Banning

Banning

For years, Alabaman Laura Mallory campaigned against the wildly successful ‘Harry Potter’ books, claiming them to be “dangerous and deceptive” and blaming them for “mainstreaming witchcraft [for children]”. Mallory challenged the books’ placement in school libraries and appealed multiple times in effort to have the ‘Potter’ series banned from her local schools. Mallory no longer had any children in public schools by the time she was making her most recent appeals, and she never read the series.

Book banning is not a material issue- it is one of free speech. It doesn’t matter how anti-religious or vulgar or inappropriate you personally find the material to be, or your parents find the material to be. If the book is against your religion, don’t read it. If you disagree vehemently with the opinions presented in the book to the point that you find the book offensive, don’t read it. If you feel that the book is inappropriate for a school setting, don’t read it, because that is not your call to make.

It is not okay for other people’s parents to implement their views on what is school-appropriate and what is not on students. This should be left up to the best judgment of the student, his or her parents, and the school library. Unless the text is factually incorrect material presented to students as truth, it is not the job of the parents to regulate books in school libraries and classrooms. Parents need to trust that teachers will not be having their second graders read ‘Huckleberry Finn’. Books that are educationally beneficial yet controversial, like ‘1984’, a commonly challenged novel by George Orwell that has the potential to offer students a new take on the Cold War, should not be removed from classrooms because parents are upset by its material.