Creating Equitable Educational Experiences in the Face of Censorship

Over the past five years, the United States, as a whole, as well as individual States, have seen an increase in book challenges and curriculum content challenges. In fact, according to the American Library Association (2024):

The number of titles targeted for censorship surged 65 percent in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching the highest levels ever documented by the American Library Association (ALA). The new numbers released today show efforts to censor 4,240 unique book titles* in schools and libraries. This tops the previous high from 2022, when 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship.

The stakeholders in the issue of educational censorship are educators, school administrators, students, parents, community members, State Government, Federal Government, teacher preparation programs, and State Boards of Education. Many of these stakeholders are taking these challenges to a new arena rather than just taking them to schools and libraries.

This new arena is legislation being proposed and passed in State governments to ban or limit entire topics. For example, there are measures that are targeting “divisive concepts,” a term used broadly for books and information about race, gender, and sex that does not align with what legislators are calling the dominant American cultural norms and values (National Coalition Against Censorship [NCAC], 2021a). “At least seven such bills have been introduced just since the beginning of April 2021, including Arkansas’s SB267, Ohio’s HB327, Louisiana’s HB564, Michigan’s SB0460, South Carolina’s H4343, Missouri’s HB952, and Tennessee’s SB0623” (National Coalition Against Censorship, 2021a). Several have already become laws, and some policies are taking place in State Boards of Education to change State Standards and teacher preparation.

Adding to this fervor is the conflating of Critical Race Theory with Culturally Responsive Teaching into the same concept and the current Administration’s war on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. As classrooms in the United States become more and more diverse, the questions become:

Is it ethical to remove factual histories from public education about the diverse populations in the United States? How do we create equitable educational experiences for students if they and their cultures are not appropriately reflected in the classroom? How can we ensure that the increase in exclusionary educational practices can be reversed?

The purpose of this piece is to not only unravel the differences between Critical Race Theory and Culturally Responsive Teaching but also to seek out ways to help those who want to stop censorship in schools and stop the legislating of censorship in our States.

Major Ethical Issues

Before one can begin to evaluate the options to ensure equitable educational experiences for all students, the major ethical issues surrounding the current wave of book challenges and book bans must be explored. When bills like those mentioned above are introduced not only to limit the so-called divisive concepts but also to ban anything under the guise of Critical Race Theory, public education in the United States can tumble into unethical teaching practices.

The first ethical issue that arises under this type of censorship is what do we as an educational system and country lose when we censor factual information? According to the National Coalition Against Censorship (2021b), “The freedom to learn, read, discover, and create is crucial to educating informed citizens.” The backbone of American public education has always been to create a citizenry that could participate in our democracy. However, if the current climate of censorship is focusing on removing factual information because it might paint a negative picture of our nation’s history, then how do public schools fulfill that original charge? A nation cannot educate informed citizens with false information. Lying to students through omission is highly unethical.

A second ethical issue to consider in current censorship attempts is the necessity of teaching practices that reflect and include a diverse student population. Craig E. Johnson (2020) states the following concerning inclusive climates:

Ethical organizations recognize that we are living in the ‘age of diversity.’ Globalization; immigration; gender equality; civil, gay and disability rights; and other forces contribute to an increasingly diverse society. Ethical groups embrace these trends, seeking to foster diversity.

If inclusion and diversity are ethical practices in organizations, then censoring books in public schools that depict diverse topics and characters would be highly unethical. Unfortunately, this much needed cultural diversity in schools is being attacked under the guise of Critical Race Theory. There is a concentrated effort by many groups to ban Critical Race Theory from being taught in schools. However, nowhere in the United States is Critical Race Theory being taught in K-12 schools. You would be hard pressed to find it being taught in undergraduate programs.

Derrick Bell, a Harvard Law professor, is considered the godfather of Critical Race Theory, which was developed in the 1980s (Fortin, 2021). Critical Race Theory really looks at how race and racism is embedded in our nation’s institutions, particularly in our judicial system. These concepts and theories are not being taught in K-12 schools. Groups who are fighting against discussing race or movements like Black Lives Matter have taken up the term Critical Race Theory to mean any text or discussion of race in schools. What they are hoping for is a return to an all white, comfortable curriculum.

The third ethical consideration within school censorship is ensuring first amendment rights for both students and educators. As recent as 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L.:

Schools have many responsibilities: They must teach basic and advanced skills and information; they must do so for students of different backgrounds and abilities; they must teach students to work independently and in groups; and they must provide a safe environment that promotes learning. (National Coalition Against Censorship, 2021b)

This ruling ensures that students have the right to learn about and read about a wide range of views and provides students with an opportunity to discuss those views. It also ensures that teachers do not have to succumb to teaching “bland, formulaic, pre-approved exercises carried out in an environment that discourages the give-and-take that can spark a student’s enthusiasm for learning” (National Coalition Against Censorship).

Major Factual Issues

Coupled with the ethical questions that arise from censorship in public schools are factual issues about diversity and inclusion in creating an equitable educational experience for all students.

Many of the Bills being proposed in State Legislatures directly contradict the educational standards they have already approved and passed about including diverse texts in school. Some States have already passed laws to censor certain topics and books in their State’s schools. For example, in Texas, HB 3979 went into effect on September 1, 2021. In part, this bill states:

For any social studies course in the required curriculum, ‘a teacher may not be compelled to discuss a particular current event or widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs,’ and if the teacher chooses to do so, that teacher must ‘to the best of the teacher’s ability, strive to explore the topic from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective.’ (Brinson & Walker, 2021)

What this bill has done is allow topics like the Holocaust in Texas schools to have to provide for presenting Holocaust denial as a “diverse and contending perspective” and not give preference to presenting this part of history as factual. This very thing occurred in Southlake, Texas (Aguirre, 2021). Once bills like this pass, it is much harder to change the legislation back. Many of the proposed State Bills are going against several Supreme Court rulings and precedents passed over the last 80 years concerning freedom of speech in schools and intellectual freedom in schools.

Another factual issue to consider is the need for every school district to have a sound and structured book/curriculum challenge policy. Schools that take the time to develop and implement such a policy have better results when working with stakeholders concerning book choice and challenges. Without such a policy, schools are working from behind when a challenge arises with no clear path for resolution. A sound policy will include alternative reading materials for parents who are adamant about not letting their child read/learn about a concept.

The final factual issue to consider is that many educators and administrators need more training about dealing with cultural diversity in their classrooms and schools. If a teacher or administrator went through their education program several years ago, they may not have had courses in diversity and inclusion. With race, LGBTQIA+ issues, and a changing student population, book challenges cannot be effectively countered without being able to discuss these issues with facts and decorum.

Major Conceptual Issues

If the role of public education in the United States is to not only ensure a literate populace but also to create civic-minded citizens, then those roles are impossible under censorship. The rewriting of history or the omission of certain facts for the sake of not making kids feel bad to placate a dominant status quo is equivalent to an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. And if that is allowed through censorship, then the role of public education fails. The concept of a civic minded populace that can participate in the democratic process fails. Unifying a people through critical analysis, critical thinking, the sharing of diverse ideas and perspectives fails.

Another conceptual issue to discuss surrounding censorship has been researched thoroughly for over 20 years: Culturally Responsive Teaching. Teaching diverse texts and including cultural awareness in the curriculum helps create well-rounded students who not only understand themselves better but who also understand a wider world, including understanding their classmates from different backgrounds. Many states have cultural competency as a standard in education. These standards were born out of the work of people like Geneva Gay in the area of Culturally Responsive Teaching and Glenn Singleton in the area of teaching about race. Gay (2002) said Culturally Responsive Teaching “is based on the assumption that when academic knowledge and skills are situated within the lived experiences and frames of reference of students, they are more personally meaningful, have higher interest appeal, and are learned more easily and thoroughly.” If students learn better if they see themselves reflected in the curriculum and in the books they have access to, then it follows that providing them these materials creates equitable educational experiences.

The concepts of values and religious morals are directly tied to issues of school censorship. Values and religious morals are conflated into one and the same, and they don’t always align with the mission and purpose of public schools. Whose values do we teach? Whose religious morals do we make dominant? The purpose of public education is to present a variety of cultural perspectives and ways of knowing to ensure a well-rounded populace.

Options and Arguments for Book Challenges

The first option when a book challenge arises is to completely remove the book from being accessed at school. Although this option is often what stakeholders opposed to a book or a concept being taught want to happen, it is the most unethical and harmful to all stakeholders involved. The most common reason for parents and other community members to want a book removed is their belief that the book in question is somehow morally corrupt. They believe they must protect all children in the school. However, this perspective is what Johnson (2020) calls “evil as idealism.” Although violence is not an end result, an oppressive curriculum that only presents a certain group or concept is not ethical in a diverse classroom. This option also presents “evil as exclusion” (Johnson, 2020). Many of the book challenges and topics challenged of late have to do with minority experiences. When stakeholders win out by having materials that deal with race, minority experiences, or LGBTQIA+ experiences removed, they are “disregarding, ignoring, distorting, or minimizing others’ experiences” (Johnson, 2020).

Often, this is the outcome in schools without a sound challenge policy. Board members, not wanting to be seen as going against parents, will remove the materials for ease of resolution. For those parents, teachers, students, and community members who are also stakeholders and want the materials to remain have no recourse once the removal happens. The few have prevailed over the majority in most cases, and those parents who want their children to have access to the materials at school have their parental rights taken away by other parents. This option is the most restrictive.

The second option would be to keep the challenged materials in the library and as required reading material in all classrooms with no alternative materials offered to the stakeholders challenging the materials. If following the purpose of public education is the moral imperative for the health of our democracy, then ensuring that for all students would be the only outcome to consider. This option would be aligned with Kant’s categorical imperative. “We ought to make choices based on our duty” (Johnson, 2020) even if those choices make us uncomfortable. If it is the duty of all stakeholders in public schools to ensure a student body that can think critically, analyze data, work with and for a diverse group of people, and participate in our democracy, then all materials, topics and books should remain accessible. One could argue that those parents who still don’t want their children to have access can either homeschool or send their children to a private school that aligns with their values.

Although this option may on the surface benefit the majority of stakeholders, it does in fact create an exclusionary group just as full censorship does. The majority may rule, but is it ethical to take all control away from some parents? Many would argue yes it is ethical because those students are being exposed to real history, learning how to deal with uncomfortable situations, and becoming thinkers. Others would say parents should still have some control. But how do we balance that? That can happen with the third option.

The third option is often carried out in schools that have a detailed challenge policy: Providing alternative resources for families who challenge a book. If schools already have a list of alternative texts for required reading, then this option is the most ethical. Parents who do not want their child to read a required text can be provided with alternative texts to choose from. The National Coalition Against Censorship says it best, “While individual parents have considerable control over their own child’s education and can request their child be given a different book, they have no right to impose their preferences on other students and their families” (National Coalition Against Censorship, 2021b). By providing alternative texts, schools would be providing a very utilitarian solution where the most good is being done for the greatest number of people (Johnson, 2020). In fact, it could be argued that all involved could be satisfied with this approach.

One potential issue with this option would be materials in the library or books on a reading list that are not required. Those stakeholders wanting those materials removed wouldn’t really have a definitive alternative handed to them. However, because the materials are not required, their child does not have to check out the book, and parents could request that their child not be allowed to do so.

Evaluation of Options

There are issues that affect the ability to use any of these options. Although it is possible to provide alternative resources for individual families/stakeholders, with the use of statewide legislation, the ability to provide alternatives on a case-by-case basis is taken away. Those who want to censor win over all, and there is no alternative for those who do not want the censorship.

In states like Texas that have recently passed this type of legislation, it takes a very strong coalition of stakeholders opposed to the censorship to be heard.

As stated before, a strong challenge policy is a must in order to have any control over censorship in schools. Without a tightly written policy, the outcome will most likely be one of full censorship. Schools must seek out intellectual freedom specialists to help them craft a challenge policy that will benefit all stakeholders in an ethical way. Most policies include alternative texts as a way to satisfy all stakeholders, but if this is not satisfactory to some, the policy should include a formal process of appeal.

Many of the arguments used to defend full censorship are based on faulty information. Currently, the use of Critical Race Theory as an umbrella term to mean anything about race or minorities, and that those topics make white students feel bad is actually an incorrect definition of the term. Many schools and states have actual standards for culturally relevant teaching and by censoring these books are going against not meeting their own standards. The other faulty argument for censorship is the use of religion to justify removal. Public schools are not supposed to support or promote one religion according to our Constitution. When stakeholders use a religious belief to justify censorship, they are violating the rights of everyone in the school (National Coalition Against Censorship, 2021b).

Above all, schools must meet the needs of a changing society. Our nation’s classrooms are more diverse than they have ever been. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, “Between 2000 and 2017, the percentage of 5- to 17-year-olds who were White decreased from 62 to 51 percent, while the percentage who were Hispanic increased from 16 to 25 percent” (de Brey, 2019). Other ethnic groups also increased in number in our classrooms. We know from research that students perform better when they see themselves in what they study. Ethical leaders “promote diversity initiatives with the end goal of making all members, whatever their differences, feel valued and included” (Johnson, 2020). If inclusion is ethical, then removal of diverse texts and stories from public schools is unethical, and frankly, doing so does not support equitable education. If schools are supposed to support communities, then they must support ALL members of that community.

The Best Ethical Option

After examining the issue of censorship in public schools, the options presented, and evaluating those options, the most ethical option would be to keep all materials in school while providing alternative materials to those stakeholders wanting to keep certain books out of the hands of their children. This truly is the most utilitarian approach for all involved. All parents in this scenario are provided with a choice for their children. Critics may argue that it is the responsibility of certain groups to maintain the moral integrity of the community, but in diverse communities, which group gets to make that decision? By offering alternative texts, the values and religious morals of everyone can be sustained. Others may believe that even with alternatives in place, students will get their hands on books their parents don’t want them to have if those books remain in the school. Yes, this may happen. However, even if those books are removed, students will find a way to get that book. They will borrow it from a friend, buy it themselves, or get it from another library. Removal does not mean inaccessible. The one piece of this entire issue that may inhibit the implementation of this option is the legislative piece. If states continue to legislate censorship, then even alternative texts won’t be an option.

Ultimately, preserving access while honoring individual choice not only respects the diversity of beliefs within a community but also upholds the fundamental freedoms essential to a democratic education system.

References

Aguirre, P. (2021, October 14). Texas school leader wants “opposing” view books on holocaust. Chron. https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/ article/Southlake-teacher-opposing-view-book-Holocaust-16533812.php

American Library Association. (2024, March 14). American Library Association reports record number of unique book titles challenged in 2023. https://www.ala.org/news/2024/03/american-library-association-reports-record-number-unique-book-titles

Brinson, J., & Walker, J. (2021, June 21). Texas legislative update on diversity, equity, and inclusion-related bills. JD Supra. https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/texas-legislative-update-on-diversity-7819564/

de Brey, C. (2019, June 20). New report shows increased diversity in U.S. schools, disparities in outcomes. National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/blogs/nces/post/new-report-shows-increased-diversity-in-u-s-schools-disparities-in-outcomes

Fortin, J. (2021, July 27). What is critical race theory? A brief history explained. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2), 106–116. https://www.cwu.edu/teaching-learning/sites/cts.cwu.edu.teaching- learning/ files/documents/PreparingforCulturallyResponsiveTeaching, %20Geneva%20Gay.pdf

Johnson, C. E. (2020). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow (7th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. Scholastic.

National Coalition Against Censorship. (2021a, June 23). Non-Partisan coalition statement opposing “divisive concepts” legislation [Press release]. https://ncac.org/news/divisive-concepts-statement-2021

National Coalition Against Censorship. (2021b, August 17). The first amendment in schools. https://ncac.org/resource/first-amendment-in-schools

National Coalition Against Censorship & National Council of Teachers of English. (2020). Responding to challenges: A handbook for educators. National Coalition Against Censorship. https://ncac.org/resource/educator-handbook

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Singleton, G. E. (2021). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide for achieving equity in schools and beyond (3rd ed.). Corwin