of press. "Even as we revel in the increasing quantity and availability of information and reading material, we must maintain vigilance to assure that access to this material is preserved. Threats against the freedom to read still exist and come from all quarters and all political persuasions. Quite simply, censors are those who try to limit the freedom of others to choose what they read, see, or hear, even if the motivation for the restriction is well intentioned." --Robert P. Doyle, "Books Challenged or Banned in 2002-2003
Censorship denies our freedom as individuals to choose and think for ourselves.
"When books are challenged, restricted, removed, or banned, an atmosphere of suppression exists. The author may make revisions, less for artistic reasons than to avoid controversy. The editor and publisher may alter text or elect not to publish for economic and marketing reasons. Staff in bookstores and libraries may find published works too controversial and, fearing reprisals, will choose not to purchase those materials. The fear of the consequences of censorship is as damaging as, or perhaps more damaging than, the actual censorship attempt. After all, when a published work is banned, it can usually be found elsewhere. Unexpressed ideas, unpublished works, unpurchased books are lost forever."—2001 Resource Guide, ALA Banned Book Week
Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, the
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Library
Association (ALA), the American Society of Journalists & Authors, National
Association of College Stores, and the
Association of American Publishers. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book of
the Library Of Congress.
Unfit for Schools & Minors?
Classrooms and school libraries are increasingly on the front lines of attempts to restrict reading materials. In the 1990s, more than 70% of all challenges were to materials in schools or school libraries. The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received a total of 646 challenges in 2000, up from 472 in 1999. Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students, and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.
Sex, profanity, and racism remain the primary categories of objections, and frequently challenges are motivated by the desire to protect children. While the cause is commendable, this method of protection contains hazards far greater than exposure to the "evil" against which the protection is leveled. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, in Texas v. Johnson, said, "If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society find the idea itself offensive or disagreeable." Individuals may restrict what they themselves or their children read, but they must not call on governmental or public agencies to prevent others from reading or seeing that material.
Recent Examples of School Challenges
In 1999, a Savannah, GA, school district required seniors to require
permission slips before they could read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Macbeth, or
King Lear because of "adult language" and references to sex and
violence. In 1996, Merrimack, NH, schools pulled Shakespeare’s Twelfth
Night from the curriculum after the school board passed a "prohibition
of alternative lifestyle instruction" act. His Merchant of Venice
has been banned in the 1980s and 1990s in high schools due to its portrayal of
the Jewish character Shylock. John T. Scopes was convicted in 1925 of teaching
the evolutionary theory of Darwin’s Origin of Species in his high
school class. The Tennessee law prohibiting teaching evolution theory was
finally repealed in 1967. An illustrated edition of "Little Red Riding
Hood" was banned in two California school districts in 1989 because the
heroine is pictured taking food and wine to her grandmother. Mark Twin’s Tom
Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have been excluded from the juvenile
sections of numerous libraries. Huckleberry Finn has been dropped from
high school reading lists due to alleged racism. When parents in a south Georgia
school challenge the use of John Steinbeck's classic Of Mice and Men in
the sophomore advanced-level English class, the school superintendent and others
rallied to keep the book available (summer 2003).
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling has been the most frequently challenged
title in the country since the first volume was published. In the spring of
2003, a U.S. district judge ordered the books back into general circulation in
the Cedarville (Ark.) School District after the district restricted access.
For more information,
visit the ALA's
website for Banned Books Week
Book
burning in the 21st century