Crying Censorship and the ALA; Don't Let the ALA Redefine Censorship

Stanley Fish has written an excellent article on censorship in The New York Times called "Crying Censorship." He points out that much of what people call "censorship" is really "judgment" that "has nothing to with freedom of expression," and is "not [a] blow[] against the First Amendment."

Specifically addressing libraries, Mr. Fish says, "Nor is it censorship when a library decides not to purchase a book or to withdraw a book from the shelves. You can still get it from Amazon.com. or buy it in Borders."

The American Library Association [ALA], on the other hand, pins almost its entire raison d'être on claiming to defend against "censorship" and First Amendment violations. For example, the so-called "Library Bill of Rights" includes, "Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment."

What is "censorship"? Stanley Fish defines censorship this way:

It is censorship when Germany and other countries criminalize the professing or publication of Holocaust denial. (I am not saying whether this is a good or a bad idea.) It is censorship when in some countries those who criticize the government are prosecuted and jailed. It was censorship when the United States Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798, stipulating that anyone who writes with the intent to bring the president or Congress or the government “into contempt or disrepute” shall be “punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.” Key to these instances is the fact that (1) it is the government that is criminalizing expression and (2) that the restrictions are blanket ones. That is, they are not the time, manner, place restrictions that First Amendment doctrine traditionally allows; they apply across the board. You shall not speak or write about this, ever. That’s censorship.

The ALA defines censorship in a totally different way, likely using a Saul Alinsky technique of redefining the language for political gain, and notice how people are now called "censors" repeatedly:

What Is Censorship?

Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that certain persons—individuals, groups or government officials—find objectionable or dangerous. It is no more complicated than someone saying, “Don’t let anyone read this book, or buy that magazine, or view that film, because I object to it! ” Censors try to use the power of the state to impose their view of what is truthful and appropriate, or offensive and objectionable, on everyone else. Censors pressure public institutions, like libraries, to suppress and remove from public access information they judge inappropriate or dangerous, so that no one else has the chance to read or view the material and make up their own minds about it. The censor wants to prejudge materials for everyone.

Source: "Intellectual Freedom and Censorship Q & A," American Library Association, 29 May 2007.

The Stanley Fish and ALA definitions are almost diametrically opposed. Everyone knows the Stanley Fish one is correct. The question is, when will people expose the ALA definition as being false?

"The ... elites have convinced themselves that they are taking a stand against cultural tyranny. .... [T]he reality is that it is those who cry 'Censorship!' the loudest who are the ones trying to stifle speech and force their moral world-view on others." That is from Dan Gerstein, an independent consultant and former communications director and senior strategist for Senator Joe Lieberman's presidential campaign. Stanley Fish would likely agree.

The take away from this is that when the ALA's false cries of censorship or First Amendment violations are being made in your town, do not let the ALA redefine the true definition of censorship. Do what the community knows is right and legal, not what the ALA wants or browbeats the community into. As former U.S. Department of Justice official Pat Trueman just said, "That's a ruse that the American Library Association, which is very pro-pornography and always files lawsuits against the federal government to try to keep pornography widely available, ...put[s] forward to scare libraries...."

Here is Stanley Fish's article reprinted for educational purposes:

"Crying Censorship", by Stanley Fish, The New York Times, 24 August 2008.

Salman Rushdie, self-appointed poster boy for the First Amendment, is at it again. This time he’s not standing up for free expression on his own behalf, but on behalf of another author, Sherry Jones, whose debut novel about the prophet Muhammad’s child bride had been withdrawn by Random House after consultants warned that its publication “could incite racial conflict.”

Random House is also Rushdie’s publisher, and his response to the news was to send an e-mail to The Associated Press. (I never thought of that; maybe I’ll try it myself.) It read, “I am very disappointed to hear that my publishers, Random House, have canceled another author’s novel because of their concerns about possible Islamic reprisals. This is censorship by fear and it sets a very bad precedent indeed.”

This little brouhaha has been widely reported and commentators have tended to endow it with large philosophical and political implications (the Danish cartoon controversy of 2005 and the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh are often referenced). A story in The Times of London online edition describes it “the latest showdown between Islam and the Western tradition of free speech.” One respondent declared bravely, “I will never buy another book published by Random House,” and added, in a frenzy of patriotism, “We are Americans. We are free to choose what we want to read.”

Well, I guess we are, although that wouldn’t be my definition of what it means to be an American. It is also true, however, that Random House is free to publish or decline to publish whatever it likes, and its decision to do either has nothing whatsoever to do with the Western tradition of free speech or any other high-sounding abstraction.

Rushdie and the pious pundits think otherwise because they don’t quite understand what censorship is. Or, rather, they conflate the colloquial sense of the word with the sense it has in philosophical and legal contexts. In the colloquial sense, censorship occurs whenever we don’t say or write something because we fear adverse consequences, or because we feel that what we would like to say is inappropriate in the circumstances, or because we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. (This is often called self-censorship. I call it civilized behavior.)

From the other direction, many think it censorship when an employee is disciplined or not promoted because of something he or she has said, when people are ejected from a public event because they are judged to be disrupting the proceedings, or when a newspaper declines to accept an advertisement, rejects an op-ed or a letter, or fails to report on something others think important. But if censorship is the proper name for all these actions, then censorship is what is being practiced most of the time and is in fact the norm rather than the (always suspect) exception.

But censorship is not the proper name; a better one would be judgment. We go through life adjusting our behavior to the protocols and imperatives of different situations, and often the adjustments involve deciding to refrain from saying something. It’s a calculation, a judgment call. It might be wise or unwise, prudent or overly cautious, but it has nothing to with freedom of expression.

Judgment is also what employers exercise when they determine that something an employee has said or written so undermines the enterprise that it warrants dismissal. To the objection that such an action would amount to a curtailing of the employee’s First Amendment rights, the Supreme Court has answered (in Connick v. Myers, 1983) only if the speech in question were directed at a matter of public concern; otherwise, wrote Justice Byron White, “when close working relationships are essential to fulfilling… responsibilities, a wide degree of deference to the employer’s judgment is appropriate.”

Many thought it was censorship in 2004 when ABC refused to air an ad critical of President Bush during the Super Bowl, or when affiliates of the same network refused to show “Saving Private Ryan” out of a fear that under new regulations they would be subject to fines for presenting material containing profanity and graphic violence. Again, these decisions may have been ill-advised or pusillanimous, but they were not blows against the First Amendment and they were not censorship. No doubt the ad played on some other day, and no one is interdicting the showing of the movie, which is readily available in any number of venues. Nor is it censorship when a library decides not to purchase a book or to withdraw a book from the shelves. You can still get it from Amazon.com. or buy it in Borders.

But if none of these actions fits the definition of censorship, what does?

It is censorship when Germany and other countries criminalize the professing or publication of Holocaust denial. (I am not saying whether this is a good or a bad idea.) It is censorship when in some countries those who criticize the government are prosecuted and jailed. It was censorship when the United States Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798, stipulating that anyone who writes with the intent to bring the president or Congress or the government “into contempt or disrepute” shall be “punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.” Key to these instances is the fact that (1) it is the government that is criminalizing expression and (2) that the restrictions are blanket ones. That is, they are not the time, manner, place restrictions that First Amendment doctrine traditionally allows; they apply across the board. You shall not speak or write about this, ever. That’s censorship.

So what Random House did was not censorship. (Some other press is perfectly free to publish Jones’s book, and one probably will.) It may have been cowardly or alarmist, or it may have been good business, or it may have been an attempt to avoid trouble that ended up buying trouble. But whatever it was, it doesn’t rise to the level of constitutional or philosophical concern. And it is certainly not an episode in some “showdown between Islam and the Western tradition of free speech.” Formulations like that at once inflate a minor business decision and trivialize something too important and complex to be reduced to a high-school civics lesson about the glories of the First Amendment.

*****

(Note: The original version of this essay inadvertently omitted the words “by fear” in the quoted e-mail. This has since been corrected.)

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company


NOTE ADDED 20 JULY 2013:

Three links were updated to provided archived versions of those documents no longer at their original links.