Censorship in America has evolved and is accepted in some instances while objected to in others. Throughout the years censorship is continuously debated and redefined. According to The First Freedom Today by R.B. Downs and R.E. McCoy and Obscenity and Public Morality by H. M. Clor, “attempts to suppress political freedom of the press in the American colonies were recurrent,” and they said the first victory over censorship was the trial of John Peter Zenger.
Zenger was arrested on the charge of seditious libel. Zenger’s lawyer then argued that the law itself was unlawful and Zenger should not be punished for reporting the truth. Zenger won and changed the precedent for libel and slander. Now one can print articles that would have been cause for arrest, as long as one can prove they are true.
Amanda Venable, editor-in-chief of The University Star, said her experience with censorship at Texas State University-San Marcos is limited.
“I have never encountered censorship at Texas State, luckily. The University Star operates under full rights to the First Amendment, which we take very seriously,” Venable said. Venable said she feels that the term censorship is very broad and there are times when it is acceptable.
”As an editor, it's very common that I take out particular language that could be portrayed as derogatory. Though we are student journalists, we hold ourselves to a high standard,” Venable said. “For example, we had a cartoonist who, at times, would draw suggestively or use profanities. Occasionally, it fit with the overarching message of the cartoon and was acceptable. Other times, however, it came across as unprofessional, distracting and unnecessary. It was my job to cut that cartoon.”
Venable then said censorship of special interest groups, governmental agencies and the Texas State University administration is unethical and unconstitutional.
”However, censorship of hate speech and profanity can be necessary,” Venable said. “Especially if the subject matter is distracting to readers or is unprofessional.”
Book Banning
During the Cold War many opposed textbooks, books, articles and movies. Matter that could be construed as pro-communism was banned. Today, controversy surrounds book banning. According to an article by Jason Hanna, published on CNN.com, Wisconsin residents were fighting over books that they felt depicted sexually explicit or graphic material in the young adult section of the library. Ginny Maziarka, interviewed by Hanna, said she felt that books portraying homosexuality in a positive light should not be allowed. Maziarka amended her argument saying that the books containing the questionable material should be moved to the adult section of the library. Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Acting Director for the Office of Intellectual Freedom for the American Library Association said “moving any young-adult book to the adult section would have been a form of censorship, even if teens were free to check them out.”
According to the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, complaints about library books “increased from about 300 in 1979–80 to between 900 and 1,000 in 1980–81.”
According to their Web site, the most popular complaints dealt with profanity and explicit material. “Other prevalent reasons for challenges concerned alleged religious or racial bias, undermining the “traditional family values,” excessively critical views of U.S. history, the teaching of Darwin's evolutionary theory without reference to the biblical account of creation, and “values clarification” approaches to teaching—a method that encourages students to formulate and refine their own values, regardless of whether they are consistent with prevailing religious or moral standards.”
Caldwell-Stone said despite the fact that book banning is usually unpopular, it is a right protected by the First Amendment.
“If somebody has a concern about a book they have a right to raise a complaint and they have the right to have that complaint heard,” Caldwell-Stone said. “Librarians take great care to pick books for the library that are suitable for the community and meet the information needs of the community. That means picking all kinds of material across the spectrum of thought some conservative, some liberal, some religious. Even books that deal with controversial issues, because they have to serve the entire community not just the majority of the community and not just one view point of the community.”
Caldwell-Stone said controversial books are not limited to teen fiction and a children’s book instigated a heated debate. And Tango Makes Three is a book about two male penguins that find an orphan egg and work together to raise it.
"That’s a true story, it happened in the Central Park Zoo,” Caldwell-Stone said.
“It talks about same sex parented families and introduces homosexuality and homosexual marriage and parenting. Objections are raised about this even though the book is in no way inappropriate or sexy or anything like that, it is written for kindergarteners.”
Books can be disputed based on questionable content, which, on the surface might seem suspicious, but there is generally no basis for alarm Caldwell-Stone said.
“I know an Alaskan librarian who talks about how she has to buy stocks of books on explosives and how to handle explosives and how to make bombs and things like that because her library serves a mining community. The miners in the community need that information to do their job safely,” Caldwell-Stone said.
”People object to that information thinking it might help terrorists, so you really can’t judge what’s in the library simply because of someone’s objection to it. The First Amendment guarantees everyone’s right to read and access all kinds of opinions across the political spectrum. The mission of the library is to provide access to that information.”
Caldwell-Stone said The Anarchist Cookbook is one of the most controversial and debated books of the century.
“It is very political and criticizes the government but that is exactly what the First Amendment protects,” Caldwell-Stone said.
“If we don’t have the freedom to consider these alternative, unorthodox viewpoints how are we able to meet their arguments without reading the arguments themselves? This allows people to develop themselves as citizens, to understand all the arguments that are out there and to educate themselves, and think about these things. They can make up their own minds about politics.”
Censorship on Television
According to The First Freedom Today by R.B. Downs and R.E. McCoy and Obscenity and Public Morality by H. M. Clor , “since 1934, local radio (and later, television) stations have operated under licenses granted by the Federal Communications Commission, which is expressly forbidden to exercise censorship. However, the required periodical review of a station's license invites indirect censorship. The Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that indecent material could be banned from commercial cable-television stations but not from public-access cable stations.”
Stephen Nathan, executive producer of the TV show “Bones”, in an interview posted on Hulu.com said because the show deals with decomposing bodies they have to rewrite scripts because the image is considered to grisly for television.
“Everything has to go through the Network’s Standards and Practices and they will oftentimes say ‘that is too disgusting, please cut that back,’” Nathan said.
“A co-executive producer wrote an episode where a guy is decomposed in a tub of goo, so you saw the top of the head and goo, but you didn’t really see anything, you saw a couple of bones and (Standards and Practices) said ‘Oh no you can’t do that.’”
Nathan said the Standards and Practices objected to the scene because of the image it brought to their mind.
“One of the ways we try to do the show is to make the audience imagine more than what they actually see,” Nathan said
Time becomes the compromise.
“We will have eyeballs falling out of heads and we won’t show it for four-seconds, we will only show it for two-seconds and that somehow makes (Standards and Practices) feel better.”
Uncontroversial Censorship?
Parents do not object to the black bars covering a girl’s exposed breasts or other body parts during a “Girl’s Gone Wild” commercial. Adult magazines are often wrapped in cellophane and placed higher on shelves to prevent children from seeing the sexually explicit covers. Texas State University-San Marcos student Elizabeth Smith said she discussed censorship in her Philosophy class.
“My professor asked the class if censorship was ever OK and everyone in class said no, then she asked us if we had younger siblings, most people did, and would we ever let our younger siblings be exposed to sexually explicit material,” Smith said. “Of course everyone in class said absolutely not, and she told us that we were censoring the material available in order to protect our siblings, therefore we must agree that there are times when censorship is acceptable.” But when asked if she agreed that banning books was necessary to protect children, she said she disagreed.
“It is one thing to remove pornography from a public area where a child might see it,” Smith said. “But some people are more easily offended than others, and to remove any type of suggestive, or possibly offensive piece of literature from every library would inevitably close down public libraries.”
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