This Issues in Communication narrative is designed to provoke individual thought or discussion about concepts raised in the chapter.
Ifyou have not read Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you have certainly heard of it. According to the American Library Association, no book has been censored by more school systems than Huckleberry Finn. One of the main reasons for the censorship is the 215 times that Twain uses the word nigger in the novel.
Of course, Twain was writing about a time in America’s history when that word, now forbidden, was more commonly used, and when black and white people were separate and unequal. In case you haven’t read the book, you should know that the theme of the novel is positive: Young Huck learns that Jim, a runaway slave, is the only person he can trust. Jim is portrayed as a fine human being; Huck’s father is negatively portrayed. Nonetheless, the schools that have censored the book have done so because of the use of the forbidden word.
A lawsuit that emerged from this controversy isKathy Monteiro v. The Tempe Union High School District. Kathy Monteiro is an African-American mother of a 14-year-old girl (Huck Finn’s age in the book), a ninth-grader who, with her classmates, was assigned to read Twain’s book. Monteiro argued that her daughter suffered psychological damage because the book created a hostile environment. Apparently, after students read the book, racial hostility toward Monteiro’s daughter and other black children increased, as did the use of the racial slur. The school district was notified of the problem, but it did nothing. So Monteiro filed suit.
Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote the decision for the three-judge panel that heard the case. The decision came to two conclusions. The first was that “it is simply not the role of the courts to serve as literary censors or to make judgments as to whether reading particular books does students more harm than good.” Therefore, courts cannot “ban books or other literary works from school curricula on the basis of their content . . . even when the words are accused of being racist.” So the school district’s decision to keep the book in the classroom was upheld, but that decision is not the end of the story.
The second conclusion of the opinion ruled—for the first time in a federal court—that the parent, Kathy Monteiro, did have a case against the school system for the students’ racial harassment, which the school system failed to stop. The claim falls under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which states: “No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin . . . be subject to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” In other words, the three-judge panel did not find Twain’s book at fault, but it did find the school system at fault for ignoring the plight of black students subjected to harassment because of their race.
Judge Reinhardt wrote, “It goes without saying that being called a ‘nigger’ by your white peers (or hearing that term applied to your black classmates) exposes black children to a ‘risk of discrimination’ that is so substantial and obvious that a failure to act can only be the result of deliberate indifference.” Finally, the judge ruled, “We reject the notion that putting books on trial is the proper way to determine the appropriateness of their use in the classroom.”*
Apply what you have learned about language as you ponder and discuss the following questions: How can people with entirely different experiences create different meanings for the same word? Can you think of an instance in which your experiences have created a meaning that was different from the intended meaning? Who should be the judge of whether or not words inflict psychological damage? Do you agree with the judge’s decision? Why or why not?
