Poetry and Censorship Part 2 November 20, 2007
Posted by Matthew Woolums in 21st-Century, Opinion.trackback
The library teacher had to remove the poetry blog upon the request of her school’s administration. It’s really too bad that it came to this, but perhaps not too surprising. Adults often have a difficult time honoring the needs and intelligence of children.
I’ve decided to repost her final post here because it might provide a platform for discussing difficult concepts, like censorship and art and safety and authenticity and the meaning of education. Below is a copy of the final post. The work comes from the library teacher.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Research and Laws That Affect this Discussion
I have done some research on freedom of speech rights for students as well as on the concerns of some 0f our faculty. Please see below and feel free to add your own in the comments.
Hazelwood Decision
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4721
A 1988 Supreme Court Case that upheld the right of administrators to censor student school newspaper articles on teen pregnancy and the effect of divorce on children. Administrators must prove, however, that their censorship is “reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical [educational] concerns.” When the censorship has “no valid education purpose,” it will still be prohibited.
Colorado Student Free Expression Law
Passed in 1990 after the Hazelwood decision, this gave Colorado students more freedom of speech
http://www.splc.org/law_library.asp?id=7
Suicide Contagion Among Adolescents During Acute Psychiatric Hospitalization
http://www.psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/46/9/915
Here suicidal adolescent inpatients were not shown to influence other adolescent inpatients to think about or commit suicide.
Online Death Dialogues Prompt Suicide? A USF faculty team wants to study whether sites with memorials and farewells encourage kids to take their lives.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/08/27/Tampabay/_Online_death_dialogu.shtml
This article shows plans for a study about the connection between reading about suicide online and committing it. It also discusses the ways students can be helped (especially with suicide prevention) when adults have access to what youth express online.
Note: For the record, I invited the concerned administration and faculty members to be authors on this blog so that all sides would be represented. So far two have declined.
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