In September 2017, Harvard announced that alongside Donald Trump staffers Corey Lewandowski and Sean Spicer, Chelsea Manning would become a visiting fellow. Manning, who had her 35 year sentence commuted by Barack Obama in one of his last Presidential acts, gained notoriety for disclosing military documents, many detailing airstrikes. Within days, after pushback from a former CIA deputy, Manning’s fellowship was revoked. The Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government maintained that Manning was disinvited because the school was wary of endorsing her views, but that Lewandowski and Spicer “[brought] something to the table.” Lewandowski is famous for assaulting a reporter as Campaign Manager for Donald Trump, and Spicer for indiscriminately lying to reporters as Press Secretary. What do they bring to the table that Manning did not? Simply put, they do not challenge the status quo.
Harvard is a private institution, but lessons from their handling of this and other events can be learned by public schools like ours. Although there do exist legitimate concerns over allowing some forms of speech, IHS should strive to find a place for all speech, especially criticism and protest, to ensure a full and fair education for its students.
Just like for any concept, there do exist advantages of censorship. As is often pointed out, certain ideas, statements, and words do tend to cause unnecessary harm. For example, when talking about the Holocaust or other atrocities, especially around younger children, it is prudent to watch one’s language and avoid upsetting anyone. Now, some would respond that getting upset is ‘part of life’ or that offended persons should simply ‘deal with it.’ What these attitudes tend to reflect is a general antipathy or at least apathy towards other humans and their feelings. If harm can be avoided, it follows that it should be, if no substantial value is lost. If topics can be discussed with care while still using the same precision and accuracy, the onus is on the speaker to do so, out of regard for others.
As always, history is an excellent resource for learning about censorship. It can also be gleaned from history that there are different forms of censorship, each with perils. In the Soviet Union, China, and other past and present Communist nations, the state practiced or practices censorship by banning the release of certain books, covering up events, or changing records, as with Stalin’s practice of ‘erasing’ people, even from photographs. As the state censors speech and even assembly, it discourages dissent, which is an essential component of any society. Eventually, such continued and obvious censorship has the effect of revolutionary sentiment welling up. Unfortunately, these states are often willing to repress these rebellions, such as China’s crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests or the USSR’s intervention in Prague and Hungary. Tese state actions reinforce censorship’s relationship to violence and oppression. With marginalized people already facing problems in all societies, censoring voices supporting them serves simply to erase them further. In capitalist and other authoritarian societies, there is censorship too. Censorship in our country has ranged from banning books, regulating comic books, radio, and television, to denying permits for groups to gather that authority figures fnd unsavory. One could go as far as to say that programs that invade the privacy of public figures are forms of censorship, in that they discourage expression of ideas and attempt to stop such figures from having their ideas considered seriously.
Clearly, no government, not even ours, is entirely innocent of censorship. So how, then, can IHS strive to not censor? The answer is not simple, but it is fairly straightforward. To avoid censorship, IHS must try to ensure that all valid viewpoints are represented, and that their critiques are also represented. That is not to say that all existing viewpoints must be explored, since it would be absurd to expect a class with limited time to cover all the world’s content. But in any particular subject, all reasonably popular topics should be at least mentioned, and hopefully given fair time and representation. In sciences and math, this is not generally applicable, since in most cases scientists are in a consensus about what theories are valid. In these cases, only when there are multiple possibly valid hypotheses should multiple viewpoints be presented. For a non-science example of how classes can avoid censorship, a history class could present Nazi views and propaganda along with rebuttals and explanations of why they are generally seen as heinous. Now, it is important with this example and the general principle to stress that the teachers presenting and the views presented need not be neutral in presentation; rather, they must be fair, and in being fair, one must explain something with its faults. For Nazis, there would be more faults, but with any viewpoint, critiques that have popularity or validity among experts in a field should be presented. It is only in this way that our school can protect against ignorance and censorship.
As a public institution, Ithaca High School not only has an obligation not to censor, but to call out censorship by the government and discuss censorship in all its forms. As discussed briefly earlier, the US government is no stranger to some light censorship, and all public schools have a responsibility to draw attention to this, as it is arguably a violation of our first amendment rights. Whether or not one agrees with activists or protests, all protests have a right to be heard, and schools should not ignore them just because the government has acted against them. There is plenty of literature and resources on various movements and ideas that have been censored or opposed by the government, so it would not be too hard to teach. To those who would say that this would undermine our government, doesn’t learning from the past often have the effect of strengthening the future? If current IHS students gain any sort of power in the country, we will know better and will be able to make informed decisions. Ultimately, better understanding is the goal of anti-censorship efforts.
The adoption of policies or stances against censorship at IHS can have lasting positive effects. Students can learn a fuller picture of history. They can have the opportunity to comprehend and discuss viewpoints not always taught. But also, they can learn the important skills of critique. If students are presented less mainstream viewpoints, they can develop criticism of those views, in the process hopefully examining their own views and ideas. In this process, the absence of censorship can help them grow as students, and as people.