![\"Defender_#1\"](\"http:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Defender_1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe issue covered free speech concerns and talked about some important and, at times, troubling developments concerning the freedom to express oneself.\u00a0 These included the joint brief filed by CBLDF and the Cato institute urging SCOTUS to protect First Amendment liberties; a blurb about a cartoonist by the name of Zunar who was arrested in Malaysia for \u2018offensive speech\u2019 on Twitter; and a discussion of the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo attacks.<\/p>\n
What troubled me was there coverage of the dust up in the Chicago Public School (CPS) district over the exclusion of the graphic novel Peresopolis.<\/p>\n
It began with the front cover of Defender boasting a provocative splash \u201cChicago vs. Persepolis: Conspiracy and Cover-up\u201d.\u00a0 The inside of the issue sports a one page story entitled \u201cLies My School Administration Told Me\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The main paragraph reads like the typical movie trailer melodrama \u2018In a world they didn\u2019t make\u2026\u2019 with an all too common use of the logical fallacy of the strawman in to boot.\u00a0 The article implies that someone in the CPS had judged that a book had \u2018content that is inappropriate for children\u2019 and then goes on to ask \u201cWhat sort of filthy, degenerate book could draw demands for removal?\u201d CBLDF doesn\u2019t produce a single email from the CPS that claims the book is \u2018filthy\u2019 and \u2018degenerate\u2019.\u00a0 These terms are simply examples of emotional hyperbole added by the writer to provide an extra dash of saucy flavor.<\/p>\n The article then goes on to say<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My question to the CBLDF is simply why shouldn\u2019t CPS officials have the authority to take Persepolis off the shelf?\u00a0 There are at least two good reasons why CPS officials should and do exercise their discretion when it comes to any book.<\/p>\n The first reason is that these officials have a responsibility to educate the students of the Chicago Public Schools according to how the citizens of Chicago want their children educated.\u00a0 In that capacity they make decisions daily about what curriculum to teach to the children in their care and to pick and choose which ideas they expose and which they keep quiet.\u00a0 Ask yourself if any reasonable person should harass the CPS to promote hardcore pornography as suitable material?\u00a0 How about propaganda from the Ku Klux Klan or the Neo Nazis?\u00a0 What about a display of the Confederate flag? If your answer to any of these questions (or any other material you judge to be inappropriate or controversial) is no then you support the notion that some material should be excluded.\u00a0 At this point, the argument is not one of principle but of degree \u2013 just where should the line be drawn.\u00a0 That is a healthy argument to have but it is not one that should be swayed by emotional language like \u2018conspiracy\u2019, \u2018cover-up\u2019, or \u2018lies\u2019.\u00a0 And these terms were used as emotional triggers on the cover and in the headline of the piece as nothing in the narrative of what CPS officials did indicated that any of these terms applied.\u00a0 It may be true that they do apply, but there is no evidence provided to support that claim.\u00a0 Fundamentally, it is up to school officials to decide what is and is not appropriate based on their entire demographic and in conjunction with school boards, parents, and the like.\u00a0 Every community has the right and the obligation to set its own standards of decency.<\/p>\n The second reason is not rooted in questions of a moral aesthetic but in economics.\u00a0 School systems, like any other human agency, are limited by scarcity.\u00a0 Simply put, there is only a finite amount of money to be used to purchase materials.\u00a0 The district is under a fiduciary responsibility to make the most of its money.\u00a0 That means that they always \u2018censor based on finite resources\u2019 \u2013 that is to say that they don\u2019t and can\u2019t purchase every book out there.\u00a0 Often, they don\u2019t even consider material because it is inappropriate for their students.\u00a0 I\u2019m not speaking of material which may be morally questionable but rather material that is simply not appropriate by reason of age.\u00a0 I doubt that one would find books on advance quantum field theory or Neo-Platonist philosophy on the CPS shelves.\u00a0 I actually find the omissions of these types of works much more severe than omissions driven by morals or taste as the former limit the intellectual achievement and the world view of students.\u00a0 Controversial material can always be found on the internet because its very controversy draws attention.\u00a0 But important material associated with deep intellectual achievements is rarely discussed in the media.\u00a0 So how is a student going to be exposed to the finest offerings of human thought if no record of it can even be found on a library shelf?\u00a0 But I recognize that in a world of finite resources hard choices have to be made.<\/p>\n The final point worth noting is that CPS is not engaged in censorship in any real fashion.\u00a0 They are not stopping students from owning it; stopping the publisher from selling it; stopping the author from writing or profiting from it, or locking any of these up in jail.\u00a0 If CPS had the power to indulge in any or all these actions then their conduct would certainly rise to actual examples of censorship.\u00a0\u00a0 They would then constitute a government that infringes on the rights of its citizens by force.\u00a0 What CPS did may offend our sensibilities or make us question their judgement, but it doesn\u2019t rise to level of government led book burning. \u00a0Equating real censorship with the actions of a community deciding its own standard of decency is akin to the use of the word \u2018Nazi\u2019 when talking about someone who you don\u2019t like \u2013 it conflates real evil with annoyance.<\/p>\n Real evil was portrayed in Persepolis with the author\u2019s narrative.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n