Stifled Laughter by Claudia Johnson

Author:Claudia Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

NINE

ON SEPTEMBER 10, 1987, OUR CASE REACHED U.S. District Court. A big orange sun rose southeast of Interstate 10 as Susan and Monya and I rode to Jacksonville, Monya weaving in and out of morning rush-hour traffic in her black Lincoln Continental, a fuzzbuster prominently displayed on the dash. We wanted plenty of time to park and eat breakfast before court convened at 9:30. Our mood was optimistic: fundamentalists in Tennessee and Alabama had just been defeated in the Sixth and Eleventh Circuit U.S. Appeals Courts. Newsweek reported that “the Fundamentalist strategy of using constitutional cases to restore religion to the school classroom looks to be in tatters.” Students could now read L. Frank Baum et al. in Hawkins County, Tennessee, and teachers in Alabama could use the forty-four textbooks removed back in March by Judge Hand.

I brought along the article about our case from the previous day’s Lake City Reporter and read it to Susan and Monya:

Columbia County is not alone in attempts to censor students’ freedom to learn.

According to a report done by the People For The American Way, 153 censorship attempts in 41 out of 50 states occurred during the 1986–87 school year. These incidents include charges ranging from “secular humanism” to whichcraft [sic].

Monya laughed, “Whichcraft?”

“That’s what it says.”

“Let the woman read,” Susan said.

I read on:

We are witnessing a widening assault on the role of the schools as a place to learn a variety of ideas,” said executive director for People For The American Way, Arthur J. Kropp. “Local activists supported by national censorship organizations are standing in the schoolhouse door trying to keep ideas out. These groups are pressuring teachers and librarians to eliminate materials and ideas that don’t conform to their narrow views. They want schools to teach students what to think, not how to think,” he said.

A press release from the Florida Forum stated at least one third of all the textbooks used in Florida’s public high schools last year were censored or “dumbed down.”

The term “dumbing down” was established by President Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education which reported that access to good textbooks is a significant factor in the achievement of students and limiting student access to competent texts and ideas cannot but have an injurious effect on the quality of education.

“Do tell,” said Susan.

I read on and stopped. “Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“It says Goldilocks and the Three Bears has been banned because it teaches that ‘unlawful breaking and entering will go unpunished’.”

They roared. I didn’t. The scene in my novel—Reverend Reymond telling Roz The Tale of Two Bad Mice promoted breaking and entering—was closer to fact now, not fiction.

I paid the solemn attendant at All Right Parking in downtown Jacksonville across the street from the old post office building, now the federal courthouse, a sand-colored five-story slab of a building at the corner of Pearl and Monroe. We ate breakfast at a nearby cafe and walked back to the courthouse, stopping on the steps to chat with reporters we now knew by name.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.