Should schools be able to ban books?

Banning school books suppresses diversity

Question: Should schools be able to ban books?
Position1 of 3›: No, schools should not be able to ban books
Argument1 of 4›: Banning school books suppresses diversity

Prohibiting books restricts learning about other lifestyles.

The argument

The objection starts from what is actually being banned. A majority of the books being banned or challenged include diverse content on sexuality, disability, race and ethnicity. Book bans are not, on this account, a neutral instrument applied evenly across the curriculum; whatever the stated grounds in any individual case, the pattern of what gets challenged means the practice falls disproportionately on writing about lives that differ from the presumed norm. Adding restrictions therefore has a predictable direction: it makes it more difficult for children to learn about different life experiences outside of their own. Two distinct harms follow. The first falls on the children whose own lives the banned books describe. A school that removes books about disability, or about race, or about sexuality is making a statement about which lives are fit subjects for study, and children read that statement accurately. Banning books with diverse content tells children with diverse backgrounds that their life is viewed as unsuitable to read about, and the message is delivered by the institution that is supposed to be educating them. The second harm falls on everyone else in the classroom, since the same removal discourages children from learning about and accepting other cultures and lifestyles. The argument's final step turns on how limited the alternatives are. For many children, reading may be the only way they can learn about diverse content at all, because their family, neighbourhood and social circle may offer no comparable exposure, and school is the one setting designed to widen that horizon deliberately. Books are also well suited to the task, since they let a reader spend extended time inside an unfamiliar life rather than glimpsing it. When books are prohibited in schools, the number of opportunities available to learn and grow is not merely reduced but, for some children, closed off entirely.

Premises

[P1]The majority of banned or challenged school books contain diverse content about sexuality, disability, race, and ethnicity. [P2] Reading such books in school is often children's primary opportunity to learn about life experiences different from their own and to feel their own identities are valued. [P3] Banning these books restricts exposure to diversity and signals to children from diverse backgrounds that their lives are unsuitable subject matter. [C] Therefore, schools should not be able to ban books, because doing so suppresses diversity and limits children's opportunities to learn and grow.

Counter-arguments

Books are not the only way for children to learn about diversity. Parents, schools, and media have the ability to show and teach diverse content. Many books include diversity and are not banned, so children can still find books to expand their knowledge.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Children have many other avenues in which they can learn about diversity or see themselves reflected in literature.