Censorship in Schools

Censorship is seen throughout the world, including the United States where the first amendment protects educators’ judgment of their professional standards. Moral and religious censorship in schools confines the flow of ideas that make a classroom a place to truly learn. Knowledge is needed by young citizens to become contributing members of society. Students in America differ in cultural traditions and religion, making it hard for educators to balance educational needs and respect of individual rights. Supreme Courts have ruled that free speech can sometimes be subordinated during education. Within the educational setting, speech isn’t as free.

To censor is “to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable”, according to Webster’s Dictionary. Censorship is used mostly in school for any controversial subjects. Outspoken parents are a main cause in school censorship. Matters having anything to do with religion, science, history, literature, art, and so on have been censored in schools across the country. Even though parents have full right to prevent their child from what they find harmful, it’s not right that their words may affect other students.

Practically all classic literature has been banned at one point or another. If all of these would have stayed censored, much knowledge would be taken from students. Books that contain

violence, profanity, or racial slurs and books without happy endings are opposed by some parents. With all of these unwanted, the narrow list of allowable books would hardly prepare a child for life beyond high school. These stories are admittedly the most fascinating, and without them teachers would have a harder time getting unconcerned students involved in reading.

Every day in the U.S., censorship strikes. It can appear easily, such as a school having a �banned books’ list, or restrictions may transpire unnoticed, when a teacher doesn’t order a certain