Title: What Are the Dangers of Censorship? | The Classroom
Headings: What Are the Dangers of Censorship?
What Are the Dangers of Censorship?
Threat to the Democratic Nature of Education
Missed Opportunity for Critical Thinking
Missed Opportunity to Learn From the Past
Suppression of Ideas that Challenge the Status Quo

Content: Threat to the Democratic Nature of Education
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) argues that censorship threatens the democratic nature of the educational system in the United States. The Supreme Court agreed in 1967 when it ruled in favor of a New York teacher with suspected communist affiliation keeping his job by arguing "the classroom is peculiarly the marketplace of ideas." The goal of the educational system, according to the NCAC, is to produce thinking citizens, whose rights to the freedom to read under the First Amendment are endangered by the censorship of reading material, whether in print or on the Internet. Missed Opportunity for Critical Thinking
Reading challenging materials teaches students critical thinking skills they need to flourish as American citizens. Without reading a wide variety of materials representing a range of beliefs and ideas, students will lose out on the opportunity to judge ideas that may oppose what they believe or have been taught to believe. Students will find these kinds of evaluative skills useful as adults in a democratic society where they will have to deal with controversial ideas in the media, at work, in the government and internationally. Missed Opportunity to Learn From the Past
Some people believe in censoring classic books that use words that are now considered racial slurs, such as "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Certainly some of the ideas about race in such books are outdated and even derogatory, from a contemporary perspective. However, a teacher can use instances such as these as history lessons, explaining to students how ideas about race have changed over the years. Suppression of Ideas that Challenge the Status Quo
Many people know that the Nazis burned books that challenged their political philosophy.