Censorship

Censorship as a Barbed Wire Fence

     I find this metaphor most compelling and can identify with the concept of keeping real world knowledge available for all students to explore and find their own conclusions. Keeping students on the outside of knowledge by censoring a particular topic or idea is not conducive to providing them with the ability to understand and explore the real world. Our world is a mystery and literature holds the key to unlocking the mystery. A school library is a storehouse of knowledge and a privilege that has been created for students by the state, and through censorship the removal of books based on an individual or group of individual’s interpretation of that book should not be allowed. As a school Librarian if I was ordered by the school board to remove an item from my collection, I would be reluctant, and I would make sure the board understood all the legal implications. I would present evidence of the legal problems that might arise by following their order. Pico is a legal standard set by the Supreme Court; it protects student’s first amendment rights from being violated regarding library collections, and should be understood before any decision is made or negotiated to remove any library materials. Knowing the culture of the school district is important, many smaller schools have self-censorship, so it is very important for a school librarian to understand the law related to censorship, because like the barbed wire fence it can cover, hide and obscure  deepening concepts that are necessary for understanding the real world.
    This court saw the school library as a storehouse of knowledge and a privilege that had been created for students by the state, and that such a right could not be taken away from them through the removal of books based on the board’s displeasure with them.
Coley (2002) examined collections of school library media collections in Texas to determine the nature of their holdings in an attempt to determine the degree of self-censorship by librarians. He concluded that more self-censorship appeared to occur in smaller schools.
Pico is now a legal standard set by the Supreme Court that lower courts follow in their determination of whether students’ First Amendment rights regarding library collections have been violated, although for some years after the ruling, some observers felt that the educational justification for removal of books from libraries was so broad or “camouflaged” that the ruling would be of little help in the fight against school library censorship (Dorrell and Busch 2000). Nevertheless, the influence of Pico has slowly begun to appear in court rulings and legal reviews relating to both school libraries and other information access issues
 indicated they would accept an order to remove items from their collections if ordered to do so by their boards; however a large majority of these would accept the order with some level of reluctance (N=141, 95 percent). Only 7 (5 percent) indicated that they would accept a removal order without question. Twenty-four (16 percent) stated that they would challenge or dispute the order and present evidence of legal problems that might arise from the removal.