Times Editorial : Censorship?
Posted on Sunday, July 3, 2005
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Fayetteville School Library Book debate
Fayetteville resident Laurie Taylor has made a proposal to place certain Fayetteville Public School library books she considers to be inappropriate for students on a restricted access shelf. Fayetteville School District patrons received a chance to voice their opinions on whether to restrict student access to certain school library books at a special town hall meeting. The Fayetteville School board eventually decided by a narrow margin not to restrict access to certain books. The stories below cover the issue from its beginings through the decision by the school board and the aftermath.
- School board spends much of 2005 debating books (01-01-2006)
- Taylor becomes public figure with war against books (01-01-2006)
- Times Editorial : A good sign (10-06-2005)
- Taylor joins UA debate team for discussion of library books (10-06-2005)
- School committee says ‘crude’ book to stay in FHS library (10-05-2005)
- UA debate team addressing school’s recent book issue (10-05-2005)
- Books wonít be restricted (09-16-2005)
- Times Editorial : Back to the books II (09-15-2005)
- The great book debate (09-14-2005)
- Times Editorial : Back to the books (09-13-2005)
On June 23, the Times reported that during the course of investigating the Fayetteville School District's library system, local resident Laurie Taylor had come across no fewer than 70 "sexually explicit"books. During a conversation last week, Taylor told us the process of creating a final list of library books deserving of serious review is ongoing. According to Taylor, she isn't asking that any books be banned, but that parents no longer remain in the dark about the books their children are reading. She told us that if people simply realized just how awful some of the "explicit"material really is, she would find it difficult to believe any parent would let it remain on the shelf. Taylor insists her campaign has nothing to do with religion, although it is clear Taylor takes her faith seriously. "I want to raise my children with a biblical worldview, based on what I think is right... My agenda isn't to impart my religious beliefs; it's to inform parents."In Taylor's eyes, all this is simple, as it has everything to do with bad stuff being in kids' hands and their parents not knowing anything about it. In her eyes, that's just not acceptable. "These books are not factual books,"she said. "These books are slime... This is pandering sex. It's irresponsible and it's without parents' knowledge ... It promotes threesomes, abortion, unsafe sex, homosexuality. This stuff is vile.
"Do you want that kind of material given to kids."
As July begins, a number of people find themselves hostile to Taylor's efforts. To them, taking a book out of a library because it doesn't fit with one's personal beliefs smacks of 1950s-style censorship. Besides their educational merits, there's the possibility that some of these books could help answer questions kids need answers to, but don't know who to ask, helping prevent self-destructive actions and broadening understanding about the facts of life.
Taylor is on a religious crusade. There is no mistake about that, and people are right to react with caution when someone is so fervently pursuing a cause. School district officials need to make sure to balance her vocal requests against the many viewpoints of other patrons whose views of these books are starkly different. But it's important not to respond to Taylor's assertions too lightly unless one suggests parents should not be allowed to exercise influence within their children's schools, or that it's impossible that a librarian's decision might, under review, be determined to be wrong.
This isn't really about censorship. Generally, censorship pertains in this country to some effort by a governmental body to prevent the printing or distribution of a publication. If the government stepped in and attempted to prevent any of these books from being published or distributed, that would be censorship.
What's really being pushed in our community is a change in what's viewed as acceptable materials for students. The librarians involved at Fayetteville Public Schools make decisions all the time about what will and won't be available to students on library shelves. If what Laurie Taylor is doing is censorship, then what the librarians do year in and year out also qualifies as such. If a person can agree that Playboy magazine is inappropriate for local public school libraries, then the question is not about censorship, but about choice; it's about where the line should be drawn. In Fayetteville, the real debate is going to be over who gets to draw that line, and whether they are doing a good enough job in deciding where to draw it.
We believe there is probably an appropriate environment for every book out there. Adults can make their own decisions about what they want to feed into their brains. The debate Fayetteville school officials are caught in is about which set of controls will be used in determining the publications made available to children through the public school libraries.
Those decisions have to be made. Virtually everyone can agree the public school libraries shouldn't be a free-for-all, but most, we suspect, would agree that no one interest group should get to determine the moral boundaries that can never be crossed.
What the school board and the community atlarge are going to have to answer eventually is this: Whose line is it, anyway?
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