Book Bans?
Book Bans?
We should be careful not to conflate curation with censorship.
This is, unfortunately, something that keeps needing to be said:
The curation of a school library is not book-banning, any more than a college board approving curriculum, a teacher building a lesson plan, or a newspaper having an editorial process is censorship.
Is it the position of all of these folks who cry "book-banning" and of the media outlets who continue to characterize the curation process as "book-banning" that a school library, of all places, should be a hands-off, anything-goes area? That we shouldn't consider carefully which literature and publications should or shouldn't be at the fingertips of our young developing minds?
Parents can still have any book they please in their houses. Outlets like Amazon can have any book they please in their catalogs. Public libraries can still have a much broader, and adult, offering of literature and publications on their shelves. Nothing is being banned.
We are debating the process of curation, the reasonable and long-held process of deciding which literature is appropriate and effective for the education of young, budding citizens.
-Justin
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