David C. Berliner is one of the most honored researchers in the field of education.
He sent the following reflections on censorship. His thoughts reflect my views about censorship and abortion. If you are opposed to certain books, don’t read them. If you oppose abortion, don’t have one. Don’t impose your views on others.
Dr. Berliner wrote:
I was asked some time ago to write about censorship for the Horace Mann League. My explorations of the topic led me first to a personal statement:
“It is the right of people to not listen to, and not read, anything they find offensive. But this right is limited: it does not give them the right to limit what others choose to hear or read. It gives concerned citizens absolutely no right to forbid anyone else to listen to or read what they choose.
The only exception to this statement is with one’s own children. Parents do have both a right, and an obligation, to react to what their children are listening to and reading.
But that right and obligation is limited to their own children—not mine! I will make such decisions for myself. And I happen to trust school teachers, and librarians, to act for me, to act in “locus parentis.”
And I hope that every librarian and teacher is thoughtful enough to remember that merely avoiding certain discussions is itself a form of censorship!”
David C. Berliner
Some of the thoughts of others that I thought worth thinking about follow:
“The real heroes [in our society] are the librarians and teachers who at no small risk to themselves refuse to lie down and play dead for censors.”
― Bruce Coville
“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.”
― Salman Rushdie
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
― Joseph Brodsky
“Free societies…are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom’s existence.”
― Salman Rushdie
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
― United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
“Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there.”
― Clare Luce Booth
“Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book…”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”
― Benjamin Franklin
“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.”
― Mark Twain
[I]t’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. 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.”
― Judy Blume
“Books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory… In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man’s freedom.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt
“If you can’t say “Fuck” you can’t say, “Fuck the government.”
― Lenny Bruce
“Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson
“All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession
“[Public] libraries should be open to all—except the censor.
[Response to questionnaire in Saturday Review, October 29 1960]”
― John F. Kennedy
I
“Only the nonreader fears books. ”
― Richard Peck
“Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and always will be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.”
― Eugene Gladstone O’Neill
“If there’s one American belief I hold above all others, it’s that those who would set themselves up in judgment on matters of what is “right” and what is “best” should be given no rest; that they should have to defend their behavior most stringently. … As a nation, we’ve been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn’t approve of them.”
[Bangor Daily News, Guest Column of March 20, 1992]”
― Stephen King
“When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine’s Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwah, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship—though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn’t known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H.W. Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved…”
― Christopher Hitchens,
“The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him, and that is why Puritanism was the most destructive and evil force which ever oppressed people and their literature: it created hypocrisy, perversion, fears, sterility.”
― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947
“Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series
“Fear of corrupting the mind of the younger generation is the loftiest form of cowardice.”
― Holbrook Jackson
“Censors never go after books unless kids already like them. I don’t even think they know to go after books until they know that children are interested in reading this book, therefore there must be something in it that’s wrong.”
― Judy Blume
“The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience.”
― Henry Steele Commager
“Our freedoms are vanishing. If you do not get active to take a stand now against all that is wrong while we still can, then maybe one of your children may elect to do so in the future, when it will be far more riskier — and much, much harder.”
― Suzy Kassem
“I also hold very strong personal convictions about censorship. I don’t believe in forbidden knowledge.”
― Andrea Cremer
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Mr. “Freedom,” Ron DeSantis, the leader of the culture wars, steps all over the rights of those that disagree with him. He tries to impose his view of the world on everyone else. What DeSantis supports is not freedom, it is fascism. I hope he faces substantial blow back for his overreach and meddlesome policies.
DeSantis is facing lawsuits that charge him with stepping on other peoples’ rights. Andrew Warren, former prosecutor for Hillborough County, is suing after being fired from a democratically elected position. DeSantis claims Warren’s progressive policies are a danger to the safety of Floridians. It is DeSantis’ opinion, and he cannot tolerate a difference of opinion. Warren is suing for a violation of his right to free speech. DeSantis is also being sued over the migrant flights to northeast destinations. We can likely expect more lawsuits from DeSantis’ gag orders on teachers and librarians.
I happen to trust school teachers, and librarians, to act for me, to act in “locus parentis”
That’s what (crazy) “Moms for Liberty” do, right?
Act in “loco parentis” right?
Of course you think people and issues you agree with shouldn’t be censored. But what about Trump, MTG, Lauren Boebert, Alex Jones, etc.? What about so-called “Russian propaganda” about ukraine (i.e., anything that goes against the mainstream narrative)? What about COVID information? I’m pretty sure you’re not a free-speech absolutist, so where do you draw line? Who gets to decide?
Thanks so much for the repeated use of “what about?”! Now we don’t have to infer anything to make a point about what meaningless drivel this is. You’ve done it for us.
So you don’t have an answer. Shocking.
To whom was your question addressed, Dienne?
If it was to me, I oppose censorship with exceptions.
Right now, there is a significant number of people who spread misinformation about COVID-19. I recently saw a video warning people against the vaccines, claiming that they can kill you, cause impotence or cancer, etc. This is dangerous. Should medical misinformation be broadcast? No.
Hate speech that encourages attacks on people of color, Jews, gays, and other minorities should not be broadcast.
Propaganda created by foreign adversaries (Stalin, Hitler, Putin, Kim) should be scrutinized carefully, not broadcast as news.
All of these categories of lies, hate, and misinformation circulate anyway on friendly channels on the internet and are published by presses that agree with them. They are not censored in totality. “Mein Kampf” is not hard to find.
But they should not be dignified by the mainstream media as credible.
Now, more than ever, we all need media literacy to discern facts from lies and to recognize hate speech that encourages prejudice and violence towards minorities.
“Propaganda created by foreign adversaries (Stalin, Hitler, Putin, Kim) should be scrutinized carefully, not broadcast as news.”
But the biggest source of propaganda you are exposed to is that which is created by our own government and served to us by “reputable” outlets like CNN, WaPo, NYT, etc. The lies that led us into Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. The lies that kept us in Vietnam and Afghanistan. The lies that “justified” the coups in places like Indonesia, Iran, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, and many, many other countries in which leftist governments that protected their people from plunder by American corporations were replaced with right-wing governments that implemented right-wing death squads. I strongly agree with you on the need for media literacy, but that starts with understanding the long history of empire-serving lies by the mainstream media. Read Chomsky, Parenti, Taibbi, Cohen and others to understand the depth and breadth of the lies we’ve been fed and then “Russian propaganda” will seem like child’s play.
For what it’s worth, Dienne, I agree that our government has made terrible mistakes and has lied to us. But I see a huge difference between the U.S. and Putin’s regime: our government doesn’t lie ALL THE TIME. Putin, Kim, and other dictators lie all the time. Right now, in Russia, it is illegal to acknowledge that Russia is at war with Ukraine, a war that Russia launched without provocation (did Ukraine attack Russia first? No.)
No. Despite the mobilization of 100,000 or more men, despite the exodus of many thousands of men seeking to avoid being conscripted, Putin demands that the invasion of Ukraine and the loss of tens of thousands of soldiers is not a war. It is a “special military operation.”
Do you think it’s a war?
Do you call it a “special military operation?”
Another huge difference between the U.S. and Russia is that we have freedom of expression. You cite many sources to “prove” that we are lied to.
But in Russia, the dissidents have been silenced, imprisoned, or fled into exile. Many are broadcasting from Lithuania.
You can read criticism of U.S. policy,past and present, without leaving home.
Russians can’t.
Neither do you. Ever. Just rant try to change the subject. Pathetic.
No, it’s a valid question. Everyone believes in complete free speech for people and ideas they agree with. That’s not free speech. The question is, where do we draw the line between speech that we disagree with but should be allowed vs. speech that shouldn’t be allowed? It’s telling (but not surprising) that you don’t understand this and that you have no contribution to the matter.
You raise an interesting point. German response in World War I to English stories about atrocities was feeble defending of their troops ruthless behavior by denying much of the incorrect information. They were committing war crimes, just not throwing babies into the air and catching them on their bayonets.
Truth might be the only place to reside in the free speech debate. You can say anything, but falsehood is like shouting fire in the theatre. But who determines truth? Episodic problems with courts and legislators around the world and at home testify to the problem of keeping a free society.
Appreciate the response, Roy.
Tge Censor ship
When Censor ship has sailed
And censor has prevailed
The freedom train’s detailed
Democracy has failed
The Censor Ship
When censor ship has sailed
And censor has prevailed
The freedom train’s derailed
And Bill of Rights has failed
Excellent collection of comments! In the real world of teaching, teachers have to work through or work around censorship. When I taught advanced 10 graders I wanted to show the film, “Romeo & Juliet,” but when I previewed it for myself the evening before I noticed there was a brief scene of nudity. When I showed it, using the video tape and a smallish screen TV, I “accidently” walked past the screen to get to the other side of the room obscuring the momentary scene. A couple of kids knew what I was doing, but only smiled and said nothing. One parent heard about my showing it and knew about the scene. Her daughter informed me she could not watch it, so, as she was well-behaved, I let her sit in the hall and read the play while her class watched it. I think most teachers decided not to show the film, but I managed to do it that way without any complaints to the office or any problems at all. I was lucky to be working in a pretty supportive environment. Overall, I know many kids miss many good films and books because teachers are afraid of consequences. In Ohio, we had a good union and a reasonably tolerant community.
I’m part of a fledgling group, the Philadelphia Alliance to Restore School Librarians (PARSL) and we had a strategy meeting last night. Now reading this today it seems clear how the decimation of school libraries in Philly, (in DC, where else?) works into the hands of those who want to censure what kids see and read. Don’t give them the time, place, or guidance to find books that may feed any curiosity they may have. Sinister.