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: What Are the Dangers of Censorship? | The Classroom
What Are the Dangers of Censorship? Dictators, countries, schools and parents have banned numerous texts over the decades, many of which have now become famous, including "Lady Chatterley's Lover," "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and "The Catcher in the Rye." Book banners often cite reasons of inappropriateness, obscenity and danger to the public or to the innocence of young readers. While censors of literature and other media may have good intentions, they often fail to recognize that censorship itself can be a dangerous practice. 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.