Diane Ravitch: Censorship of Language Attacked
by Sybil Maimin

The battles over what we teach our children continue, and Diane Ravitch, author, advocate, and professor of education at New York University, has taken a strong stand against “the new literary terrorists from both the left and the right” who demand that certain words and concepts not appear in the texts our children use in school. She spoke passionately about her book, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, on a panel at The New York Public Library that included Alan Brinkley, professor of history and incoming provost at Columbia University, and Erin McKean, senior editor for U.S. dictionaries at Oxford University Press. Marlene Springer, President of CUNY’s College of Staten Island, was moderator.

Ravitch explained that at publishing houses, textbooks below college level must be approved by “bias and sensitivity” panels that regularly remove words that “might offend someone.” Publishers, who want to avoid controversy and sell lots of books, “agree to everyone’s objections.” Mega companies that have forced out smaller publishers believe sales and profits are best realized by capitulating to pressure groups and producing bland, homogenous, nonprovocative texts. Ravitch provides numerous examples of bias and sensitivity panel pronouncements. Words and subjects that cannot be used include, “owls” because they are a symbol of death in certain cultures, “Mt. Rushmore” because it is sacred to an Indian tribe, and “peanuts” because some children are allergic to them. African-Americans should not be depicted as musicians or athletes, and Asian-Americans must not be presented as a model minority. Books about slaves and migrant workers are to be avoided. The elderly must not be depicted as frail, and mothers should not be shown in the kitchen. Ravitch reports that the National Council for Teachers of English bans use of the word “guy.”

Brinkley sees in the sensitivity panels “an enormous level of condescension toward our children.” He explained that, “Our culture has changed enormously in the past 30 years and what was once appropriate no longer is.” It is “good to be more sensitive but that is a long way from the censorship and bureaucratization that have taken hold.” He sees the “institutionalization of right thinking” overseen by “people who are not teachers or scholars.” “What we teach and learn should not be driven by textbook publishers or an institutionalized bureaucracy. Using common sense, writers of educational material should be sensitive to things that are offensive to large groups of people.” He objects to a bureaucracy controlling what we teach and learn, not the attempt to be gender neutral and sensitive to race and cultures.

As an editor of dictionaries, McKean explained, “we are doing our damnedest to put words in, not take them out.” She spoke of “teachable moments” that certain words provide. “These words are opportunities to teach about bias. It is not good pedagogy to pretend these words do not exist.”

Ravitch does not call for elimination of bias and sensitivity panels but rather for their work, now behind closed doors, to be open to public view. She believes that teachers or school districts rather than state officials should choose books for the classroom, which would decrease the power of pressure groups and lessen uniformity. She has confidence that “language evolves in response to social change. Lots of words disappear naturally,” she promises.#

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