Citizenship Education and the First Amendment in Public Schools
Glenn, Charles Craig
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/68777
Description
Title
Citizenship Education and the First Amendment in Public Schools
Author(s)
Glenn, Charles Craig
Issue Date
1982
Department of Study
Education
Discipline
Education
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Law
Abstract
This study used three models of education (indoctrination, the marketplace of ideas, and the socratic method) to analyze federal circuit courts' of appeals cases which dealt with public school students' First Amendment right to speech. Cases were grouped according to the subject matter (underground newspapers, school-sponsored newspapers, textbooks and library books), and the results synthesized in light of specific rights (expression, prior restraint, right to know or receive information, and academic freedom). Adult First Amendment rights were examined briefly in order to obtain benchmarks and then proposed changes were made.
The case analysis showed students' right to self-expression without prior restraint to be essentially coextensive with those of adults. But students have no right to know what is in a given textbook and boards of education may attempt indoctrination through course and text selection or removal. The Sixth and perhaps First and Second Circuit Courts of Appeals recognize a board's right to select library books but deny them the right to remove books already in the library on the basis of the students' right to know. But the Seventh and perhaps Second Circuit Courts of Appeals allow boards to select or remove library books at their pleasure (unless they cast a pall of orthodoxy on the school) and reject the idea of "book tenure". All circuits deny teachers the right to select text or library books, and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals allows boards of education to restrict classroom discussion. The Fifth and perhaps Sixth Circuits would allow teachers to have unrestricted classroom discussions. Thus, there is no one theory of education underlying the decisions across or even within the different circuits.
In the final chapter it is pointed out that students may discuss books and ideas which can be banned from classrooms. Teachers should be allowed to discuss any idea or book of concern or interest to students. A library should be a "storehouse of knowledge" which may not be winnowed by a board of education. State textbook selection committees should be dissolved and all control over texts returned to the local boards of education.
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