Seligman Lecture Series - February 20, 2025 
 "Book Censorship: Then and Now" with Robert Spoo
Auto-generated Transcript with Timestamp​​​

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So I'm thrilled to see everyone here. Welcome, I'm David Earl, the dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, and I'd like to welcome you all and thank you for attending this year's Seligman First Amendment lecture. It's the 16th, actually more than the 16th year that we've been having this. These lectures are funded by a generous gift from the Jane G and Fred G Seligman endowment and are sponsored by the John C. Pace Symposium Series, the Panhandle Tiger Bay Club and the Reubin O’D Askew Department of Government.

 I'd like to quickly relay this story behind the Seligman's gift in this series because the spirit behind it is important, and as we'll see, and  I think continues to be relevant and important today. So Fred Seligman was a Jewish imigrant, arriving in America from Nazi Germany in 1934. And as such he cherished the freedoms protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution because he, because of
the restrictions on free speech that he had just experienced. Fred Seligman understood the dilemmas that nations like the United States face in protecting these freedoms. The hope of the Seligman family members, whom are here tonight, and I welcome and thank them graciously. 

The hope is that this series will foster a deeper discussion among the community, faculty, and students. Particularly as
the students prepare to lead in a world in which they may have to discern what is right and what is wrong. In the past we've had speakers such as Art Spiegelman whose work on the Holocaust was banned in schools and libraries in 2022, or last year's speaker Alex Berrenson who was banned from Twitter for his outspoken criticism of Covid vaccines.  I can't imagine two more different speakers from opposite
sides of the political spectrum, yet I think that both would agree about the need for free speech and the protection of the First Amendment. It's an issue that bridges the aisles and this illustrates how both the lecture series and UWF offer a range of political positions in the interests of civil discourse and education.

 Our talk tonight is truly in the spirit of the Seligman lectures and we'll offer some all-important context for both historic and contemporary censorship. If you don't know there is currently a lawsuit for book banning against the Escambia County School District, which is which has drawn national attention. 

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It's truly my pleasure tonight to introduce our speaker Robert Spoo is the Leonard Milberg 1853 professor in Irish letters at Princeton University. Until recently he was Chapman distinguished professor of Law and professor of English at the University of Tulsa where he edited and later co-edited the James Joyce quarterly.Hhe received his PhD in English from Princeton and his JD from the Yale Law School. After graduating from law school he served as a judicial clerk to The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor when she was a member of the US Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit. Bob returned to Princeton less than a year ago as a homecoming. He spent six happy years there as a graduate student and a lecturer before moving to Tulsa to teach and write on James Joyce and other modernist and Irish authors. 

He couldn't have known in those years that his academic and intellectual life would eventually divide into two parts, literature and law. His turn to law began when, as an editor of the James Joyce quarterly, he and other scholars were confronted with the active hostility of the estate of James Joyce and its copyright aggressions. I mean New York Times wrote about an infamously litigious author's estate, Bob's research and teaching merged interdisciplinary interests in literature, law, free speech, and themes of intellectual property in public domain. His writing focuses on Modern Irish figures, notably Joyce and Oscar Wild and he's actively involved in the law and literature movement within literature studies, pairing his academic career with work as a practicing lawyer. 

He has assisted scholars, writers and creative artists with the challenges of copyright and fair use. and served as co-council in the groundbreaking lawsuit to free scholars from unwarranted copyright threats by the Estates of James Joyce and he's incredibly generous with his knowledge. He often helps graduate students and junior colleagues navigate the problems of copyright. I know that because as a graduate student at the University of Miami working on my first book I reached out to him and he graciously helped me navigate the pretty scary copyright issues that one deals with, especially when one is unfamiliar with them. 

So, in recent years Bob's work has appeared in the Stanford Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Law and Literature, Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal, Journal of Modern Literature, James Joyce Quarterly, Joyce Studies Annual, and other venues. His book, Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain, was published by Oxford University Press in 2013. In 2016, he was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in the humanities, which supported his writing of Modernism and the Law, which was published in 2018 by Bloomsberry Academic and he's just published a volume that he's co-edited with Simon Stern called Concise Encyclopedia of Law and Literature, with 134 entries by recent and established scholars in 2020 and 2021. He's held a
Law and Public Affairs Fellowship at Princeton. He's also been an Oklahoma Center for Humanities fellow at the University of Tulsa, where he explored the interrelationships among copyright the commons, and freedom. So I would like you all to join me in thanking him in his first visit to Pensacola, Professor Robert Spoo.

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time back l
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l thank you David Can Am I audible am I on all right
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uh first of all it's it's just an absolute pleasure to be visiting
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Pensacola for the first time um that I've been here and University of West
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Florida and I'm absolutely grateful to the Seligman f family the founding uh uh
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family for this talk and for meeting uh K Seligman Valentino and and Bill
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Valentino I believe have I got that right uh very Charming uh conversation
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uh earlier and I look forward to talking to them again and uh uh it I as I was watching
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uh Dean Earl's introduction I noticed that there is a a stop light AB above
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me um and it seems to me that's a very appropriate prop for a talk about Free
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Speech because right now we don't know whether that light is going to turn red or
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green um and I think that's a it's hanging in the balance isn't it
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in in some ways for us for our society and locally I I think uh very powerfully
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for for you so I hope this talk will help us to put this into some historical context
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and I'll spend some minutes actually the beginning of the talk talking about older uh uh censorship cases obscenity
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law uh before I move into I hope a somewhat helpful discussion about the
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current cases that are facing is some of the school cases particularly the Escambia County uh case that I'll I'll
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begin with I don't um I don't pretend to have all the answers for this what I do
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hope is that um some of the discussion can inform us a little bit of what is
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going on with some of these lawsuits where they are headed and uh uh uh what
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what the underlying theories uh legal theories and legal Stakes are for the cases
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so let me uh let me begin and and Hope uh my clicker works
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so uh as as Dean Earl said I um have a chair at Princeton in Irish letters so I
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teach Irish literature quite a bit so I I thought I might begin with a few remarks about Irish literature from the
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past at a recent talk uh by an actor of the Abbey theater of Dublin I was
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reminded of how that theater founded by WB Yates lady Gregory and others around
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around 1900 struggled early on against censorship large and small by which I
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mean formal and informal forms of censorship Yates Gregory John Millington
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Singh and other Abby playwrights were bringing something new to the drama depictions of Irish life
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that avoided on the one hand The Laughing weeping stage Irishman dear to
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English Prejudice and on the other the pure idealized uh Irishman um and peasant
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that was cherished by many Irish nationalists that's why sing's famous
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play most famous Play Playboy of the Western World caused a riot at its
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Premiere in 1907 when the chief character bragged about murdering his father and referred to Irish girls quote
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standing in their shifts unquote and also why his 1903 play in the shadow of
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the Glenn about a mistreated wife who takes to the road with a was
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attacked by Irish nationalist leader um Arthur Griffith as a slur on Irish
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Womanhood it's why yates's 1899 play the ctis Kathleen which shows a ctis a
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figure for Ireland itself saving her peasant tenants from starvation by selling her soul to demon Merchants led
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to an outcry a petition against its alleged
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irreligious anti- irishness was signed by students at University College Dublin
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one student named James Joyce loftily proudly withheld his
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signature resisted that requirement to
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conform the B lady Augusta Gregory and Abbey theater
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Founders I mentioned left an account of the tactics used by informal sensors to
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disrupt performances they would sit in clusters at a targeted play and at a
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critical point of the action would begin to boo hoot and blow tin
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trumpets this Fugue for tin horns was Unleashed at a performance of sings
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Riders to the Sea and Lady Gregory recalled it was impossible to hear a
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word of the play the curtain came down for a minute but I went round and told the actors to go on playing to the end
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even if not a word could be heard the disturbance lasted to the end of the evening and not one word had been heard
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after the first 10 minutes I think the the important point of that story is
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they went on and they continued the play to the end even though they could not be
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hurt Irish censorship also exert Ed pressure through local
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committees that would insist on reviewing plays and making changes before they were
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staged Gregory was proud that the Abbey theater had not given into what she called such organized
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dictation after Ireland G and its independence from Britain censorship continued and it extended to books
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particularly with the 1929 censorship of Publications act and that allowed any
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citizen to complain to a government appointed appointed board about a book
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or publication these are uh this these are the procedures that we we see
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happening today in various forms too the the permission somebody can complain and trigger an entire
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process through the 1960s band authors in Ireland included Steinbeck F Scott
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Fitzgerald Hemingway John MCG Ed edn O'Brien and Kate O'Brien many others as
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well the Irish novelist K toy Bean you you
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may have heard of and incidentally um just as I speak here uh in Pensacola
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toyan is speaking in Princeton uh tomorrow uh so we we're Trading Places
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um toan has written that the urge to Riot in a theater to stop actors being heard the
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urge to ban books the urge to threaten to cut subsidy are almost built into our
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nature they lurk always in the shadows especially in societies where there are
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divisions and pressures and fears or sudden and uneasy
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change toy Bean's diagnosis to me hovers between locating
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the urge to censor within ourselves and locating it in our
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times is censorship an in internal need or is it an external influence or does
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an internal Readiness that is always there become active when social and
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political externalities are strained and fragile tonight I'd like to begin with
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some of the early uh forms or earlier forms of censorship mostly from the first part of the 20th
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century and uh then uh after a turned to recent laws and actions that have been
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brought to bear in various parts of the United States on public schools and their libraries and on public
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libraries this is a little bit apples and oranges I admit censorship by
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federal or state governments and censorship by local school boards and parents parent groups are very different
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things in Practical function and in legal significance and we could easily
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Trace SCH school book Banning whether for conservative or Progressive agendas
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well back into the 20th century but ju opposing putting together book bands
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from the 1920s 30s with book bands operating in public schools today I
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think will help us to understand why censorship in the school context is in
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some ways more complex legally and socially than the top-down censorship of
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earlier leg legislators and legislators and prosecutors of course some of that
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is still operating and I'll talk about a bit of that as well traditionally the nervous Paradox
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at the heart of obscenity laws was that a crime that lacked identifiable victims
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was nonetheless believed strongly to inflict widespread social uh
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harm it's hard to prove sensor uh indecency heart uh you you you assert it
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and you assume it more or less prosecutors in the 19th and early 20th centuries were not required to offer
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evidence that indecency had actually injured any individual persons yet Vice
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Crusaders were passionate about stamping out this and I quote deadly poison cast
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into the Fountain of Purity unquote the nature of the poison was no easier to
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pinpoint than than its claimed effects obscenity was a crime in search of a
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definition an an offense that was floating on a sea of indignant
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adjectives lwd lascivious filthy and decent disgusting ofcity law grew to be
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a tool of opportunistic moralism in the late 19th
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century uh I'm trying to point when I'm trying to click in the late 19th century
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Purity groups and prosecutors in Britain and the United States increasingly targeted literary and artistic Works
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after Decades of focusing chiefly on pornography of the grosser
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type there's a turn these uh cleansing campaigns came to include books that
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soberly discussed birth control National Poverty and reproduction and population
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regulation became a weapon for attacking uncomfortable ideas as much as raw
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pran the sanctioning force of censorship reached to almost everyone and everything in literature's
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Communications circuit Publishers printers book sellers sales clerks the
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book itself Vice Crusaders and circulating libraries no less than government
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officials played their part as private scourges of the purveyors of indecency
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or alleged indecency in America the New England watch and Ward society was established in
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1878 early on the society pursued for example Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass
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and by the 1920s and the 1930s the list of ban books included works by fauler
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Hemingway and DH
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Lawrence in 187 three Anthony comto founded the New York Society for the
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suppression of Vice the society received quasi governmental status when the New
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York State Legislature this is something to think about the legislature in New
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York granted the society's agents an otherwise private group the powers of
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search seizure and arrest and they exercise these very vigorously through formal prosecutions
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and informal intimidations the society worried Publishers and book sellers and hired undercover agents to pose as smut
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purchasers they would even write decoy letters and try to lure uh Publishers and book sellers into uh into uh the the
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the the Trap of of getting arrested under comto successor John Saxton suner
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the society sought to suppress the works of many controversial authors including
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Joyce Lawrence Theodore drer Margaret Sanger Oscar wild and Frank
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Harris the vice societies wielded something that the law typically denied to courts and prosecutors the power of
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prior restraint very important term in our first amendment law prior restraint
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that is restraint before the book is out stopping it it's like those those those
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folks shouting shouting at the play not allowing it to be heard with their bullying Prestige the
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societies acted as prenses persuading Publishers and editors to submit material for approval before publication
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again a little like that Ireland situation where the local committees required submission of plays before they
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could be performed and they would they would cross things out in 1927 the New York Pirate
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pornographer Samuel Roth I've written quite a bit on Sam Roth made two pill
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gages to obtain the smut hounds that is the vice society's permission and
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approval for things in his newsand magazines in New York he sought the vice
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society's approval of an excerpt from James Joyce's ulses to be reprinted in
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his two worlds monthly suner the leader of that Vice Society in New York granted
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the request for uh Joy the exert from Joyce but disapproved the inclusion and
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this is actually a text of Benjamin Franklin's advice on choosing a
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mistress and that they Roth wanted to publish that in his magazine called b b auau
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b in Boston the watch and War Society gave bewildered approval to Roth's
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ulyses extract which That official said was a Cubist Odyssey that entirely is
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beyond my poor mental and imaginative Powers but that uh that that official
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frowned on an article defending the morals of Charlie Chaplain chaplain had just married a a
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te teenage uh uh woman girl the watch and Ward president proposed this trade
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you can have you can have ulses but not Charlie Chaplain uh and he and this was proposed
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a kind of a horse trade with a kind of paternal kindliness as if the official were protecting Roth's own morals rather
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than rendering a decree that threatened a free
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press early in the Decades of the 20th century forms of prior restraint
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operated powerfully in Britain while the Lord Chamberlain there determined which
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plays would be licensed for the public stage private circulating libraries like
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Moody's and wh Smiths effectively determined which books would
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reach large segments of the public you have to know that in Britain at the time books were very expensive to buy if you
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wanted to buy a three volume novel for example it's pretty expensive but you could you could you could borrow it from
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a a really a circulating Library you'd pay a six-month or a 12mon uh Library
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fee to you got books that way but they controlled things offerings were
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pre-screened off offerings for the libraries were pre-screened to Omit titles that had received complaints from
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subscribers or had been reputed to be indecent a process that the Irish Author
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George Moore ridiculed as what he called circulating
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morals in Britain printers printers now mind you printers often played an
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outsized preens orial role in by refusing to set books and print them
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until their authors agreed to Omit material deemed lious or immoral James
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Joyce's early Book of Stories Dubliners which many of you I'm sure have have read or read some of the stories
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remained unpublished for years while English printers actually for 10 years practically while uh while English
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printers who were legally vulnerable for Lial and obscenity along with Publishers
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anguished over an accusatory realism that instead that insisted rather on naming actual public houses describing a
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woman's legs and employing words like bloody um think of that now I mean this
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is this is when you if somewhere someone in the communications circuit is made
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legally vulnerable it can stop the entire
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circuit I found it useful to
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identify specific mechanisms that have implemented the laws of obscenity and to
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distinguish between mechanisms that operated I'm going to use uh a little bit of legal terms here that operated in
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personam a a Latin phrase meaning against the person against individuals or uh
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business Ed entities in personam and those that acted in rem that is against
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inanimate things two approaches that is some laws and procedures targeted
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persons businesses and produced that produced disseminated or otherwise uh made offending content available others
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targeted the books magazines prints and other race Rees things that embodied
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offending content to approaches you attack the person or you attack the thing itself the pursuit of books uh as
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corrupting things invited spectacles of public cleansing not unlike popular
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images of federal agents smashing kegs of beer during the prohibition and that
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is what this image is meant to to to uh to to in to to indicate to people who
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see that you know this is what we are doing we are we are we are we are purging you know the world of these
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offending items now in Britain the most basic inum against the
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person proceeding involved the common law misdemeanor of what was called publishing an obs
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liable punishable since the 18th century a private individual or a vice Society
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or later a crown prosecutor typically initiated prosecution and defended publisher or book seller could be Tried
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by summary process or by a jury in a Crown Court in
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1888 the national vigilance Association one of those private uh Vice Societies
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in Britain obtained an indictment for obscenity against Henry viselli for
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publishing English translations of three novels by the French author Amil
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Zola the common law acted in personam against the person when it convicted
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fined and imprisoned the Aging viselli who died not long after he was released from
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prison now that's an inperson approach the most formidable inim against the
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thing approach in Britain was under the OB seen Publications Act is very often called lord Campbell's act enacted by
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parliament in 1857 to permit what the common Law's sensitivity for individual liberties
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made difficult search seizure and destruction of books deemed obscene by
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authorities they could go into houses even uh with this law and and search around for books the action taken
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against the first English edition of DH Lawrence's the rainbow showed Lord
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Campbell's act in operation in November 1915 after hostile reviews of the book
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had alerted authorities Lawrence's London publisher methan received a summons to appear before the Bow Street
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magistrate and capitulated he offered no argument he said I'm sorry I apologize
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we'll give it up and in all over a thousand copies of the book were destroyed and methan was taxed the costs
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of the proceeding third 1 years later very
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famously Lord Campbell's Act was invoked Against The Well of Loneliness Radcliffe
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Hall's sincere unsensational novel about lesbian lives I say unsensational there
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were no indecent scenes or language in it um when Hall's English publisher was
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summoned to defend the book Cap's attorneys persuaded 40 prominent men and
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women including Virginia and Leonard wolf to be on hand to testify to the
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novel's sincerity and its importance the magistrate and this is very typical for
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the day refused to allow any Witnesses any expert Witnesses at all and after an
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adjournment to go back uh in Chambers and reread the novel or parts of it he ruled that it had a tendency to corrupt
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susceptible readers and he ordered all copies to be destroyed and assessed the
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costs against Kate in a draft of A Room of One's Own Wolf's
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famous um discussion of uh professional female writers Virginia wolf vividly
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this is in a draft it was never published depicted the inrm against the thing Pro prosecution of an imaginary
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novel containing like Hall's novel references to lesbianism and here's what
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wolf wrote in that draft piece there flashed into my mind the inevitable policeman
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the summons the order to attend court the dreary waiting the magistrate coming
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in with a little bow the glass of water the council for the prosecution for the
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defense the verdict this book is obene and Flames Rising perhaps on Tower Hill
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as they consumed masses of paper Wolf's fearful
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Fantasia precisely tracks all the elements of Lord Campbell's act with grim playfulness the she
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figures the inrm destruction of books as an inperson execution on Tower
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Hill the place in London where public beheadings of traitors and criminals of
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rank were traditionally carried out so she saw this thing against the
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thing against the book becoming actually something against person a kind of
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execution while the British attacked The Well of Loneliness in an in rem action American authorities took an inum
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approach to this book The New York Penal Code made it a misdemeanor to sell or uh
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possessed with intent to sell and here are the the typical language of a statute at the time any obscene lwd
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lascivious filthy indecent or disgusting book after The Publisher Donald
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freed defiantly sold a copy of Hall's book to an agent of the New York Vice
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Society the society returned with police officers and seized more than 800 copies
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when Fred's case came to trial in 1929 judge Heyman bushel conceded that
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The Well of Lon loneliness showed as he put it restraint and literary merit but
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still found its theme to be antisocial again these are his words antisocial and offensive to public morals and
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decency and bound freed over for trial judge bushel contem condemned the
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novel for its unsettling subject matter not for any indecent language or incident there were
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none three judges in the higher Court of special sessions though saw things
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differently and dismissed the complaint and note that judge bushel
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condemned this novel The Well of Loneliness for the theme or the idea of
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same sex love I think that's very important and a distinction important for right now Our Moment uh whether we
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are actually condemning things because of truly you know uh indecent content or
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whether it's an idea about such things I'll return to
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that the federal uh postal statute that and I'm notice I'm kind of going through
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the mech some of the mechanisms the federal postal statute that criminalized the mailing of obscene matter section
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211 of the US criminal code was originally enacted by Congress in 1873 as a result of Anthony con
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comstock's tireless lobbying the comto act as it was called prohibited obscene
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books and other materials Ezra pound the American poet uh assailed the act as as
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he put it lumping literature and instruments for abortion into one Clause
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because it's true uh the that what was banned in the males was both uh
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instruments that would encourage abortion and books that uh talked about it side by
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side it permitted materials to be seized as non- mailable matter and imposed
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fines for for this The Comstock acts in rem against the thing provision
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permitted broad prior restraints things could simply be held up in the post
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office and not mailed at all and it was very hard incidentally to overturn a postmaster's decision very hard indeed
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and this proved to be the case when some of these were challenged in federal court and the judge said uh there's
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really nothing I can do about it unless I show that the postmaster exercised an absolutely abusive discretion you know
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uh discretion in doing this it's very hard to overturn it one last inim uh technique that had a
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significant impact on Modern literature was the obscenity provision of the US
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Tariff Act in the late 1920s the lawyer Morris ER he's really modernism's great
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lawyer worked to reform the arbitrariness of censorship
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laws uh as they were used by Customs officials and he successfully got the
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Tariff Act amended to allow for a more a more due process essentially for uh
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challenging a seizure of a a book by a customs officer um the the Tariff Act was uh
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lawsuits um what what would happen is the US attorney could would would then be required if they were going to retain
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the book to bring a civil action against the book A forfeiture action actually against the book or whatever offending
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articles so examples of this during the prohibition period I pulled some of these titles uh from uh uh the the The
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Archives of uh these cases because I was looking for uh the the ulyses case which
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was called United States versus one book called ulses but surrounding it were all
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of these cases United States versus one Ford truck United States versus approximately
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126 assorted glasses a quantity of intoxicating Liquors Etc found at Club
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Lon these were just a couple of the many actions brought against property involved in illegal alcohol trafficking
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this is prohibition after all in the spirit of protecting American Purity the
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US attorney filed forfeiture actions against Marie sto's book married love
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and her book contraception books that discuss seriously birth control adult
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sexuality and married equality but the teraa Customs case that had the broadest implications was the
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Joyce case in our return to that briefly in a moment the test for obscenity that came
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to figure prominently in British and American law was formulated in the 1868
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case of Regina the Queen versus hickin hi c k Lian
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hickin and that test was quote whether the tendency of the matter charged as
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obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands
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a publication of this sort might fall this is a broad and elastic
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standard that could be really twisted in many shapes to find a book to be
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obscene and uh a you know a court could find that just a couple of phrases in a
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book were obscene and the whole book would be condemned irrespective of its entire
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context and so or the judge could do what judge bushel did in the well of Lon
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case and find that the theme of the book was a offensive even if defense Council was
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allowed to read the uncharged remainder of the book into evidence before a jury remember you have to perform in front of
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a jury uh in order to get uh their attention and juries often get very
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bored by long readings and if they get bored they take it out on your client so
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this was uh something that um that that was dangerous to do so finally just a a
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couple of remarks about the ulys hickland protected the hickland uh
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standard protected what the lawyer Morris Ernst called the dullest witted and most fallible in our
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community and in theory it said that uh uh that if one libous man existed in an
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Anglo-Saxon Community that's his phrase then all its members would have to submit themselves to the inhibitions of
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the censorship paternalistic over Brad often
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invoked to prot the young hickin might be called and I've called it the law of
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the child it was focused to protect children more or less Jane heap co-editor of the
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little review complained that American obscenity law permitted as she put it
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the mind of the young girl to rule the country if there is anything I really fear she wrote pretty controversially it
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is the mind of the young girl the hickland test had a devastating
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impact on adult readership so finally that ulyses
38:32
Customs case of uh in 1934 a federal pellet Court upheld the trial Court's
38:39
conclusion that ulyses was not obscene under the US Tariff Act and could be
38:45
admitted through customs into the United States the ruling did a great deal to uh
38:51
uh to to to make more flexible and stabilize the standards for judging obscenity in the United States and and
38:58
indirectly and later in Britain up to that time judges and lawyers were often
39:04
groping for a coherent vocabulary with which to fix the meaning of uh the obscene the ulyses opinions helped
39:12
clarify and standardized Concepts such as the average reader uh that uh there
39:18
could be expert witness testimony admitted in such cases and that the
39:23
whole book had to be read not just the portions that seemed to offensive to a
39:29
prosecutor these ingredients would later be merged and fused and
39:35
constitutionalized by the US Supreme Court particularly in a case called Roth
39:42
the United States and yes that's our friend Samuel Roth again now 20 or 30 years later and um now a criminal
39:50
defendant in an obscenity case he lost at the Supreme Court level but the
39:56
Supreme Court established an important um definition of obscenity that partly
40:02
reflected the ulyses uh ingredients and most of all and most
40:07
importantly the element of the First Amendment the principle of free speech
40:14
is what really distinguished Roth from earlier cases it's not that law lawyers
40:19
had never argued the Constitutional question in obscenity cases before but judges had resisted it was considered
40:26
then a novelty that they weren't willing to entertain what were they looking at you had to argue that the you know the
40:31
book was you had to weigh the obscenity against the good passages and things it was a fact question as opposed to really
40:38
being a legal question of the First Amendment after Roth and similar cases
40:45
judges could stop doing that weighing and quantifying of obscenity and they could decide that question under the
40:51
First Amendment uh courts could now do what even socially Progressive jurists
40:57
of earlier decades could not openly concede a book's offensiveness yet rule
41:03
that inherent Free Speech values for bad suppression under Roth and later cases
41:10
Regional moralism was giving way to a Nationwide standard a unified
41:15
constitutional test of social value instead of the patchwork of laws from
41:20
one state to another state across jurisdictions that often made a victory in one Court just Prelude to litigation
41:29
in another I'd like to turn now
41:35
to uh the present moment and from state and federal book
41:41
Banning to the censorship activities of local school boards and other concerned
41:46
groups this maybe was very much on some of your minds State legislatures have
41:52
been very active in recent years as you no doubt know in 202 three alone and
41:58
this is just a few just a few state laws have been adopted to protect minors from
42:03
online distribution of harmful materials in schools libraries and elsewhere that's Arkansas Louisiana Mississippi
42:10
Oklahoma elsewhere uh laws to define the word sex
42:15
and create requirements relating to titles and pronouns uh in uh uh in early sex and
42:23
reproductive health education right here uh at other states to prohibit schools from teaching about
42:30
gender identity and sexual orientation in K through six and to impose requirements on school library programs
42:37
and materials to allow requests from parents and others to remove materials
42:42
deemed obscene or harmful from school libraries to cause materials purportedly
42:48
harmful to minors to be confined to restricted areas in libraries or
42:54
bookstores By Request of parents or others come back to these some of these
43:00
and to limit and regulate the sale to school libraries of materials deemed sexually explicit or sexually relevant
43:09
uh that's a Texas law now many of these laws um
43:17
enshrine parental Choice as fundamental and confer on parents powers to monitor
43:24
select restrict or remove materials in school school and public libraries as early as
43:30
1925 the US Supreme Court in Pierce The Society of sisters recognized the fundamental
43:37
constitutional Liberty of parents and Guardians to direct the upbringing and
43:43
education of children under their control the court famously stating the child is not the mere creature of the
43:50
state other words parents should have a fundamental Liberty in in in helping to
43:56
shap the uh the the educational Destiny of their
44:02
children not controversially in a way it's been around for 100 years at least
44:08
but the present statutory expansion of the parental role is what I've
44:14
noticed in public education this seems to me to risk casting doubt particularly
44:21
on the traditional competency and authority of teachers and Librarians perhaps eroding the distinction between
44:28
public schooling and homeschooling we allow the parental voice to get too
44:33
insistent are we still do we still have public education or do we have something else that is simply more or less being
44:39
directed from the home but we also see in these laws is a fast-tracked process
44:45
for lodging complaints against books that sometimes appears to create a presumption in favor of the complainant
44:53
a structure resembling that Irish censorship uh board I mentioned earlier which permitted citizens to complain uh
45:01
to this government appointed board about any book deemed offensive and there would be sort of quick action
45:07
taken well uh this probably is familiar panamerican
45:14
Center lawsuit recent state laws have been challenged in courts this is one a
45:20
federal lawsuit familiar to many of you will be Pan-American Center versus Escambia County School District and
45:26
board in which a group of authors Publishers and parents with students sued over
45:33
decisions to remove and restrict books from public school libraries as part of an effort as the complaint
45:40
alleges uh that disproportionately targets this is the language of the
45:45
complaint disproportionately targets books by or about people of color and or
45:51
lgbtq people and prescribes again language of the complaint and Orthodoxy
45:56
of a opinion that violates the 1 and 14th amendments although school policies
46:03
require typically a multi-level review process for challenges to books the
46:10
complaint here alleges that the district instituted a procedure by which quote any challenged book would automatically
46:17
be subject to restricted access during the review process so again the presumption was in favor of removing the
46:24
book even before uh the the review process had fully occurred according to the complaint short circuited review
46:32
ease of challenge censorship based on language of the complaint political or
46:37
ideological disagreement with the ideas all these are alleged in the lawsuit
46:43
that claims that some it's the the litigation has gotten it to about 130 books including one you may know called
46:52
an Tango makes three a 2005 picture book based on an apparently true story of two
46:59
male Penguins uh in a New York zoo that bonded and raised a baby penguin were
47:06
removed or restricted because they were thought to promote same-sex relationships or other
47:16
agendas the pen American Center lawsuit advances the challenge here advances two
47:23
basic legal theories the first of these is that these removals and restrictions
47:31
violate the First Amendment because they are based on disagreement over ideas and
47:37
messages rather than what the complaint calls pedagogical
47:42
reasons creating what the law calls uh First Amendment law calls Viewpoint
47:47
discrimination it's an especially sensitive area of First Amendment law because Viewpoint is something that we
47:54
value very very highly in our society so that if Viewpoint discrimination is
48:00
occurred a First Amendment violation is almost certain to be
48:06
found um the lawsuit also alleges a violation
48:12
of the students First Amendment right to receive information and ideas there is a
48:18
right to receive information simply because school officials disagreed with the
48:24
ideas finally and most creatively the plaintiffs alleg that in removing
48:30
books disproportionately this is the language of the authored by nonwhite
48:35
Andor lgbtq authors school officials have violated the equal protection Clause of
48:42
the 14th amendment by discriminating on the basis of race gender or sexual
48:49
orientation the court now there was a motion to dismiss one of the most recent things to happen in the case there was a
48:55
motion to dismiss by the defendants and the court denied most of
49:01
that motion to dismiss early last year allowing the
49:08
plain of's First Amendment claims to go forward but it did dismiss the equal
49:13
protection Theory the court found that the equal protection claim and this is the
49:20
language of the court now in its order Amalgamated nonwhites and lgbtq individuals even even though they
49:27
are discreet protected classes and required far too many
49:33
inferences um about intentional discrimination in the case now you know
49:39
uh equal protection is about targeting a class of persons a protected class
49:45
typically race or gender uh for unequal treatment and the the court but did not
49:52
believe the complaint made out a a clear allegation for that
49:57
and that was dismissed I should note that equal protection claims are very difficult often to um to make stick you
50:04
have to show a lot of things the case has been temporarily stayed pending appeal of an order
50:12
authorizing depositions of Schoolboard members uh incidentally there there's a big dispute over um whether Schoolboard
50:20
members are protected by an immunity uh from being U deposed in a litigation
50:27
this is a big issue right now in the case it may be significant because one of the things uh you have you might have
50:33
to show some intention and we'd be good to get this testimony certainly good for
50:38
the for the plaintiffs so what is the controlling law concerning the discretion of public
50:46
school officials as applied to the pen American Center case or similar cases in
50:52
contrast to First Amendment law applied to topdown bands by state and federal governments which
50:59
I've just been discussing from the earlier period the law in school contexts is less developed and less
51:08
clear this should not be surprising it's one thing of a prosecutor postmaster
51:14
Customs official bans a book like ulses or lady chatterly's lover but quite another thing when a
51:21
local school board or parent teacher group decides that a book is inappropriate for school children
51:27
in other words we respect we the law respects local feelings and and Views
51:33
and and sensitivities our law understandably shows deference to
51:39
that and to decisions that are made in loco parentis in Latin in the place of
51:45
the parent where minors are concerned the Supreme Court case most directly
51:51
addressing these issues is one called Board of Education versus Pico it's from 1982 pretty old case by now where a
51:59
plurality of justices ruled on a challenge to the removal of books from
52:04
public school libraries that were purportedly and this is the language of the removers of the
52:10
book anti-American anti-christian anti-semitic and just plain
52:15
filthy the plurality opinion which was authored by Justice William Brennan was
52:21
careful to point out that the court was not being asked to intrude into the classroom room or into the compulsory
52:28
courses taught there in other words this was not about what was you know in the curriculum instead this was about
52:35
removal of library books that are optional for students rather than
52:41
required that were originally AC acquired originally purchased by the school itself they were then
52:49
removing Justice Brennan's opinion walked on
52:54
eggshells acknowledging the broad discretion of local boards in the management of school
53:00
Affairs that discretion includes in many cases the educational suitability of
53:07
books vulgarity pornography and indecency these are things that local
53:13
school boards can have a role in but just as Brennan held that school boards
53:18
this is his language now may not remove books from school library shelves simply
53:23
because they dislike the ideas contained in the books and want his words again to
53:30
prescribe what shall be Orthodox in politics nationalism religion or other
53:35
matters of opinion unquote there is an intent requirement
53:43
here to violate Free Speech school officials officials must have
53:49
intended intended to deny access to ideas with which they disagreed
53:57
and that's one of the reasons that it may be critical that school officials may not be deposed in the case because
54:03
their testimony may may tell uh something about the intention of the school board and school officials
54:11
acting this holding of Pico recognized the First Amendment right to receive
54:17
ideas that follows from the senders First Amendment right to send them
54:23
there's sending right and a receiving right in our First Amendment students the court said may not be regarded as
54:30
closed circuit recipients of that which the state chooses to communicate we in
54:36
the age of closed circuit TV that this was uh decided applied to some of the
54:41
school board activities currently being challenged um the Pico plurality is holding would seem on its face to forbid
54:49
removing a book from a school library because a parent or official felt that the book served a woke agenda or
54:56
promoted an alternative lifestyle gender identity or domestic
55:03
Arrangement this would be what Pico calls an intentional effort to ban ideas and opinions that don't fit a prescribed
55:12
Orthodoxy but there's no guarantee that legal challenges to these School Board
55:17
practices and the state laws that enable them will succeed first school officials might try
55:25
to car characteriz their disapproval of ideas as disapproval of indecency vulgarity or unsuitability of books a
55:33
choice that Pico and other cases acknowledge as within the discretion of school
55:39
boards of course even here there are limits to bans that openly flout the
55:44
Supreme Court's obscenity rules but again School boards operating
55:49
in local parus the place of parents have greater freedom to protect minors than
55:55
legislative or prosecutors imposing broad-based top down bans on all
56:02
readers second the most cited Supreme Court case in this area the one I've just mentioned Pico is as I've said a
56:10
plurality opinion that's an opinion that did not receive the support of a majority of the
56:18
justices but still received more support than any other opinion except for dissenting justices
56:27
in other words at least five of the justices agreed on the
56:32
result but less than five agreed on the reasons for the
56:38
result plurality opinion still good law but it's weaker law because it's easier
56:46
to distinguish it's easier to challenge and if it comes up to the Supreme Court for them to decide whether they're going
56:53
to change the law by reversing their Cho decision of 1982 it's easier to
56:59
reverse because they can say we never did have a full uh agreement as to the reasons
57:06
here so let's move on to a couple of other
57:13
recent cases that are uh that are at issue Book Center book people rather I
57:19
want to mention these first there is is the law that requires schoolbook vendors
57:25
that is sellers of books uh to schools uh who wish to do business with the public schools to issue ratings for all
57:33
Library materials they have sold or will sell tagging them as either sexually explicit or sexually relevant if they
57:41
discuss sex in any way in book people versus Wong a group
57:46
of book sellers Publishers and authors has sued Texas State officials before
57:52
enforcing such a law alleging that it grants the State illegitimate licensing
57:57
authority to decide which books may be available in public schools that the law
58:02
violates the Free Speech rights of book sellers by compelling them against their
58:07
will to state that a book is sexually explicit or sexually relevant based on
58:13
the government's standards not their own this is this is what we call a First
58:19
Amendment violation for compelled speech if the government makes you say something that you don't want to say as
58:25
a as an official requirement that could be a compelled speech
58:32
problem um also a challenge is to the vagueness of the law and its terms a
58:40
vague law can result in a constitutional violation of due process because with
58:45
due process we're supposed to know in advance whether we're violating the law
58:51
or not as a matter of notice and if we can't if the law is to too vague our due
58:57
process rights might be violated so a federal trial court issued
59:05
an order preliminarily enjoining this law and in the Texas area and in January
59:12
2024 a US court of appeals affirmed that order holding that the plaintiffs were
59:19
likely to succeed on their compelled speech claim the claim goes forward uh in this
59:31
case my review of earlier censorship showed that when proponents of bands
59:36
enlist libraries and book sellers willing or not to bottleneck books the battle for censorship is almost
59:43
one this was uh the inrm effect that stopped books at their Source rather
59:49
than punishing the reader you don't need to punish the reader if the book never reaches the reader another type of state law
59:57
currently being challenged is one that imposes criminal liability on those who make available to a minor any material
1:00:04
deemed harmful to miners this law is it's spared will
1:00:09
force libraries and book sellers to create restricted areas for adults only
1:00:14
or for older minors only um less than three months ago an
1:00:21
Arkansas Federal Court granted summary judgment to a plaintiff uh to plain of
1:00:26
librarians and book sellers holding that the law gave them no choice but to segregate potentially hundreds of books
1:00:33
um from disposable this is the language of the court order uh from disposable
1:00:39
paperback romance novels to Classics of Literature Like Romeo and Juliet Ulisses catcher and the Ry the handmaid's tail
1:00:45
or The Kite Runner in other words to avoid criminal penalties again the court goes on Librarians and book sellers must
1:00:53
impose restrictions on older ERS um and
1:00:58
adults access to vast amounts of reading material this is a classic example
1:01:05
incidentally of what the First Amendment Doctrine calls an over Brad law over
1:01:11
breath is a Doctrine one likely to create unnecessary Free Speech
1:01:17
casualties in its war against purported indecency sweeps too broadly the court
1:01:24
also found the Lang language of the in this case the Arkansas statute too vague
1:01:30
uh again threatening due process rights in general the Court held that the law would all this is a language all
1:01:37
but guarantee that the books would be removed or restricted based on their communicative content or
1:01:45
Viewpoint and was not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling State interest the
1:01:52
court entered summary judgment there for the plaintiffs that will dedly be appealed I I suppose but but uh the
1:01:59
court so ruled um there in Arkansas here then uh to sum
1:02:07
up are some of my concerns as someone who is support who is a supporter both of free speech and of public
1:02:15
schools in a time when important Voca the important vocation of Public School teaching is under stress from low
1:02:22
salaries and low morale what messages being sent by
1:02:28
sharply restricting the autonomy of school teachers and Librarians in further elevating the role
1:02:35
of parents not to be uh not to be sneezed at is an important role are
1:02:41
these laws diminishing the role of teachers and Librarians and making public schools look more like
1:02:48
homeschooling which is also an option you know for parents when over Brad laws
1:02:55
seek to to protect younger minors at the expense of older minors and adults are
1:03:00
they enacting some version of that law of the child that I mentioned earlier
1:03:06
that caused many authors and Publishers in the previous Century to worry that a standard enshrining the especially
1:03:13
fragile vulnerable person would come to govern choices made for
1:03:19
everyone are these laws returning in the school context to the cherry-picking of
1:03:25
indecent that the hickland standard permitted where a prosecutor could point
1:03:31
to a few controversial words or phrases in a 300 page book and ignore the rest are we willing to see repeated what
1:03:38
judge bushel did in The Well of Loneliness case nearly a hundred years ago now when he condemned a book that he
1:03:45
admitted showed restraint and literary merit because its theme of alternative sexuality was thought to be antisocial
1:03:52
and offensive lawyers fought hard for decades to unify the national Patchwork
1:04:00
of inconsistent obscenity standards by ensuring that books containing serious
1:04:05
literary artistic political or scientific value would not be condemned
1:04:10
just because they contain some controversial or offensive passages will
1:04:16
peacemeal school laws and bans in different states return us to the checkerboard of standards that a century
1:04:24
ago eroded learning learning and degraded literary achievement thank
1:04:37
you we do have time for questions I believe there're going to be some micrones uh walk around if you have
1:04:43
questions and then I'll make a couple comments at the very end uh so and questions
1:04:50
anyone great thank you I mean sure there questions I see
1:04:56
and starting to come up so please um uh this question uh right here in the
1:05:01
middle is all I was going to ask uh in like
1:05:08
World in a visual in an increasing visual world uh also also a world in
1:05:14
which the internet uh uh offers on a minute-by-minute basis you know more
1:05:20
potential harm really than the schools can could do in years yeah I think it is
1:05:26
I think it is a huge a huge issue um of course uh there are efforts to curb um
1:05:34
internet use within the schools and there actually may be some good basis for that I mean there may be things that
1:05:41
uh kids should not be accessing on uh on school premises but yeah I think the I
1:05:46
think the issue of the visual and the impact of the visual and the availability of the visual after all
1:05:52
don't we say that a picture is worth a thousand words um it may also uh be worth a thousand
1:05:59
harms um yes I I see that I see that
1:06:04
issue uh what advice would you give for anyone here in higher education who's
1:06:09
now facing issues of censorship uh or
1:06:16
self-censorship listen to your name there you go good F you there you
1:06:24
go I mean uh listen to your dean and listen to The Courts I think uh the courts are moving
1:06:30
on this look at in some ways how rapidly these three big cases that I mentioned have moved along the the and now mind
1:06:37
you each of these cases is right now tilting towards the plaintiff's position
1:06:44
I don't say they ultimately will but they are tilting towards the plaintiff's position in Florida in Texas and in
1:06:52
Arkansas those are the three cases and those are fairly conservative courts and also conservative appeals courts and
1:06:59
what is emerging is uh is is a tilt towards at least the First Amendment
1:07:04
claims of the platus now a lot of this is going I think this is probably going
1:07:11
to come up to the Supreme Court and we're going to find out where they stand and what they do with pico Pico is that
1:07:17
case I think that is a little bit wobbly because of its plurality status so yeah
1:07:23
I think uh what practical advice I don't know if there is practical advice uh sometimes
1:07:29
the Practical uh unfortunately yields to the legal isn't it scary that we have
1:07:35
our our our our our our lives in the hands of lawyers I mean it's certainly
1:07:41
not my idea of a of a good time but um um but right now we do and this has
1:07:48
happened before and and lawyers do step up for this and courts do too I think we
1:07:54
should have one thing I think we should have if we can't do anything immediately that at least the dean doesn't authorize
1:08:00
for you and and just watch his words and memos but I I do think we should have faith in our court system um I know it's
1:08:08
sometimes a little bit hard it has been stressful uh for me in a number of ways to see some of the trending but I think
1:08:15
we should have faith in our our our state and federal court systems that
1:08:21
they will uphold Free Speech rights um both in and out of
1:08:28
schools Professor where do you come down from the issue
1:08:35
of uh public elected officials school board
1:08:41
members well not having to be
1:08:47
deposed um I'll tell you the truth I have not read the full briefing on the that issue
1:08:54
uh I I know that what has been invoked and has has had some success at the lower level is an immunity uh a sort of
1:09:02
a legislative immunity uh that that says that you know because we know for
1:09:07
example that leg legislators in the federal legislature are immune for
1:09:14
anything they say or do within Congress uh that's a constitutional
1:09:20
mandate and so by a sort of derivation that has been brought to the State
1:09:25
levels and now extended to these uh school officials I think one of the questions is whether they truly are
1:09:32
functioning in a legislative capacity I'm not sure I buy that argument fully I
1:09:38
also worry that the lack of depositions I may have you may have notice that one of the things you have to show in a Pico
1:09:44
uh challenge you have to show intent by the school officials to
1:09:50
suppress ideas you have to show intent and intent can be shown L lots of different ways but one of the ways is
1:09:57
through obtaining testimony from the alleged uh suppressors without that intent will
1:10:05
have to be shown circumstantially and it it might well be showable and you
1:10:13
know we show a lot of things circumstantially people are convicted of murder circumstantially but uh I think it may
1:10:19
does make thing a little bit more difficult I'm not I'm not crazy about the ruling uh um I will say though I I
1:10:26
must be a little modest to the extent that I have not read all the briefing and come to a full uh a sort of full uh
1:10:34
view of it great question I would like to say a thank you
1:10:40
for coming out fors yes okay thank you for coming out and giving me such a a good speech thank you um so my question
1:10:47
that deals with the the Parents Choice to be able to pick and choose right can be allowed in tax funded education or in
1:10:54
the libraries yeah could you define more on what you consider sship and what
1:11:01
you consider a book ban cuz I followed this uh the the the desantes whatever he
1:11:08
and the administration decided books from it right and in nowhere does the literature say that the State of Florida
1:11:14
will ban it from Amazon or from book publishers or anything like that for the public general public to to be able to
1:11:21
get a full yeah right where do you draw that line okay thanks so in other words you know one of the views here is that
1:11:27
okay there the it's going to be removed from the libraries but School libraries but it will be available in all kinds of
1:11:33
other ways and and and shouldn't the parents you know have that role and and I and I hope I hope in the remarks I
1:11:40
made that I show difference to parental uh sensitivities I I think parents should play a a role here um but let's
1:11:48
but let's see exactly what is being challenged in the pen American Center case or what's not being challenged
1:11:55
here's what's not being challenged and really can't be very easily challenged um the mandatory curriculum that is set
1:12:02
by uh School administrators by school boards and by parents uh that are you
1:12:08
know engaged in parent teacher groups and consultations uh the courts cannot
1:12:14
get involved in or they have not gotten involved they said we don't get involved in the mandatory School curriculum nor
1:12:22
do nor could the courts possibly force a school to acquire books it does
1:12:30
not have so you can't say your library doesn't have Ulisses you must buy it
1:12:37
that cannot happen the thing that's being challenged here is the removal of
1:12:43
books that were once placed there by the school itself now being removed there and
1:12:49
partly that issue is about the students of ability to have
1:12:56
some option to choose as opposed to the curriculum itself I don't know if uh if
1:13:02
you're like me uh folks in the audience and remember a time when you you know
1:13:08
you got free of a class in high school or in grade school and you wandered into the library how many of you actually
1:13:14
have memories of like wandering around in the stacks and you know encountering
1:13:20
a book that was just fascinating to you oh I remember reading Eugene O'Neal you know of course one of the the challenged
1:13:25
authors you know desire under the Elms things like that I remember you know or JD solinger things like that wandering
1:13:32
into the library and encountering these that is that Journey that is optional and that is um a freedom of of
1:13:40
of of creative and curious Choice what is mandatory in the
1:13:45
classroom is very different from what is found on that Odyssey within the library that is not required and that is the
1:13:52
thing that is the point of sensitivity uh in the Pico type of case which uh
1:13:59
which um Pan-American panamerican uh sen is so that's how I would you know
1:14:05
respond to that thank you yeah looking at a little broader
1:14:10
view given the current litigation and ask litigation what do you think the possibilities of public libraries being
1:14:17
restricted to adults only I think there is a a movement in that regard some of these challenges do involve state laws
1:14:25
that allow some of the similar uh uh um removals and restrictions to go to
1:14:30
public libraries as well as school public school libraries so there are parallels and I do think there uh some
1:14:36
of these laws are going there and some of these challenges will have to go there as well absolutely um so uh not
1:14:44
and not only restricted to adults only um possibly even uh begin to remove
1:14:51
books that seem inappropriate there too so uh for anybody so yeah I think that's
1:14:56
that's a real Pro that's a real question and one of the problems with this restricted book approach and this is
1:15:03
bookstores and libraries is that if you create this cordoned
1:15:10
off space where the mature books are as opposed to these spaces where the
1:15:17
younger people can wander and choose you're stigmatizing this space so
1:15:24
somebody who wants wants to go and check out a book from the restricted space must go over to a counter and a counter
1:15:31
that is designated as mature only or you know sensitive only and then request
1:15:36
that book A lot of people will be chilled by that that's the old tactic of
1:15:41
the underthe counter approach in you know in in in in bookstores that sold the dirty books under the- counter you
1:15:47
had to request it yeah you know could I could I check out lady could I buy lady
1:15:53
chattery lover do you have it under the counter well that's a chilling effect and I think that's one of the problems
1:15:58
in any kind of library but it it endangers both school and public libraries most
1:16:03
definitely yes can you speak about the interception the peripheral can you
1:16:10
speak about bger section of Parental intent and Schoolboard intent in that
1:16:16
Pico stand because I can imagine a Schoolboard saying we don't choose to restrict anything based on ideology we
1:16:22
only want to do whatever the parents right I I don't know that the cases make
1:16:27
that distinction but I think that if if the school board wanted to shift the intentionality to the parents and
1:16:33
disclaim it for themselves I think uh the I think the logical result would be
1:16:38
to say Well it it may be what you deem to be the parents choice but you have
1:16:44
adopted it as your intent I think that's probably and in fact in fact I think
1:16:49
that's one of the things that probably the defendants would not want to say necessarily in cases like this because
1:16:54
they might be conceding an adopted intent at least I would think so yes Val
1:17:04
B Young in middle school age had to get permission from call to go St
1:17:11
yes and I'm wondering any school district how oh sorry I'm wondering if
1:17:18
any school district have thought about just eliminating all of this and and I am a
1:17:28
yeah um almost an absolutist when it comes to pre speech but
1:17:34
no um and just getting permission slips from parents about what they do or don't
1:17:42
want their children to be right I mean I don't know how it would it's just a
1:17:47
thought no I think it's I don't am so maned I'm not sure yeah no I I it's a
1:17:53
it's a real concern and um there are laws that are recently been enacted in
1:17:59
in states that do really diminish the types of sex education that
1:18:05
can be delivered particularly K through six I was talking that was just using
1:18:10
that in in now okay I I was talking about the book in
1:18:16
censorship uh so you're saying that will we eventually have to bring permission slips or something to my child to go
1:18:24
into the life for for given uh I don't know of any uh law that is or School
1:18:30
Board decision that is structured exactly that way but I think uh it's not impossible at all again this idea of of
1:18:38
centralizing the role of the parent you know and this is again not something that we want to diminish but I think
1:18:44
it's not something we want to make too big because after all you know even
1:18:49
subject of sex education um it's partly a it this is partly as so
1:18:55
many things in America right now a question of norms that are under assault it's not just laws it's not
1:19:04
just specific entitlements that can be defended in a courtroom it's partly our
1:19:09
Norms what is the norm by which we trust teachers that have trained and
1:19:15
sacrificed their lives and many of them sacrifice salaries in order to do this
1:19:21
and we don't trust them to teach things to our students and that's why I suggest
1:19:26
this uh I I don't think it's just a a cartoon or dystopian view that that you
1:19:33
know public schooling might become much more homeschooling if if parents become that that larger Roland and where where
1:19:39
why do you have a why do you have a public teacher uh at all if um we don't
1:19:45
we don't trust their judgment and their
1:19:50
knowledge so I was wondering if he could speak to whether God you think there is some uh common ground or a uh like
1:19:58
shared possible root cause um between uh the Restriction of speech from
1:20:05
intellectual property and copyright laws kind of censorship we see here and I mean that both legally and sort of like
1:20:12
theoretically or ideologically wow what a great question it so happens I've written on that subject um and uh I'm
1:20:21
very fascinated by the way copyright and obscenity law do some of the same odd
1:20:27
things together um obviously a copyright law enables uh a a copyright holder to
1:20:35
control uses of that work uh to be able to suppress the work even if they want
1:20:41
to they don't want anybody to publish it uh they can suppress it and they can sue anybody who does for copyright
1:20:47
infringement right well uh fair enough our laws permit
1:20:52
that I was I was involved and I talked to some of the students um today in
1:20:58
Professor G's Lee G's class about um a misuse of copyright which in some
1:21:06
cases has occurred has actually involved in a lawsuit against the James Joyce estate that was doing this and that was
1:21:12
using copyrights to essentially to suppress speech uh instead of simply
1:21:18
trying to obtain economic benefits as copyright is intended to do they were
1:21:24
trying to use it to silence critics Scholars those who
1:21:30
wanted to delve into James Joy's life in other words they were using it as a kind
1:21:36
of what they claim to be a privacy you know there is no privacy for in the United States a privacy right for the
1:21:43
dead there you can't defame a dead person really you can't invade their
1:21:48
privacy rights so if you're using copyright to
1:21:55
affect that privacy right you're misusing the copyright and we shouldn't
1:22:00
be allowed to use a law that is proper for an improper P purpose that is one
1:22:06
way in which copyright law I think can begin to look like an obscenity uh a law
1:22:11
that that suppresses censorship law and I think I've often thought that censorship laws are kind of super
1:22:17
copyright laws um in the sense that it allows uh not a an author but a a
1:22:24
government to control speech and is so powerful as that control that they even control the
1:22:30
author the author's speech so it's like a super copyright but anyway it's a great question and um there I think are
1:22:37
a lot of parallels if we misuse copyrights we start to suppress speech in in in ugly
1:22:43
ways Cliff time for one more question so one one's go
1:22:52
finish all right thanks well so first of all I'd like to
1:22:59
thank our speaker Dr Stu thank
1:23:06
you and of course I'd like to thank the Valentino and Selman family uh so very
1:23:12
much to for helping us continue on what I see as an incredibly important series of lectures here uh I'm going to wait
1:23:19
the speaker so I'll give you feedback um uh and of course the staff uh and
1:23:26
historic trust staff have done a a wonderful job as always and they're probably thanked too seldomly so I want to make sure to thank them the
1:23:32
department of government as well for helping and supporting this um so we have a few more events coming up uh let
1:23:39
me get the dates right so we have the ask you lecture March 27th which is
1:23:45
debating American Grand strategy and uh if you're not not familiar with the snow
1:23:51
week that we had and had a cancel the uh John T Edge event if you know about true
1:23:56
South he's going to be here on April 15th uh and we move locations it's going
1:24:02
to be in the um uh Pensacola Little Theater um and uh uh that is also going to
1:24:10
launch our Gulf Coast culture series now all of these events are free they're open to the public if if anybody would
1:24:16
like to donate to help us continue those on that would be fantastic to the College of Arts social science and Humanities and besides that uh I want to
1:24:24
thank everyone uh we have time to uh mingle and Converse I'm sure I there
1:24:30
might still be food unless they took it away um uh but towards that towards
1:24:36
those lines everybody please uh thanks again and uh I'd love to continue the
1:24:43
conversation so thank you