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
Possible Outcomes of
Censorship

Moral

“Chilling effect”

Military

Creates a Society of Fear

Political

Religious

Corporate
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.
2.
3.
Suppressed opinion may be true
False candidates are needed to show true ideas are
true
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:
The Board of Trustees of the Loudoun County Library
1.
•
Board members
•
The director of the library, Douglas Henderson
Mainstream Loudoun
2.
•
Primarily adult patrons, residents of Loudoun County, VA
•
Website owners
•
Authors
The United States District Court
3.
•
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 antiharassment
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 highprofile news correspondent periodically reports live via
satellite video on the troops' progress. His up-to-theminute, 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 #4
You 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 “selfcensorship” 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.
CURRENT EVENTS TO WATCH
 Google’s
search engine agreement with China
 The
effect of the recent ruling for unlimited
funding/spending in federal campaigns and
the ability of corporations to openly promote
candidates
 ALA’s
top ten list of banned books for 2009