Talk:Censorship of school curricula in the United States/Archive 1

Archive 1

title

Not sure what the title should be. Restrictions on instruction about racism and sexism in the United States? —valereee (talk) 17:00, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, the current title "Censoring of school curricula in the United States" doesn't match what I was expecting to read about in this article. I thought it would go back into censoring evolution and other controversies like that. This article is more narrow than that. I second changing the name and your suggestion is good. 50.102.144.195 (talk) 21:15, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 31 January 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 14:46, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

---

Censorship of school curricula in the United States → Restrictions on instruction about racism and sexism in the United States – Per Valereee and the IP above, the scope of this article is narrower than its title would suggest. It's about a specific movement that began in 2021 and focuses on censoring specific topics, not the overall concept of U.S. school curricula censorship, which could encompass plenty of other controversies over time (see WP:Recentism). I'm using the suggested title above to start this RM, but not sure it's absolutely the best—feel free to suggest alternatives, and please check for such alternatives when !voting. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC) — Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:48, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

• I don't know that either of those titles accurately describe what's going on in this article. Surely, censorship was not invented last April. I think that, if this article is going to be kept the way it is, it should be named something like "2021 restrictions on instruction about critical race theory in the United States". But this is an insanely narrow topic for a page to have. Wouldn't it make more sense to just expand the article to talk about different types of censorship over time? Many books and curricula have been banned, phased out, et cetera over the course of the last couple hundred years. jp×g 08:22, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. I've started expanding the article, and for now I think leaving the title as-is would be best. I agree with JPxG that the 2021 movement by republicans against CRT is a quite narrow scope, and I think it would be better to have this article's scope be about all censorship of school curricula in the U.S. ––FormalDude talk 15:12, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
• Weak oppose per FormalDude - this article can be expanded to cover further censorship and bans. (Might even be worth looking at other country articles, or even expand this to cover a global perspective depending on the material.) MSG17 (talk) 16:10, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
• Undecided and willing to discuss. Even without discussing other school/instruction censorship, I do think this topic is notable. But I have no objection to broadening the topic, either. My biggest concern is that this article is long enough that expanding it to include a broader topic may mean this topic starts to look like it's undue coverage if it ends up being half the page. I wouldn't want this topic cut because it was too focused on this topic to be fully included in the now-broader-focus article, if you see what I mean. valereee (talk) 16:36, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  I certainly see that concern, but, in my opinion, this topic of the new wave of censorship by Republicans starting in 2021 is definetely due weight for an article under the scope of U.S. school curricula censorship. As a NYT article puts it, "Challenges about sexual and racial identity are nothing new in American schools, but the tactics and politicization are." I think the historical context is directly relevant and including it in this article would benefit our readers. ––FormalDude talk 18:43, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  I'm open minded. Tho if someone comes in here next year and complains that the article is 90% about this topic and we should cut that part down, I fully intend to point the finger at you. :D valereee (talk) 19:43, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  A couple decades ago, I recall that people tended to use a very clear and broad definition of "censorship" (bleeping, the AACS encryption key controversy, the whole Lenny Bruce ordeal, et cetera). Nowadays, there seem to be constant arguments over whether something constitutes censorship: some people say that it occurs whenever something is censored, but others say that it only means when the government does it, while still others say that it only means when someone other than the government does it, and still others say (and so on). That is to say, it seems like a term on which the professional media consensus is not currently stable. Of course, this is doubly the case for things like "racism" and "sexism", so who knows? jp×g 22:31, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  In these cases it's government, I believe, so it's unequivocally censorship. School boards are elected officials, state boards of education are governmental bodies. This isn't your boss telling you not to say certain things, it's not facebook saying you can't say certain things, neither of which is actual censorship. It's the government. That makes this censorship. valereee (talk) 23:33, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  Specifically in the context of compulsory education, it seems kind of unclear to me what's censorship and what isn't (since students are legally forced to attend school regardless of whether they agree with what's being taught). For example, the dispute over creation and evolution in public education consists of a bunch of schools requiring students to learn about creationism, and a bunch of different schools requiring them to learn about evolution. Are the evolution advocates censoring creationism, or are the creationism advocates censoring evolution? It seems like both of these things are arguably happening, since both groups are attempting to prevent the government from teaching students the opposing group's beliefs, so I don't know who it benefits to call it "censorship". Of course, I try not to follow the news a whole lot, which is why my example is from the mid-2000s. So maybe there is some kind of important distinction with the current issue I'm missing, but it seems like something that would cause a lot of drama without a lot of benefit. I personally don't care a whole lot either way (I don't plan on a lot of involvement in arguments over this article), but people are probably going to bring this up and get mad over it. jp×g 00:07, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

  What even is an "evolution advocate"? To me that just means "someone who accepts what current science believes to be the most likely explanation for the known evidence". Whereas a creation advocate...I was in attendance when Bill Nye debated Ken Ham at the Creation Museum about creation vs. evolution. At the end of the debate, when the floor was opened to questions, a questioner asked "For both of you gentlemen, what would change your mind?" Nye: "Evidence." Ham: "Nothing." Pretty much says it all. valereee (talk) 16:44, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose but the current title should be changed. However, the name that was suggested is too long and specific. Maybe something like 2021 movement for school censorship in the United States. Mannysoloway (talk) 04:49, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - Leave this where it is and expand it. This is a big, important subject that merits its own article. I've been working on 2020-22 book banning in the United States. I came across this article as I was getting ready to move that one to mainspace, and I think it's only natural to have them both -- this one just needs a bit of expansion and scoping, which I'm happy to help with (I was going to use some of the sources I've been digging into to edit here, but saw this discussion going on so figured I'd hold off). The recent trend of book banning is one which has received a ton of coverage, though it extends beyond curriculum, just as curriculum includes a lot more than book banning, and we need a place for the challenges affecting curricula and education beyond the books. Limiting it to cover just the "critical race theory" panic might be easy, but I think the ideal would be not to put a time constraint on it. For one, we could have an entire article on the appropriated version of "critical race theory", but also before critical race theory there was fear over "gender confusion", evolution, charges of blasphemy, Harry Potter books promoting the occult, etc. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:56, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Needs better organizing

This article needs some serious organizing, but it is hard to know exactly how to organize it coherently. Any suggestions? I considered sections on each state, but this seems cumbersome an excessive. Part of the problem is the chaotic nature of the censorship and the type of censorship being enacted or proposed. Some states lump in tons of topics, whereas others are single-issue bills. We could also organize by year, but this seems more like a list or timeline, and not about the broader concept of censorship.

Any ideas would be great! Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 20:42, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Some proposed ideas. Organize by:

• censored topic (e.g. evolution, LGBT, etc.)
• year (list-like format about censorship over time)
• state (discuss censorship issues within each state and and the larger government)
• form of censorship (local level vs state; direct or indirect; etc.)

Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 21:02, 28 November 2023 (UTC)