Even if courts might strike down some of the more egregious book bans, officials can get around that by dictating course content in other ways. It has to be able to dictate what is taught, select teachers, and discipline those unwilling to follow the rules. In a public school system, the government inevitably has extensive power over the curriculum. But, at least for the most part, I think such hopes are largely baseless. I'm not an expert on the relevant First Amendment doctrine, so may be missing something. Some hope that the censorial tendencies of public school officials might be curbed by litigation. The intensifying right-left culture war of the last few years has heightened their eagerness to use the public education system to impose their will. In US states, the "predominant power in the government" is usually some combination of majority public opinion and organized activists and interest groups. He warned that " general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation."
The danger of such indoctrination is the main reason why John Stuart Mill opposed state control of schools, even though he favored public subsidization of education for those unable to afford it. The problem dates back to the origins of modern public education in the 19th century, when in Europe it was often instituted for the purpose of indoctrinating students in nationalist ideology, and in the US often for the purpose of imposing Protestant views on new immigrants, many of whom were Catholics or Jews. Both red and blue states have a long history of doing exactly that. By its very nature, public education creates opportunities for the politically powerful to indoctrinate children in their preferred ideology, while locking out or severely restricting alternative viewpoints. Some of these policies can be traced back to the flaws of particular politicians and activists, there is a more general structural problem underlying them. These examples are just the tip of a much larger iceberg of dubious, ideologically driven curricular decisions in both red and blue jurisdictions. The ridiculous rationale for such bans overlooks the obvious fact that the books in question do not defend racism, but condemn it. For example, some have banned the teaching of such literary classics as Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, on the grounds that they contain racist language. Left-wing jurisdictions have enacted dubious restrictions of their own. And there is nothing wrong with telling students about different types of sexual identity, even if it is also desirable that this be done with due sensitivity. It should be obvious that books describing sexuality and violence often have educational value, especially in higher grades. On the right, the state of Utah recently passed a ban on "indecent" books that is so sweeping that some school districts have banned the use of the Bible in elementary schools because it contains "vulgarity and violence." Florida recently enacted a sweeping ban on education about sexual identity, that goes far beyond its earlier "don't say gay" law, and applies all the way through high school. Over the last several years, much of the US has been beset by culture wars over education in which right and left try to skew public school curricula in their favor, while banning materials they find offensive or distasteful.
0 kommentar(er)
