CENSORSHIP AND THE REGULATION OF EXPRESSIONseen in comparing the provisions of the University
of Michigan code with provisions in the bill ad-
vanced by Senator Jesse Helms to limit what kinds
of works could receive funding from the National
Endowment for the Arts. Among the Helms bill’s
other planks (aimed at homoerotic art, for exam-
ple), it sought to prohibit funding of ‘‘material
which denigrates... a person, group, or class of
citizens on the basis of race, creed, sex, age.. .’’
Similarly, the Michigan code sought to bar speech
that ‘‘stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the
basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex.. .’’ and also
‘‘creates a hostile environment.’’ The projects
targeted by the Helms bill included one with a
crucifix immersed in a bottle of urine. This work
could also be a violation of the Michigan code if it
were to be hung in an area frequented by offended
Christians. Difficulties of this sort have prompted
those supporting hate speech codes to argue that
this is one area in which viewpoint-based speech
regulations should be allowed: that, similar to laws
in Germany that selectively ban Holocaust denial,
speech laws in the United States should be allowed
to account for the history of discrimination experi-
enced by some groups, but not others. Critics say
that viewpoint discrimination of this sort would
open the floodgates for future laws that selectively
target viewpoints that happen to be deemed
undesirable.
The hate speech debates highlight a funda-
mental dilemma faced by modern democracies: to
what extent are we willing to tolerate speech whose
very goal is to silence the speech of others, or to
deny their rights to equal education or employ-
ment? Efforts continue to craft codes that are
narrow in scope and that meet constitutional mus-
ter, with even staunch civil libertarians favoring
prosecution when hate speech poses a clear and
present danger of violence (e.g., Smolla 1992).
The hate speech debates also mark a significant
turn in the rhetoric of ‘‘censorship,’’ one in which
advocates of speech codes have attempted to enlist
the power of this term in their favor. This rhetori-
cal strategy is exemplified by the argument of
Catharine MacKinnon, one of the staunchest code
supporters, that ‘‘the operative definition of cen-
sorship... shifts from government silencing what
powerless people say, to powerful people violating
powerless people into silence and hiding behind
state power to do it’’ (1993, p. 10).
BATTLES FOR CONTROL OVER SCHOOL
CURRICULASchools are the arena in which the values of open
deliberation and the constructive exchange of ide-
as are most prized in democratic societies. It is
with some irony, then, that schools are also the
domain in which some of the most concerted
efforts to limit the scope of deliberation have been
focused. The content of textbooks used by most
students in the United States has been selectively
tailored to the ideological viewpoints of organized
pressure groups, and at least one-third of high
school students are not exposed to books and
films that parents and pressure groups have suc-
cessfully purged from their educational experi-
ence (Davis 1979).
From the vantage point of most teachers, pa-
rental and school board mandates to omit works
of literature from the curriculum are viewed as
illegitimate challenges to their expertise and in-
fringements on their rights as professionals. In
effect, teachers believe that they are in the best
positions to judge the educational needs of the
students they teach. However, the tradition of
academic freedom that characterizes both public
and private universities is rarely present in elemen-
tary and secondary education. Public school cur-
ricula are generally approved by the state or by
school boards that actively regulate what is taught
and what students read. School board members
tend to be elected to their positions and are par-
ticularly responsive to what teachers view as unrea-
sonable censorial demands.
Parents, on the other hand, see their interven-
tions in the school curricula as a legitimate exer-
cise of control over what their children read in
school. They justify their decision, in part, with
respect to the compulsory nature of early school-
ing, where they see their children as captive audi-
ences. A number of well-funded organizations
have exerted strong influences on both school
boards and textbook adoption processes to influ-
ence what does and does not gain entry to the
schoolroom.
In money terms, the largest impact of pressure
groups has been on textbook publication and
adoptions. Most states place orders for textbooks
for schools in the entire state. Because publishers
cannot provide multiple versions for different re-
gions or states, texts are geared to the largest