Censorship and the Public Librarian

Mark W. Sorensen

"Assassination is the extreme form of censorship." -George Bernard Shaw

"My job is to open new worlds to students, not close them off."

-Librarian, Covina, California

Censorship is the purposeful withholding of information by one party from another party. It is the control of what people may say, hear, write, read or see. Every society throughout history has had some kind of censorship whenever the government, or a special interest group, felt its basic beliefs were threatened by free expression. In the past 200 years, the United States government has tolerated and supported formal censorship based on moral, military, political and religious grounds. The purpose of this essay is to help me clarify my ideas about censorship by focusing on a recent case study in order to prepare guidelines for me to follow in dealing with this issue as a public librarian.

Until recently, most censorship was promoted by governments. The first list of books banned in an English-speaking country was issued in 1529 by Henry VIII of England, Defender of the Faith (until he needed divorce) against the heretic Martin Luther. In order to stay out of "gaol," English publishers had controversial books printed in the Netherlands, or used a false address on the title page so that they could not be arrested (Harley & Hampden, p. 42).

Before 1960, most censorship in the United States was also carried out by the government, both federal and local, and related mainly to obscenity, blasphemy and sedition. Although not consistently enforced, censorship laws were an impediment to the free circulation of ideas (ALA, 1986, p. 81). However, most censorship laws were eventually struck down by the courts as infringements of people's First Amendment rights.

Beginning in 1934, in the case of United States v. One Book Entitled "Ulysses," the federal courts ruled that Joyce's work was not obscene because "the book, taken as a whole, 'did not tend to excite sexual impulses or lustful thoughts'" in the average person (quoted in O'Connor, p. 388). Despite this ruling, much material was still judged on the standard of the lowest possible denominator; i.e., was it possible for material X to fall into the hands of someone (anyone) who could be corrupted or depraved by it? But the legal trend slowly started to move to a more tolerant interpretation. In Butler v. Michigan in 1957, Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote that "quarantining the general reading public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in order to shield juvenile innocence" is "to reduce the adult population... to reading only what is fit for children" (O'Connor, p. 389).

In a series of opinions in the mid 1960s, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. ruled that in order for something to be obscene: "(a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex; (b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and (c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value." He also specified that the community standards were national. According to legal expert Edward de Grazia, after these decisions "any work of literature, science or art, as well as any expression having 'social importance,' could be worked free of censorship (O'Connor, pp. 406-407).

Fast forwarding to the 1990s, we find that many public libraries contain material deemed offensive and an affront to the "community standards" of various groups. The Fairfax, Virginia, county library system (just south of the Washington beltline) subscribed to and displayed the Washington Blade, a weekly gay newspaper. In the several years it was available in the regular newspaper collection, there were no complaints. However, in December 1992, when the system agreed to place a stack of the papers in the lobby of each library along with other free weeklies (these are never described in any of the articles), letters of protest began pouring into the library board. Library patron Karen Jo Gounaud (now leader of the Family Friendly Library (FFL) movement), led a group of area citizens

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to a public library hearing to ask that the paper be removed from the lobby, but not from circulation. On March 24,1993, the library board voted 8-4 to continue the free and open distribution of the offending material. During the next six months, each side of this controversy did what they felt justified in doing in order to protect their interests.

The future FFL'ers used Freedom of Information laws to secure the names of those who spoke in favor of the gay newspaper and called them at home to discuss the issue. They also started taking handfuls of the Blade as soon as it was delivered so that no one else could get a copy. They repeatedly came to library board meetings and asked the board to compromise their position by putting the Blade up higher so that children could not see it, or keeping it behind the counter available only by request.

The board, which until this time never had a policy about the public addressing their meetings, responded by adopting perhaps the most restrictive freedom of speech rules of any local public body in the United States. Beginning in July 1993, no more than five citizens could address the board on any given night. Speakers were limited to three-minute presentations, and a person could only address the board "once a year." The Gounaud group sought redress from the county supervisors in September by showing "a graphic video presentation consisting of sexually suggestive advertising from the Blade" (Washington Post, Sept. 28, 1993). The supervisors, who appoint the library board in Fairfax County, requested that their legal staff find a way to force the removal of the Blade, or failing that, abolish the library board.

Throughout 1994, Gounaud and her supporters repeatedly urged the library to segregate material promoting and approving of homosexual behavior to where children could not casually find it. She also requested that "healthy" homosexual books, that encourage the abandonment of the gay lifestyle, be obtained by the library system.

The current status in Northern Virginia is as follows. The Fairfax library board stood firm on open access in their system and have no restricted areas. However, some gay titles for children are now classified as adult non-fiction. Because of the open access, parents are ultimately responsible for their children's reading. Therefore, the board agreed to allow parents to access the circulation records of their children under age 12. Also, in an effort to achieve "balance" in their collection, the library system added 11 titles, including Healing the Homosexual and You Don't Have to be Gay to represent the conservative Christian viewpoint (Mount Vernon Gazette, July 28, 1994). A Fairfax librarian told me that the Blade is still available in the library, but the controversy had quieted because the "forces for 'good' are now after the family life curriculum in the schools."

In nearby Loudoun County where Christian conservatives have also been active, the library board rescinded its adoption of the ALA "Bill of Rights" and replaced it with a document written by one of its own trustees. Loudoun Trustee Frank Lambert said "The Freedom to Read" is really a piece of trash," while board president Dennis Pierce opined that the ALA was more dangerous than the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and People for the American Way, because the ALA had insidiously weakened the fabric of our society without great fanfare (Sterling Observer, March 24, 1995, American Libraries, Oct. 1995, p. 871). Blade publishers have never even tried to distribute their newspaper in Loudoun libraries.

The situation in Virginia (and Ohio, etc.) can be represented as one of intellectual freedom versus the protection of children. To those people in favor of the unrestricted distribution of the Blade, the FFL folk consist of individuals whose convictions are so certain about moral issues they feel compelled to control the behavior of others. Those who favor freedom and equality of access to all information deplore "individual attempts at closing off access to ideas because they are inimical to a specific world view" (ALA, 1986, p. 83). The library community has taken the position that FFL's concern to protect children is really a cover for its homophobic viewpoint. If the library board gives in on this issue, it will be viewed as the first step on the slippery slope to total censorship and totalitarianism.

It is interesting that during its first 60 years of existence, the ALA had no formal position on censorship. It was not until 1939 and the censoring of The Grapes of Wrath, that the association adopted what would later become known as the Library Bill of Rights. In 1948, denunciation of censorship by "volunteer arbiters of morals or political opinion" was added, and in 1951 the ALA went on record opposing labeling library materials by their point of view (O'Connor, pp. 401-402).

Gounaud's point of view in the Blade case is that children should not be exposed to certain sexual and violent behaviors, and if the public library must contain these elements, they should not be in easy reach of youngsters. She wanted this material restricted, not removed from the collection. Her group also demanded a "balance" in the viewpoints on certain topics in the collection. However, many of the people who side with Gounaud think that allowing total intellectual

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freedom is the first step on the slippery slope to total moral degradation and the demise of our nation.

Stanley Fish advises that when it comes to discussing free speech and censorship, participants should resist "overheated and overdramatic characterizations of our situation, whether they come from the left or the right." In this vein, Virginian James J. Kilpatrick recently reviewed the ALA publication "Banned Books." He exclaimed that not one of the 760 challenges of 164 different books in 1994-95 resulted in a single public library book being banned. He opined, therefore, that the report's "principal purpose is to protect the jobs of the scaremongers who put it together." He did concede that a handful of books were removed from school classrooms or libraries, but that nearly all these were only "temporarily" removed.

"Running through the ALA report," he says, "is this implicit proposition: School librarians are always right; parents are always wrong. When a librarian turns down a book as worthless, it is 'professional judgment.' When a parent urges that a particular book be removed, it is 'censorship.'" He concludes that despite the cynical and ominous picture presented by the ALA, the report reveals the common sense of librarians and school boards across the country who overwhelmingly stood firmly in defense of the freedom to read (Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, March 12,1996).

As if anticipating Kilpatrick's comments 10 years earlier, the ALA Freedom and Equality of Access to Information Commission stated in 1986: "If censorship efforts by private individuals and groups do not as a practical matter, now create a major limitation on access to information, this is true only because of a vigorous and vigilant defense of the freedom to read by educators, librarians, publishers, authors, and determined citizens. It is essential that this vigilance continue" (ALA, 1986, pp. 112-13).

In his There's No Such Thing As Free Speech, Fish states that "the line between what is permitted and what is to be spurned is always being drawn and redrawn, and that structures of constraint are simultaneously always in place and always subject to revision if the times call for it and resources are up to it." He continues saying that "discrimination is not a deviant practice; it is the practice everyone is always and already engaged in." According to Fish, when your group overturns the effects of planned discrimination, the new plan that emerges "will inevitably produce new discriminatory effects felt by the persons whose interests are, for the moment, being slighted. You can only fight discrimination, practices that disadvantage some groups, with discrimination, practices that disadvantage some other groups" (Fish 1994, pp. viii, 12).

While Lester Asheim (Wilson Library Bulletin, 1953) contends that rational thought, attitude and diligence separate material "selectors" from material "censors," Fish believes that the notion of judging things "fairly" can never be achieved in a real-life situation. He states that the reason selectors give to justify their choice "will always be a function of the personal and institutional history" that has brought them to that moment. Whenever the side of 'Reason' wins an argument, according to Fish, the result will be a victory not for Reason, but for the party that has managed (either by persuasion or intimidation or legerdemain) to get the reasons that flow from its agenda identified with Reason as a general category and, thereby, to identify the reasons of its opponent as obviously unreasonable" (Fish, pp. 17-18).

Long before the Christian Coalition, Plato described the ideal state. He worried about the ill-effects of teaching young children the stories of the Greek gods. He felt that they would misinterpret all of the sex, violence, deceit and brutality described by Hesiod and Homer. "...These tales," Plato wrote, "must not be admitted into our state, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young hear first should be models of virtuous thoughts" (The Dialogues of Plato, Book II, p. 378, not William Bennett).

This whole censorship issue is a conundrum to me. On the one hand I have always been in favor of Jefferson's adage, "When excesses occur, the best guarantee of free speech is more speech, not less." I believe that all library information should be available for research and learning.

On the other hand, as a parent I want to be the person to decide, when possible, what ideas and in what context my child receives. In that sense, I find myself agreeing with the stated objectives of people such as Tipper Gore, who want labels on materials that children come in contact with.

My practical advice to myself as a librarian is as follows:

1. Promote reading and the quest for information by being a good "selector" and not a person who limits searches for information and different points of view.

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2. Try to maintain a balanced collection that represents many (but possibly not all) points of view in my local collection. If a book can be gotten from another source, I will do it.

3. Know my community and try to serve their interests while still trying to multiply the points of view which will find expression in my collection.

4. Know my board and try to educate them in the reasons why librarians want to allow everyone access to all information.

5. Work to develop a consensus on the board and get them to adopt policies regarding selection, displays, handouts and citizens addressing the board before a crisis occurs.

6. Keep the lines of communication open to the community by having a variety of people on the materials selection committee; having a materials suggestion policy; formal complaint procedure; donation policy; and get out and move among the people of the town in their interest groups.

Whether we put some materials on higher shelves or in the adult section; whether parents must agree to let their child have access to the whole library or the parents have access to their child's circulation records; whether informational labels are placed on specific materials or informational signage is placed on the walls; and whether some material is always in the collection, but never on display, will flow from and be decided by the above guidelines and not from a "one size fits all" policy voted on by committees of professionals. The public libraries belong to the people in the local communities. They select the guardians.

References Consulted

American Library Association. The Freedom to Read. Originally issued in 1953, this statement was last revised January 16,1991.

American Libraries.

__ "Censorship Roundup" October 1995, p. 871.

__ "Bowing to Staff Protest, LC Removes Slavery Exhibition" February 1996, p. 10.

__ "Censorship Watch" February 1996, p. 13.

Asheim, Lester. "Not Censorship But Selection," Wilson Library Bulletin, 28 (September 1953), 63-67.

Berninghausen, David. "Film Censorship," ALA Bulletin, 44 (December 1950), 447-448.

"Censorship in Bartlesville" (Oklahoma Library Association, Committee on Intellectual Freedom), ALA Bulletin, 45 (March 1951), 87-90.

The Connection. ("The Newspaper of Fairfax," Virginia) August 4, 1994, p.9 Estabrook, Leigh S. "Sacred Trust or Competitive Opportunity:

Using Patron Records," Library Journal. (February 1, 1996), 48-49. Fairfax County Public Library Policy Manual. "Policy Regarding Displays and Handouts," 1994, pp. 14-14a. The Fairfax Journal. (The daily newspaper of Fairfax County, Virginia)

June 26,1993, pp. 1 & 6

July 28,1993, p. A3

March 3,1994, p. A.

May 17,1994, pp. Al & A6.

July 6, 1994, p. A3.

August 26,1994, pp. Al & A7.

Fish, Stanley There's No Such Thing As Free Speech: And It's a Good Thing. Oxford University Press: New York, 1994.

Gore, Tipper. Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society. Nashville: Abing-don Press, 1987.

Harer, John B. and Harris, Steven R. Censorship of Expression in the 1980's: A Statistical Survey. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Harley, E.S. and Hampden, John. Books: From Papyrus to Paperback. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1964.

Kilpatrick, James J. "Shame on Librarians: Report just Cynical hoax," The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette. March 22,1996, p. 22.

Moore, Everett T. "Intellectual Freedom," ALA Bulletin, 54 (November 1960) p. 815.

Mount Vernon Gazette. (Virginia)
July 28,1994, p. 1.

O'Connor, Thomas F. "The National Organization for Decent Literature: A Phase in American Catholic Censorship," Library Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 4, (1995), 386-414.

People For the American Way. Attacks on the Freedom to Learn 1993-1994. Washington: People For the American Way, 1994. The Sterling Observer (Loudoun County, Virginia)

March 24,1995, pp. 1 & 6. Washington Blade.

April 16,1993, p. 6. The Washington Post.

September 28,1993

October 1, 1993, p. Dl & D2.

May 11,1994, p. Bl.

July 19,1994, p. Dl. and Sept. 26,1994, pp. Bl & B5.

* Mark W. Sorensen, Assistant Director, Illinois State Archives, Office of the Secretary of State, Springfield. Mr. Sorensen is also a graduate library school student at the University of Illinois in Urbana.

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