Should Certain Books Be Banned in Schools?

In 1982, the American Library Association began a national, annual event entitled Banned Book Week after a string of book bans took place across the U.S. Usually taking place during the last month of September, the event is meant to "highlight the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular" (according to the Banned Books Week website). 
There are a surprising number of books banned by schools in America. Books such as Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, and even more contemporary reads such as Looking for Alaska by John Green or The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Schools have pulled them from library shelves and off classroom reading lists for a multitude of reasons: exploring sexuality, being "anti white" (this was specifically mentioned for The Catcher in the Rye), promoting the "occult," swear words, and having characters use drugs, are the most common. You can find a more extensive list and reasons why they were banned on the ALA page here. This poses a huge threat to free speech and the freedom of information, particularly when it comes to what children can learn in schools, because it allows a select group of adults to censor what kind of information people are able to have access to, not only bringing in uncomfortable power dynamics but also limiting the evolution of knowledge in education. 
When examining the books on that list, it's worth noting that a lot of these books fall under a less "conservative view point" (as in the case of Animal Farm by George Orwell or Beloved by Toni Morrison), and also that a lot of these banned books are penned authors of color. It's also interesting to take into account that books such as Mein Kampf are not banned in most U.S. schools (yet they are in countries like Austria or Germany). While I don't necessarily want to advocate for any books being banned (thus starting a slippery slope when it comes to banning certain kinds literature), one would think that a controversial book such as Mein Kampf would be much more likely to be banned than say, Captain Underpants by Dave Pilkey (yes, this book series is actually on the ban list!) 
However, I would like your feed back, dear readers. Should certain books be banned? Should no books be banned? Who can decide what books are and aren't banned, and why? While you think it over, I'll leave you with this quote from Ursula K. Le Guin in her book The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essay on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination

"A dangerous book will always be in danger from those it threatens with the demand that they question their assumptions. They'd rather hang on to the assumptions and ban the book." 

U.N. Court Orders Myanmar to Protect Rohingya Muslims

The injunction was issued by the International Court of Justice at The Hague, where accusations of genocide have been brought against the Southeast Asian country.

Note: there are some spoilers for season three of The Good Place in this post. Don’t read if that bothers you!


Warburton writes in the second chapter of Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction that, “where Mill draws a line marking the limits of acceptable free speech is at the point where it becomes an incitement to harm to another person; not psychological harm or economic harm but physical harm” (30). This idea brought up many questions for me, such as: what constitutes physical harm? Who all is culpable when someone’s words drive someone else to commit an action of physical violence, especially when the speaker themself does not act violently? Why is physical health valued over economic/psychological health in this viewpoint when these three aspects of life are often intertwined? I don’t have answers to these questions, but they are important questions to ask when evaluating John Stuart Mill’s philosophy.


I think Mill’s philosophy is a decent start at understanding free speech; however, as the author points out, “the world is not a seminar” (31). Separating actions into “caused harm” and “didn’t cause harm” is impossible; all actions, and the media through which actions transpire, have varying intents and consequences. Further, singular actions contribute to larger social movements and cultural norms. One “innocent” joke made in the wrong context could make issues such as sexism just ever so slightly more pressing and pervasive.


Season three of The Good Place, an NBC television show which cleverly explores morality through comedy, discusses this exact concept in the context of the modern age of the internet and globalization. The series’ premise is that humans’ actions all have numerical values attributed to them, and if someone at the time of their death has a high enough point value, they are granted into “the good place.” Those with insufficient points are sent to “the bad place” to be tortured forever. (Season three spoilers ahead.) Towards the close of season three, Michael, a demon from hell turned advisor and friend to the human protagonists, discovers that only one person has gotten into the good place in over 500 years. He wonders what has caused the decline in good people, only to discover that good people do still exist—they just suffer because of the unseen consequences of their actions. For example, someone might buy vegetables from the local supermarket to begin eating healthy—a noble effort according to most people. However, the vegetables were picked by underpaid workers, transported in vehicles contributing to climate change, and once sold, gave money to millionaires who hoard their wealth and allow billions of people globally to suffer from starvation. Thus, the good intention—eating healthy—and the points accompanying it are completely erased by the negative consequences of the system in which the consumer in question operates.


This example may seem trivial; no one is going to be jailed for purchasing a head of lettuce from the store. However, other, more serious actions can fall into this grey area, and we have to ask who is responsible for the negative outcomes. In the above example, surely the consumer is not to blame for the system in which they are forced to participate? My answer is no! What other reasonable choice do they have? However, this example may be too simple to really glean a lesson from.

Here is another example which falls further into the "grey" area: if a professor continually tells a student that their work is unsatisfactory and that their desired career path is not a good fit for them, is that professor to blame if that student drops out of school? What if their lack of care—even if unintentionally—negatively affected the student’s mental health, causing them to fall behind in school? Of course, that professor was acting within their legal rights to tell a student their opinions as long as they did not harass the student or encourage violence. But legality is not synonymous for ethicality and no action exists in a vacuum; so, is the professor to blame for the outcome, which was the student dropping out?


Years ago, as an adolescent, I was asking myself similar questions about life. I wondered how we can assign blame—whether in personal or legal matters. My thought was that in a definable chain of events, the first person to have malicious motivations was to blame for the negative outcome, and if no one had negative intentions anywhere in the line, the entire ordeal was a true accident. So, in the above example, if the professor desired to discourage and hurt the student, then the negative outcome was indeed their fault. However, if the professor was acting from a place of care and a desire to save the student from a later downfall from a failed career, then the result was an accident—albeit one that could’ve been handled much better.


I haven’t really done much thinking about this idea since I first considered it, but I think it could potentially be interesting to discuss, especially as it pertains to hate speech. This idea calls into question intention, in addition to consequence—which is partially missing from Mill’s philosophy. In this way, I think if interacts with Mill’s theory, but also departs from it in notable ways. Since life is not a seminar, we cannot always approach life in a methodical, scientific way—as the people counting the points of the humans’ actions in The Good Place do. We have to look at context, such intent and medium, in addition to results.


Applying this idea to hate speech suggests that people who use their voice to be hateful are always, at least in some way, to blame for the harm that befalls people who suffer at the hands of racism, sexism, transphobia, islamophobia, and other forms of systematic marginalization. In other words, every time Tr*mp uses the word “illegals” to describe Mexican people, he becomes further responsible for racism and the harmful actions which follow it. Similarly, people who use the t-slur knowing the hate behind the word are in part to blame for the violence that is used against trans women.


That being said, this idea becomes complicated when we take into account the phenomenon of “ignorance.” If someone is accidentally ignorant towards a social issue, how can they be totally held accountable for their careless words? Where do we draw the line between ignorance and legitimate hate?


Let me know what you think of this idea on how to assign blame. Do you think it can be in any way applied to interpersonal issues? Possibly even legal issues? How do context and intention impact assigning blame? Where does the idea of blame come into play with the idea of free speech?

The Girl with the Gun and the Freedom of (Hate) Speech

Kaitlin Bennett has become a household name over the past two years.  In 2018, the Kent state graduate published her photoshoot with her AR-10 rifle and graduation cap, marked with the quote “Come and take it.”  Throughout her years at Kent, she was involved with the Libertarian media outlet Liberty Hangout, where she advocated for the school to allow students to carry weapons on campus.  Their policy states that only graduates and visitors on campus can carry a weapon, so the day after Bennett graduated, she made it clear that she was going to carry on campus.  She uses Twitter and the hashtag #CampusCarryNow to promote her support of the second amendment.  

Bennett has gained attention for several of her tweets and ideas, including taking down feminism as well as her belief in the existence of reverse racism.  Many people saw her rifle-rearing photoshoot as a symbol of her white privilege.  One person commented, “If person of color was walking around campus with a gun the whole damn police station would come and shoot them in a second #WhitePrivilege.” She has also mocked gun violence victims, such as Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg.  

Recently, Bennett sparked controversy by going to Rutgers University to interview students on loans.  She believes that students who take out loans through the government should be expected to pay them even if they do not have money to do so.  As Rutgers is a historically diverse school that values culture and activism, students felt insulted that she would bring her political propaganda to campus.  When they tried to explain this to her, she said “What we're seeing right now is literally the Democrats and the liberals are pushing to silence free speech — they don't want me here.”  Bennett left Rutgers after students called the police on her, but not before blaming college “leftists” for inhibiting her freedom of speech.

So, now the question is this: Is hate speech protected by the first amendment?  Is the first amendment working for us or against us?  When political views and moral values intersect, sharing radical views can infringe on the rights of the oppressed.  When Kaitlin Bennett talks openly about carrying on campus or paying student loans, she speaks from a place of privilege.  For her to tell others to simply do and believe the same, she is disregarding the hardships of the oppressed and the systems of power in place that work against many Americans.   This is an example of how the first amendment can serve the privileged while hurting the oppressed.  Can a country with a history like America’s truly serve all people under the first amendment?

First Amendment: Freedom of Religion.... and Freedom FROM Religion.

Freedom of Religion... Freedom From Religion?

A Christian Nation

We have been beat over the head with the constitution since we were in our first American History class when we were in middle school. Seriously. I cannot tell you how many times growing up I would hear my teacher preach about the sanctity of the constitution and how every president shaves our freedom away. My first American History teacher was really skeptical of how much anti-christian and pro-Islam movements that there were taking. He also didn't like how it was becoming a fad to be rebellious atheist. "We are a christian nation!" He would constantly say over and over again. "A nation built by Christians and for Christians!" 

For the longest time I was made to believe that this country was indeed a Christian nation, but as I got older and discovered that this definitely wasn't the case, I felt super super betrayed. We are not a Christian nation not in the sense that we don't go to church and don't practice Christianity, but we are legally protected from being a Christian nation in the constitution.

The first amendment reads: 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The first line of the first amendment tells us right up front that the United States' congress cannot pass any law establishing religion of any type.... this also means that people who do not practice a religion are also free from lawful scrutiny of any type and can't have religion forced onto their lives.

Okay, we're not a christian nation... so what?

The problem is that we most definitely aren't a christian nation, but many public officials and decisions in the past have proven that our politicians don't always think so. As learned from the beginning of the semester in our first reading, the pledge of allegiance was originally written by a socialist, but had later had "one nation under God," added to them.

Did you know that our country's official motto is In God We Trust? This was a change made to the US in the 1950's during the Red Scare to try and steer away from communism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A36Iq5qNukQ

This type of religious thinking has also made some really big changes to our government. For instance, in 2015, the RFRA or (Religious Freedrom Rights Act) in Indiana originally could be used as grounds for business owners to discriminate against their customers on any grounds that would violate their religions.

So I ask you all today, do you agree that this country is a religious nation? The constitution says other wise, but precedent says another thing? What are the repercussions of having such a country? 

Fact Checking

Last semester I participated in a class wide debate on the subject of fact checking. What is fact checking? According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, fact-check is the action "of verifying the factual accuracy" of data or statements presented in any form of debate or conversation. To be specific, my class debated on the use of fact-checking for political advertisements on any and all social media platforms, with a specific interest in Facebook.

Facebook vs Representative

As a part of the argument I used the following video of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg to argue that the act of fact-checking itself still has a ways to go before it should be considered an actual resource to base one's research.

As seen above one of the largest social media platform creator and monitor can not confidently confirm, deny, or answer the questions presented about fact-checking. Zuckerberg was asked about Facebook's system of fact-checking political advertisements and to what extent the act of fact-checking would be done. His answer was confusing and left no clear picture as to how Facebook actually goes about making sure that people are not targeted in any way, not given false information, and not discriminated against.

Fact Check the Fact-Checkers

This video also sparked another piece of evidence that I debated with; Who exactly fact-checks? In class I talked about how everyone has their own intention and agenda when it comes to persuasion. No one can be 100% unbiased when it comes to public conversations due to our human nature. For example, Congresswomen called into question the fact that Facebook hired the "Daily Caller, a publication, well documented with ties to white supremacists as an official fact checker for Facebook" (2:59 time stamp). To which Zuckerberg responded that Facebook does not hire whom fact-check its website's advertisements, but instead holds a third party company responsible.

Another piece of information used to prove wrong the idea that fact-checking is an all around reliable and 100% trustworthy way of researching is that there are so many sites and so little constancy. Widely popular fact-checking websites such as PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and Washington Post's Fact Checker do not always agree or provide consistent information on the same statement(s). To prove this, Chloe Lim, a PhD student from Stanford University wrote a paper titled Checker How Fact-checkers Check in May of 2017 that covered the plan and results of testing fact checking websites with the same information. It was discovered that out of "1065 fact-checks by PolitiFact and 240 fact-checks by The Washinton Post's Fact-Checker, there were only 70 statements that both fact-checkers checked" (Lim, pg 3).

Heres a fun fact I find very interesting. If you were to check out "Top 10 Sites to Help Students Check Their Facts" there is not only a list of 10 websites to be used to fact check, but there are also descriptions of each website! What a bonus, right? Words such as "left-leaning," "liberal," and "left-centered bias" proves that the people who run the fact-checking websites are not bias to the news they advertise and report on! So pay attention to which website you use when it comes to far right and far left professors.

So, the Issue is...

So why is this an actual issue? Why does it matter if there are false advertisements or misinformation spread around the Internet and social media for trillions and trillions of people to see? Well the problem is just that! The fact that trillions and trillions of people see it! We live in a global community and our technology has the ability to connect us with people from all across the world! Our instant-sharing social media allows for people to see new things SECONDS after its posted, and then share it with friends and followers. Think of what could happen if Person A posted false information that could ruin Person B's name, image, life, or social standing. Within minutes of sharing that false information millions of people have already seen it, shared it, liked it, and will never forget it.

So I conclude by asking you, the reader, these questions; What do you think? Should fact-checking be monitored more closely or is it fine how it is currently? Is there any information you deem as important that I didn't consider in my debate?