Free Speech Unmuted: Book Bans—or Are They?

I'm delighted to announce this new video/audio podcast series by Prof. Jane Bambauer (Florida) and me, and its first episode.

You can watch on YouTube, or subscribe on any podcast platform. It's put together by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where I'll be starting as the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow in May.

The first episode (about 30 minutes) is about the First Amendment and public school libraries' removing books. Jane and I had a lot of fun recording this; hope you have fun watching or listening to it! And of course please spread it far and wide.

Comments

[AmosArch]

I mean public schools don't allow porno mags. Wouldn't that also a 'book ban'?

[mike petrik]

Sorry, my wayward fingers unintentionally flagged a couple comments for review, and I could not figure out how to unflag. In any case, that is absolutely true. The banning accusation is really just rubbish. The debate is over who gets to decide the most appropriate use of tax dollars and space at a public or school library, and what is the optimal decisional process.

[David Nieporent]

For the record, there's no way to unflag. Except maybe slip $500 to Nick Gillespie or something.

[Peter Gerdes]

Listen to the discussion. It's covered.

[Dick King]

Now do https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/amazon-censored-covid-19-vaccine-books-after-feeling-pressure-from-biden-white-house-docs/ar-BB1hPSw0 ?

-dk

[Bwaaah]

I don't like Jane's notion of "strict neutrality" in school library book selection. The book selection process is inherently biased, and reflects preferences of a few books over so many others. In practice, what Jane describes in theory as "neutrality" is, in reality, a librarian's preferences. (The non-controversial culture of librarians tends to keep those book preferences within the broader public's Overton window, but not necessarily so.)

Jane's unwillingness to talk about how to manage selection bias puts her in a default position of treating the librarian's decision as somehow incontrovertible. And yet, understanding how unacceptable that is, she adds a fire-the-librarian clause to her non-management regime for handling unwanted selection bias. Wouldn't that just leave us with a decidedly unwanted book still on the shelf and a need to get a new librarian? (Or does getting rid of objectionable books turn into a process of getting rid of librarians?)

Worse would be letting parents have a heckler's veto on library books. In the case of school libraries, parents can and should appeal to their school board if they believe a book should be removed. I'd generally let the librarians put the books on the shelves, and leave it to the school boards to manage the political decisions of which books should be removed (hopefully without having to get rid of librarians).

[MaverickNH]

Good points.

The librarians I know (Rochester, NY, Philly, Upstate NY) all say that “book bans” are over-counted by their professional associations. Ten parents signing a letter asking that two titles be kept in the Adults Only shelves are counted as 20 Book Bans. Images of Fahrenheit 451 book burnings are greatly exaggerated.

[bookery]

Great discussion. School librarians have a budget - maybe $3,000, $5,000 maybe $7,000 a year, for books, depending on district and size of the school. Can't buy everything. Try to stretch the budget to include the most relevant items that address curricular demands and hot new books that kids request. There are more practical considerations in play when purchasing books that potentially have staying power, than ideological.

[Peter Gerdes]

Which is why the discussion distinguished buying books from removing them.

[lhfry]

I am a librarian with a long career behind,me, although not a school or public librarian.

First, these two have an incredibly naive picture of librarians. Like most people, they believe that librarians are trained to determine literary merit and maintain, even encourage viewpoint neutrality in book selection. This has not been true for many years and the prevailing attitude today is reflected in the leaders of the library professional associations. The current head of the American Library Association states openly that libraries should be used to promote socialism and that her goal is “queering” the library.

The battle over school library collections is over the question of decency. Books for children are obviously pornographic and the evidence is that school boards will not allow the content to be read publicly.

There is another type of censorship which is not discussed and that includes the rewriting of children’s books (made easy by kindle editions) and the presence of “sensitivity readers” on the staffs of publishing companies. Not to mention the prevention of publication of material considered unacceptable by publishers wishing to avoid mob attacks and even litigation. Those who scream censorship if parents object to the presence of certain books on school library shelves do not wish to discuss the other censorship, which is more insidious because hidden.

Good you did this, but you need to think about it and do more research before taking it up again!

[bookery]

Totally correct. I am a 30-year veteran school librarian. For about 20 years, publishing companies only publish liberal side of things - can't find materials to promote a balanced discussion. ALA has been radical for years. I stopped paying them dues a long time ago.

[Peter Gerdes]

I think the discussion is aimed at a different phenomenon. They both agree that books can be removed for vulgarity so even if lots of the fuss is what you are talking about it's a bit different than the part they are debating.

[Peter Gerdes]

Interesting discussion, but I think you were being a bit too generous when you suggested Jane's rule of strict nuetrality for removing books made sense. I mean, let's just consider a few hypotheticals.

0) Can the library simply sell it's complete collection to a used book store and buy back the books it wants based on viewpoint?

1) The school library is accidentally shipped or accidentally orders a ton of books they don't want to have for viewpoint reasons. Can they really not return them even for a refund?

2) A miscreant/donor starts adding books to the shelves. Can they remove the ones they object to? What if it's a disgruntled librarian who delibrately orders them to be controversial/get even?

3) If they have more books than shelf space can they make viewpoint choices about what goes into storage? Can they make it essentially impossible to take out books in storage?

I think this demonstrates why it's not even close to practical to decide that viewpoint nuetrality in book removal can't possibly be required by 1a if not required in purchasing.

[Peter Gerdes]

Let me add that as clear as I think it is that 1a allows non-viewpoint nuetral removals I agree with Jane there is something deeply repugnant about removing books out of Animus to the ideas inside.

It's just too blurry a line to police with the law. However, as a matter of policy I think it's clear that even school libraries shouldn't try to eradicate ideas from the school library.

I think this even includes content on drugs (Fear and Loathing etc) and sexuality though it is reasonable to try to avoid purient interest in a pre-college school.