Short arguments against censorship of student expression
• Censorship is in direct opposition to the freedoms guaranteed under the First Amendment
• Censorship is the last desperate act of a failing educational system. There are always other remedies, including trust and faith placed in its products, the students.
• Censorship restricts the public’s right to know and to make informed decisions.
• Censorship limits student experience in decision-making, critical thinking and analysis.
• Censorship promotes the concept of authoritarianism by creating the belief someone else will always make the final decision.
• Censorship bestows on authority the power to deem the truth, or at least to withhold information for the public to make a reasoned decision.
• Censorship creates a vacuum for free expression, in that if students do not experience it while they are young, they will not expect it as adults.
• Censorship prevents freedoms from being seen as real and viable.
• Censorship encourages viewpoint discrimination, hence an informed voting group.
• Censorship means those who censor accept the legal and financial liability for what they do allow to be published.
• Censorship in public schools means the government being reported about makes the decision about what that reporting should be.
• Censorship encourages the “tyranny of the majority,” a position for which we went to war over more than 200 years ago.
• Censorship encourages educational hypocrisy in philosophy and practice.
• Censorship betrays a disregard for the intelligence of others. To mistrust the judgment of others is to question, ultimately, society’s ability to think for themselves (from Time magazine)