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Ragusa, I'm not sure that's so much banning as simply deciding not to use something. Further on in the article it says:

The main complaint in the article, and a justified one, was that these people decided to remove the book from the consideration list without actually doing any research. The slightest bit of research would have cleared up the mistake. On the other hand, if the man actually had written Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation, I'm not sure anyone would be complaining. Remember, this isn't Freedom of Speech so much as what children get taught by the public education system.

 

NOG, they weren't banning the Ethical Imperative, they were banning a book called Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?. No one was objecting to the content in that book. They wanted to ban it because of something else the guy had written*. To me, that smells of some free speech stifling.

*at least that's what they thought the deal was. Morons any way you cut it.

 

1.) As I said, it's not an issue of free speech. No one has the right to have their book taught in school. The school board could decide not to include a book simply because they didn't like the color of the cover and, while it'd be a stupid decision, it's not censorship, banning, or a freedom of speech issue.

2.) Children's books can still be dangerous propaganda. If you were seriously considering the issue, the other book would at least warrant a serious look into Brown Bear and what it says. If you're just looking for excuses to pair down an overly long list, anything goes.

 

As for #2, you're again preferring a hypothetical over the actual facts. Yes, a children's book can conceivably be dangerous propaganda - alas, this particular book isn't. It is thus neither warranted nor sensible to ban the book in question. Which is to say, your argument is irrelevant to the case.

After that it is unsurprising that as far as point #1 is concerned, while this indeed isn't so much about free speech, there is another point you choose to ignore, and that is that they hit the wrong guy, and excluded him without reason from the list of acceptable literature.

This is another type of infringement for the author (rather, his heirs). The board decision to exclude the author is essentially based on a clerical error. It denies him without reason a source of revenue that he legitimately is entitled to compete for. It's about *access*. You overlook that when your product has no inherent flaws there is a right for the producer to *access markets*, in this particular case, to participate in bids for public procurement. It is not that he has a right to be bought. What this is about is that they denied him *participation* and the *chance to be selected* and thus denied access to the primary market for his product.

Only for context: Texas is a large state which procures a large number of books, reducing book prices. It is from what I read common that smaller states jump on the bandwagon and simply adopt the Texan school book standards and procure the same books to save money. As a result the consequences for the author go beyond Texas.

This btw also illustrates why protection of individual rights and fairness dictates that such board decisions are open to judicial review. Besides, under German administrative law the author would probably have a legitimate claim for both damages and a revision of the board decision and could sue the Texas Board of Education if the decision is put into practice.

 

Oh, no, I'm not ignoring this at all, but the selection committee being a bunch of idiots is kind of off-topic.

I'm sorry, but I don't even see an arguement here. What about the author that never get's a publisher behind his work? Isn't he being denied the same?

I could see suing the particular people that made the mistake, as I could see it being called slander, but what grounds would someone sue the Board of Education on for not buying a book? Are there legal criteria for such in Germany? Are there any in Texas, for that matter?

 

No it is not, as I will show below.

No he isn't. He is being denied access by the market because his product is bad or not competitive. Here we have a product that was competitive and indeed has in the past had enjoyed market access and success, which is now being denied because of a erroneous decision not even based on relevant criteria by the State Board of Education for all of Texas (and with the aforementioned bandwagon effect, beyond). There was ample reason to consider the book, starting with it being an established lecture for years and thus apparently quite suitable teaching material for third graders.

They wouldn't sue for them not buying the book, they would sue for arbitrarily being denied market access. They would sue the State of Texas, because the State Board of Education is an apparently elective deliberative body of the State of Texas. Any damages would thus be paid for by the State of Texas i.e. by the taxpayer.

Fiscal conservatives will rejoice to see their activist social conservative brethren toss a (only this one?) perfectly suitable school book(s) with the result that existing copies must not be used any longer and must be replaced with new books at taxpayer's expense.

As for where the argument is, let me help you out: This is not slander by an individual, it is a lack of due diligence* on the part of the State Board of Education. Mr. Hardy acted within his function as a board member when he proposed the ban and the State Board of Education accepted his proposal and his arguments and banned the book.

The board didn't say that the book is unsuitable for children because it contains Marxist propaganda - that, if true, would be a relevant criterion. Instead they asserted, falsely, that the author wrote a Marxist book, and that thus his other book will be tossed.

The lack of diligence is indicated by the Board's error about the identity of the author. Their lack of due diligence* is the far graver problem here because they based their decision on irrelevant criteria that have no bearing to the matter. One can't help but wonder: Only in this case? People who show such flaws in their reasoning usually display them as a pattern.

The only valid criteria are about the suitability of the book in question, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?", as teaching material for third graders. That the book was an established lecture for years strongly suggests that it is suitable. There is nothing to indicate that this was in any way challenged by the board.

Whether the author of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" is or is not a Marxist, or Nudist, Buddhist, Parachutist, Lesbian or Thespian is a consideration totally irrelevant to the matter of whether the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" is a suitable reading material for third graders, much like it is an irrelevant consideration to base a decision on whether the author supports gun rights, where he stands on Roe vs. Wade, whether he is a registered Republican, Democrat or Communist, likes the colour green a lot or prefers Pepsi over Coca Cola.

It. Is. Irrelevant.

It. Is. Arbitrary.

That's why the decision by the State Board of Education lacks due diligence*, and that is why it is a very bad decision.

* which I use here, for lack of a better English word, in the sense of an obligation to base a decision only on relevant criteria.

 

Ragusa, in this sentence, I would replace "due diligence" with something like "any effing basis in reality"

Let's do another one!

The Members of the State Board of Education failed to exercise due diligence.
I say we replace "exercise due diligence" with "use the sense God gave a goose." Or perhaps "pull their heads out of their buttocks."

 

You, sir, go too far. We all know that it is our sacred duty --indeed, our God-given right -- to oppose the sub-human Pepsi drinkers at every possible turn. Drinkers of Pepsi are not to be trusted; and everyone knows that Pepsi-Cola faked the deaths of Elvis, Michael Jackson, and Tupac Shakur in order to combine their DNA and clone a gyrating, tattooed, moon-walking Pop-Rock-Gangsta army to one day take over the world. Refusing market access to these sub-human Pepsi drinking fascists is more than just the right thing to do. It's a patriotic imperative!

 

Hey, now. We in Texas pride ourselves on our fine and dandy reading levels. Besides, who needs to read when we have AM radio anyway?

 

Again, I don't see it as market access that's being denied. He had market access, they were considering buying his book (again), but they decided not to. The fact that they did so for a crackpot (and mistaken) reason is another matter.

Yes, but that has nothing to do with censorship or freedom of speech. The Board of Education refused to use his book because they, mistakenly, thought it met some arbitrary criteria that they made up on the spot to remove a book.

It's a children's book. I'm sure there are 100s of suitable books. They can't, however, buy 100s of them. They have to keep the number reasonable. How do you differentiate between them? Quality of writing? Depth of the story line? I think we're talking about something on par with One Fish, Two Fish here, not War and Peace. At some level, the rational criteria become so simplistic that they are insufficient, by themselves, to pair down the numbers.

 

No, they didn't mistakenly think it met some arbitrary criteria that they made up on the spot. They made up arbitrary criteria on the spot and then fully intentionally applied them.

It is not a simple mistake, like accidentally putting two spoonful of sugar into your coffee instead of one. It was a conscious arbitrary act.

So 'You wrote a commie book so we think no school kid in Texas ought to be reading your other stuff' does not count as censorship and has nothing to do with free speech? Interesting ...

They removed an established book with which no one actually found fault for an arbitrary reason. The author who could sell his book to Texan schools couldn't do so afterwards.

It doesn't matter in the slightest that there are a hundred or a thousand or a million other books. The decision was arbitrary and needs to be repealed. Oh, and did I mention that? The author of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" was the other guy and didn't write that book titled 'Ethical Marxism' ...

Now what could possibly be so bad about arbitrariness that one needs to repeal arbitrary decisions?

 

I think you confused what I said. I'm seeing two acts here:
1.) Mistakenly believe author wrote both books, when he really only wrote one.
2.) Intentionally apply arbitrary criteria made up on the spot to mistaken fact from #1.

As long as they're not banning it from public sales or anything, no, it doesn't. You see, what you put is only a judgement, not the conclusion. If the conclusion is "therefore no one should ever be allowed to read anything you wrote", that's free speech. If the conclusion is "therefore we don't want to buy you're product", that's consumer choice. In this case the consumer is the State.

Ragusa, my point is that buying it in the first place was also an arbitrary decision. Out of the hundreds of possibilities, they chose this one years ago. Why? Was it the only one that met their strict criteria for storyline, length, and quality of character development? Was it the one with the deepest, most moving tale? Was it the one with the best social comentary? Or was it just the one that they happened to pick because they drew a name out of a hat or something? If you want to repeal an arbitrary decision, how about you look into their original seleciton process. I'll bet at some point there was an arbitrary decision involved. Either that, or the publishers offered them a better discount than the others. If the latter is the case, then their reconsideration of it in the first place suggests someone else matched the deal. Either that, or they just cut it altogether for budgetary reasons.

 

As someone already said, since the two authors happened to share the same name, clearly this school board failed to do its due diligence.


However, speaking to the question you ask above ... No, it's not censorship. It's not as if they're banning the book from books stores, so if any parent actually did want to buy the book for their kids, they'd be free to do so.

A state school board isn't required to buy every book that exists. And frankly, since it's their job to represent the majority of the citizens of the state, if the citizens of their state do not want to support the works of an author with whom they have serious disagreements, IMHO that is their right to do so thru that school board. If some KKK-er (who had previously written a completely racist book) also happened to have written a perfectly innocent and decent piece of childrens literature, I'd have no problem with this school board refusing to buy this "nice" book because they did not wish to support an author with whom they had grave disagreements.


Censorship is about not allowing a book to be printed and sold. Free speech allows a person to say what they want to say. Free speech does not require that you, or I, or the citizens of a state (speaking thru their school board) are required to listen or read what you say or write. Freedom of speech does not allow you to force people to listen to you or force them to read what you're written.

 

Exclusion from bids for government contracts are being challenged in court by corporations all the time, like in this very prominent case here. How can that be if government bodies are entitled arbitrary decisions? Because they aren't?

The state customer as a customer is something other than crucis/NOG the customer. Usually the state customer is held to procurements standards and laws and procedures, obliging them to decide rationally and fiscally responsible and some other odd stuff of that kind while crucis/NOG are on the other hand as entitled to arbitrary alternative scenarios as they are to arbitrary purchases.

You overlook that the school book market is not a free market. It only allows books that the State Board of Education approves. Their decision determines whether you can sell your products there or not. With the decision here, the author is being denied market access. The question whether the author's rights were infringed upon is important only to the extent that it gives the author standing to sue, and that condition is easily met.

And of course the decision to choose a school book must not be made arbitrary. And btw. crucis, you don't know whether the first decision was made arbitrary. What you do is building a hypothetical alternative scenario. What we do know is that this decision was arbitrary. Let's stick to that.

A primary criterion for a purchase by the State Board of Education is that the book must be suitable. Here the book is suitable, but suitability wasn't even taken into considerations. They based their decision on the author allegedly being a commie, which is irrelevant and arbitrary (and factually incorrect on top of that). That alone - basing their decision on irrelevant and arbitrary criteria - is enough to kill the blacklisting. We don't need to hypothesise about other books. If the State Board of Education doesn't correct itself, a proper solution to our problem would be that a court strikes down the ban, thus allowing the book again. It then can be bought again by schools, which would solve the author's problem.

 

Actually, Ragusa, that didn't look like it had anything to do with exclusion. Two companies made bids. One company sued and claimed the contract was not properly awarded. I'm actually familiar with this case (if it's the one I think it was) and there was accusation of significant favortism. Basically, one contract was supposedly better than the other, and yet the other was chosen. That suggests foul play. If both are equivalent and one is chosen over the other, it doesn't.

And I have asked you several times if you knew what the standards and laws were concerning children's books in Texas. Do you? Do you know that a law was violated?

Not really. By that standard, every book the BoE decides not to include is similarly denied access. In fact, that's the point of the BoE in this matter. Again, this isn't free speech, it's government paperwork. IF something illegal was done, if a law or regulation was broken, then you're right, the guy should sue, but not on a basis of free speech.

And you don't know this. You don't know that suitability wasn't considered. You don't know that the list hadn't already been paired down by as much as they could with reasonable criteria. Now you are building a hypothetical.

Ragusa, one last hypothetical:
The Texas BoE is going through their book list. The budget is tight (tighter than usual) and they need to prune the list a little. The problem, though, is that this is the old list. By definition all of these books meet the criteria. Well, let's take a look anyway. These two books may be getting a new edition, which means a price hike, and we're trying to save money, so they're gone. This one may just be out of print, so it's gone. Nothing else pops out. But wait, we still need to get rid of two more books to meet budget! What do we do? Not meet budget for fear of using arbitrary criteria, or use arbitrary criteria to get rid of some non-critical books?

 

I can tell you my experience: Neither of my two girls have ever received any kind of book from the school - not a reader, not a textbook. My second grader took books from her teacher's personal library. Her teacher would loan the book to her students and have them sign for it. They had to return it within 3 days so that the next student could take the reader out. As for textbooks, they only get stabled handouts run on a copier.

This is what schools are like since the GD politicians have decided that they know how to educate better than the schools themselves. I just wish we could get the politicians out of the schools so that they could go back to teaching real subjects again, instead of preparing for government tests all year. End of rant.

 

Wow, Chandos, that sounds like a piss-poor school to me! We always got hard-copy textbooks and were provided with any required reading outside of them (generally paperback). I can remember reading A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Scarlet Letter, The Canterbury Tales, and Ethan Frome that way, and plenty of others that I can't remember the names of.

 

NOG your hypothetical is well taken. However, when a school board says something like this:

"We are going to vet 1,000 books and choose 500 of them for inclusion in our school libraries and classrooms. Let's go!:

Book A: Copies of this book are too expensive. We will not be buying it.

Book B: The illustrations are terrible, the font is difficult to read, and in comparison to other books its educational value is questionable. We will not be buying it.

Book C: The author of this book wrote another book that we don't like. We will not be buying this book."

The author and publisher of book A might say that the quality of the book merist such a high price, but to dismiss a book on the basis of price is understandable and logical. It is a fair use of tax money.

The author and publisher of book B might disagree, but a judgement made on the basis of illustrations, readability and eduational content is also understandable and logical. It is also a fair use of taxpayer money

The author of book C is going to say "THAT'S your basis for turfing my book? That's utter BS! If you want to turf it on other grounds, great, but that's a ridonkulous reason to dismiss my book. Given that you are using taxpayer money to make these decisions, I think that legally speaking you need to come up with a more valid reason for this. Court bound!

Even if the guy had written a politically offensive book, that book is not what's under discussion.

In this case it's even worse, of course, because he didn't even write the book, but regardless I don't think that it is the school board's job to judge the guys politics if they are not a feature of the book.

Now for a real world reference. I doubt you guys have ever heard of Mordecai Richler. He's a world famous Canadian author. Well, he's world famous in Canada, anyhow

Richler wrote a book called "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" It has gratuitous sex and criminality in it. An 'evil' book, if you will. It is studied in Canadian high schools.

Richler also wrote a book called "Jacob Two Two and the Hooded Fang", which is a story about a little boy with a stutter who has a dream featuring a composite character who represents all of the bigger kids who bully him. He defeats the buly through compassion and understanding. It is cute and lighthearted and lots of fun. It is written for about the 4th grade* reading level. It is in most Canadian elementary libraries.

The question is, because "Kravitz" is a dirty, perverted book, does it logically and fairly follow that the school board should ban "Jacob two two"? I think not. It's really, really, really lousy logic. It's lousy morality. It's lousy ethics. It's just lousy all around.

*I'm actually not sure of the grade level, it's been over 25 years since I read the damn thing! but you get my drift, I hope.

 

NOG,
that an administrative body doesn't decide arbitrary nor applies irrelevant criteria in their decisions is part of universal and very basic legal principles in administrative law in western countries. I have studied German law, and I am unfamiliar with US and Texan law. The violation of principles in this case smells so foul that I can take up the stench from over here and suspect that the decision must be flawed under US law as well. Presumably Texas didn't intend to put a bunch of Louis XIVs on the State Board of Education. Probably Texan law reflects that.

I expect Texas law to task the State Board of Education with deciding on the suitability of schoolbooks, without also giving them a mandate to exclude (i.e. punish) authors because of their putative political or ideological disposition. As they did the latter, they with near certainty exceeded their mandate. The arbitrariness and irrelevant considerations would certainly under German law mean that the board overstepped their discretion allowed under the law, rendering the decision to toss the book null and void.

You could put your recently acquired google skills to some good use and find examples of Texan law allowing arbitrariness and irrelevant selection criteria. I am willing to believe many a tall tale about Texas, but still suspect you'll return empty handed. And if you find something, all the better, that would be even more fun.