6 pages in length. To be told what is permissible reading material and what is not
             is a direct violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution. Yet all across the
             country, school library shelves are being stripped of books that certain individuals
             and groups deem as unacceptable. Censorship is alive and well in the United
             States; its ripple effect on America's students is often as damaging as reading
             one of many so-called controversial books. The writer reveals why censorship in
             today's schools is both a violation of First Amendment rights, as well as a ploy
             for radicals and liberals alike to control the minds of our children.
             censorship has to do with forbidding people to express themselves in the manner
             best suited to their needs.
             The aim of censorship is to restrict thought--that is, to prevent people from thinking "bad" thoughts.
             The censors' basic premise is: Some ideas are so dangerous they must be suppressed. Material
             is censored because, "it might give people ideas"--ideas that the censors wish to eradicate. Some
             censors believe that "bad" thoughts cause direct harm to the person who entertains them. Some
             Christians, for example, consider "impure" thoughts mortal sins that doom a soul to suffer in Hell for
             eternity. Others simply hold that bad thoughts "corrupt" the thinker. For many years, this direct-harm
             argument was used to suppress sexual material. According to the Hicklin doctrine, formulated in
             England in 1868, the state had the right to suppress obscene material, which had a "tendency" to
             "deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences."
             ability to think is what makes us human, and o
             ...