ISSUES IN CENSORSHIP

Ben DeCrease, Jason DeShaw, Susan Gilman, Jeannie Tucker, & Nathalie Wargo

A QUICK DEFINITION

Censorship:

“The act of suppressing or deleting anything considered objectionable” - (Merriam Webster online).

Censorship is concerned with “the freedom of speech, or of the press” aspect of the First Amendment.

Freedom of speech has a long history and is recognized in international and regional human rights law.

ALA VIEW (DOYLE, 2001)

Late 1800s/early 1900s: Promote books that uplift readers and suppress books that do them harm. a.k.a. “Librarian as Censor”

1920s/1930s: “Greater democracy in library management and greater freedom to provide public access” to all materials, even if controversial

The ALA has developed a Library Bill of Rights which addresses censorship in libraries.

ALA website: http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/statementspols/statementsif/librarybillrights.cfm

TO CENSOR OR NOT TO CENSOR?

Rationale for Censorship

Moral

Military

Political

Religious

Corporate

Possible Outcomes of Censorship

“Chilling effect”

Creates a Society of Fear

Accepted Forms of Censorship

Child Pornography

Hate Speech

DOYLE’S “A UTILITARIAN CASE FOR INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM IN LIBRARIES”

Deontology vs. Utilitarianism

Deontological argument for intellectual freedom

DOYLE ARTICLE (CONT’D)

Utilitarian Argument:

Mill: The more true beliefs, the better the

society

Censorship is never justified

Mill’s three reasons:1. Suppressed opinion may be true2. False candidates are needed to show true ideas

are true3. False idea may contain some truth that can

eventually be extracted

DOYLE ARTICLE (CONT’D)

Limitations of Mill

Does not apply to images (ex: pornography)

Conclusion

Censorship should not be case-by-case, but

instead absolute

Confidence of non-harassment

We do not know what ideas/images cause more

harm than good beforehand

REGULATING HATE SPEECH

Problems in regulation:

Content emanates from foreign jurisdictions

United States First Amendment represents an

obstacle to regulation globally

Difficulty of satisfying the requirements of the

“fighting words” exception

Cyber-Libertarians and the ‘marketplace of

ideas’

REGULATING HATE SPEECH

Current measures used to combat hate speech

online

1. Make ISPs responsible to governments for the

content they carry

2. Install gateways through which all internet

activity must pass

3. Use filters and firewalls to remove inappropriate

content

REGULATING HATE SPEECH

Examples of enforcement

First Additional Protocol to the Convention on

Cybercrime (2001)

The Safer Internet Action Plan (1999)

The Information & Communication Services Act (1997)

Cases

French plaintiffs vs. Yahoo! Auctions (2000)

Netherland plaintiffs vs. Belgian holocaust denier (1995)

LOUDOUN VS. LIBRARY TRUSTEES

o Key Players:

1. The Board of Trustees of the Loudoun County Library

• Board members

• The director of the library, Douglas Henderson

2. Mainstream Loudoun

• Primarily adult patrons, residents of Loudoun County, VA

• Website owners

• Authors

3. The United States District Court

• For the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division

• Judge Leonie Brinkema

LOUDOUN VS. LIBRARY TRUSTEES

At Issue:

1. The library’s Policy on Internet Sexual

Harassment

2. Implementation of website-blocking

software

3. Ambiguity of the “unblocking” policy

4. Does the Policy infringe upon First

Amendment rights?

LOUDOUN VS. LIBRARY TRUSTEES

The United States District Court View:1. The library is a “limited public forum”

2. The Policy restricted access to protected speech

3. The library evaded its constitutional responsibility to provide access to information through reliance on a private contractor

4. The Policy was over-inclusive, represented prior restraint, and was not the least restrictive means toward anti-harassment

5. The policy provided no clear systematic review, nor any timeline

BURNING CYBERBOOKS

Filtering software often blocks useful or

harmless sites

Breast Cancer, Anne Sexton, Bill Clinton

We have no way of knowing what it

blocks. What are we missing?

LEGAL DEBATES

John McCain and the Internet School

Filtering Act

Do filters “remove” library materials?

Board of Education vs. Pico

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Does infringing upon the right to receive

information implicate the First

Amendment?

Does filtering software constitute a prior

restraint?

Does the public forum analysis apply?

CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDY #1

While embedded with a United States military unit during a major push against a foreign nation, a high-profile news correspondent periodically reports live via satellite video on the troops' progress. His up-to-the-minute, on the ground coverage is sanctioned by the U.S. Army as part of a new public relations campaign. However, during the course of one such report, the correspondent discloses the details of the Army’s battle plan, including the unit’s approximate route of entry and time of attack on an enemy target.

You are head of the network now associated with this operational intelligence leak. What do you do?

CASE STUDY #1 – WHAT HAPPENED

On March 31, 2003, Fox News Channel correspondent Geraldo Rivera was embedded with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division when he instructed his photographer to tilt the camera down while he drew in the sand. He then outlined a map of Iraq showing the relative locations of Baghdad and of his location with the 101st Airborne unit, and went on to discuss where his and other units would be going next as well as disclosing the time of their planned attack.

Shortly afterward, the Fox reporter was escorted out of the combat zone and dropped at the Kuwaiti border. From that point forward, Mr. Rivera was barred from further on-site coverage of the war by the network, under pressure from the Pentagon.

CASE STUDY #2

You are the principal of a local high school. The final proof of the school paper, written and edited in a journalism class, is sent to you before publication. One such proof contains an article discussing students’ experiences with teen pregnancy. The article does not mention particular students by name, but you are concerned that the individuals might be identifiable. Furthermore, the article references sexual activity and birth control.

What, if anything, should be done to the article?

CASE STUDY #2 – WHAT HAPPENED

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier

Two articles: teen pregnancy and divorce. Principal deemed them inappropriate for the paper and had them removed before print. Students sued claiming violation of First Amendment rights. Supreme Court ruled that the students’ rights were not violated for the following reasons:

A. First Amendment rights of students in public schools are not the same as adults in other settings. A school does not need to tolerate student speech inconsistent with its educational mission.

B. The school newspaper was not considered a forum of public expression. Newspaper was part of an educational curriculum (journalism class) where the teacher had control over nearly every aspect of the paper. School officials were entitled to regulate the paper.

C. Precedent with Tinker vs. Des Moines: “Educators do not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities, so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns”

D. The school principal acted reasonably

CASE STUDY #3

Six-year-old Diego brings home a book from school called "Vamos a Cuba" (Let's Go to Cuba) which depicts everyday life in Cuba.  His father reads the book to him one night and becomes upset about its message.  The book claims that Cuban people "eat, work, and go to school like you do."  Diego's father, who was a former Cuban political prisoner, feels that this is a distorted representation of the country.  He takes this issue to his son's school board, and asks that they remove the book because it contains inaccurate material. 

You are members of the school board: what do you do?

CASE STUDY #3 – WHAT HAPPENED

The school district assembled two boards to review the complaint, they voted to keep the books in the library.

The Maimi-Dade School Board took up the issue and voted to replace the book because of its inaccuracies.

A federal judge found that the school board had engaged in censorship, but an appeals court ruled that it was not an act of censorship but rather the school board was just trying to remove materials with factual inaccuracies. 

The Supreme Court declined to take up the case, thus letting the appeals decision stand.  

CASE STUDY #4You are a librarian at a rural public school library, and are in charge of collections development. You learn that an author has just released his second novel, with young adults as the intended audience. The work has been critically lauded by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. A blogging community even gave the book the Cybil Award for “best young adult fiction.” The story, however, focuses on a 12-year-old boy’s sexual relationship with a teacher twice his age. You anticipate parent complaints regarding this book, as you live in a socially conservative community. Teens, on the other hand, have heard about this book, and many express an interest in reading it.

Would you include this book in your collection?

CASE STUDY #4 – WHAT HAPPENED Barry Lyga’s Boy Toy, published in 2007, is the title

under scrutiny. Lyga predicted mass public outcry with the book’s release, which never happened.

The author found out the bookstores often placed the book in the “adult” section, and others chose not to stock it at all. Librarians appreciated the work, but resisted recommending it or including it in their collections out of fear of complaint.

Librarians often face challenges to materials they do choose to include in their collections. So-called “self-censorship” may result from this.

According to Whelan (2009), no one monitors or quantifies self-censorship (as it’s very difficult to measure), or preemptively excluding controversial materials, and it occurs frequently.

Discussed in: Whelan, D.L. (2009). A dirty little secret: Self-censorship. School Library Journal, 55(2), 27-30.

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ALA’s top ten list of banned books for 2009