In the United States today, individual books continue
to be challenged, especially in school libraries. Young adult
titles have garnered 6,364 challenges between 1990 and 2000, with
complaints ranging from "sexually explicit" to "occult
theme" to "offensive language" (Lesesne,
ix). Questions surrounding what is suitable reading for a
person of a certain age level arouses many strong opinions. Should
a child or young adult be able to read anything he or she wants?
For the most part, though, people in the U.S.
can feel assured that they can get copies of frequently challenged
titles such as The Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Slaughterhouse Five.
Other insidious forms of book banning present more complex challenges.
One insidious way that books are censored is through
the mechanisms of the marketplace. Book publishers choose what
will and will not be published. One example of this form of book
banning occurred during World War II. Bennet Cerf, president of
Random House and Modern Library during the war, made sure that
not a "single book that preaches a creed inimical to the
war effort" would be published (Martin).
Today, large commercial publishers sometimes edge out small press
publishers, homogenizing our culture and marginalizing dissenting
viewpoints (Lee).
We do, of course, have a marketplace full of dissenting
viewpoints. Or do we? Are there books that are missing, perspectives
that have been silenced?
Sometimes books remain inaccessible because of
self-censorship. When books with dissenting viewpoints are published,
the librarian or bookstore buyer might choose not to carry a certain
title out of fear of a lawsuit (Kick).
Because of the federal USA
Patriot Act, the library patron is also subject to self-censorship,
for the Act requires that librarians make a patron's records available
to federal investigators. Who might be concerned about what books
he or she checks out because of this Act?
The changing technology of the last decade has
brought about another layer to the question of book banning, thrusting
it into the broader frame of censorship of the Internet. On June
23, 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the Children's
Internet Protection Act, requiring public libraries to filter
Web content or face the loss of federal funds.
Do the reasons for censorship in ancient Greece
and Rome differ from the reasons for censorship in the contemporary
United States or are we still struggling with the same challenges?
The next page presents some web resources that
will give you more information to help you reach your own conclusions.
Next..
