The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson
Free Speech and Parental Rights
While I am a free speech absolutist, I do believe that there are some exceptions to free speech absolutism. These exceptions are speech that directly incites violence or criminal activity, speech that poses direct harm to the listeners (i.e., shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater), and speech that is intended to intimidate those involved in a judicial proceeding to influence the outcome of the judicial proceeding.
I would never accept restrictions on free speech, but I am troubled when it comes to Free Speech when it conflicts with the Parental Right to raise their children in shaping their morals, ethics, and character. Parents should have the right to determine what speech is acceptable in the rearing of their children and which speech is unacceptable to them if they believe that the speech is deleterious to their child's upbringing. This Parental Right can, and often have been abused by parents. However, this Parental Right has also been abused by those that are not the parents of children. Too often, parents narrowly constrict what their children can read, hear, and view, and too often, others widen what children can read, hear, and view beyond what is acceptable to parents.
In our modern technological age, the constriction of what children can read, hear, and view is very difficult. The Internet and Cell Phone Communications, along with the ubiquity of radio, television, movies, music, etc., make it difficult for parents to control what their children can read, hear, and view. The plethora of advertising and the loosening of advertising standards allows children to read, hear, and view materials that their parents may find objectionable. It is a Sisyphean task for anyone, organization, or government to try to control this, and it would be a violation of free speech rights to attempt to control this.
Before proceeding, I wish to firmly delineate my free speech absolutism. I am a free speech absolutist for adults except for the exceptions as espoused in the first paragraph of this Chirp. However, free speech to children in violation of Parental Rights needs to be carefully examined to determine the balance between Free Speech and Parental Rights.
This balance is very difficult to accomplish, as parents and other persons have different opinions on what is best for children, which raises the question when attempting to constrict what children may read, hear, and view:
"The most basic question is not what
is best, but who shall decide what is best?"
- Thomas Sowell
School Boards and the public have also forgotten, or do not know, the admonition of one of the great defenders of free speech:
"To compel a man to furnish funds
for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful
and tyrannical."
- Thomas Jefferson
Given the above quotes, I am, therefore, a free speech absolutist except in one arena—K-12 Public Education. Keeping in mind the admonition of Thomas Jefferson, as K-12 Public Education is funded by taxpayers, thus their funding is compelled funding, and the School Board members should remember this admonition when reviewing the curriculum for education and pedagogy content, as I have Chirp on, "11/07/21 Education and Pedagogy".
K-12 Education is needful and a requirement for all the children of our society. K-12 Public Education is available for the children of parents that cannot afford or desirous of Private Education. K-12 Public Education is financially supported by all taxpayers, and it is directed by School Boards that are elected by the citizens in the K-12 Public Education local district. As such, K-12 Public Education should be responsive to the parents and taxpayers, not only for the expenditure of taxpayer monies but also for the curriculum of the students within their district. This curriculum not only needs to ensure the proper education of its students for them to become contributing members of society when they reach adulthood but also to ensure that they do not infringe upon Parental Rights. School Boards also need to keep this in mind when reviewing the conduct of administrators and teachers to determine if they are violating Parental Rights. K-12 Public Education Administrators and Teachers need to keep Parental Rights in mind when they develop and provide instruction to the students, as they do not have unrestricted Free Speech Rights in the classroom, in that they are public servants that must temper their free speech in their public service, as per my Article on “Free Speech and Public Service”. In addition, all curriculum materials, textbooks, instructional materials, and recommended reading of the school or teacher must be available to the public for their review and comments.
Given the sorrowfulness of our "Public Education" and the perversion of education into indoctrination, as I have written in my article "Indoctrination versus Education", School Boards are failing to meet their duties and responsibilities. School Boards seem to be more concerned with pleasing teachers and administrators, and kowtowing to the demands of Progressives/Leftists and Democrat Party Leaders, than doing what is best for their students and parents. As a result, they are allowing parental objectionable instructional and reading material into the curriculum. Parents that take exception to this objectionable instructional and reading material at School Board meetings are often silenced and removed from these meetings. In some cases, they have been prosecuted for their speech and histrionics, which is in itself a violation of the free speech rights of the parents who object.
I have no objection to the content of the curriculum in K-12 Private Education, as this is an agreement between the parents and the private institution that provide this education. However, K-12 Public Education should be concerned with Parental Rights, as there is no formal agreement on the curriculum between the parents and School Boards.
Given the current divisiveness on what is and is not acceptable in K-12 Public Education curriculum, this may be an intractable problem to resolve. This intractableness calls into question the current foundation of K-12 Public Education, and this, along with the other systemic problems of "Public Education", begs the question if the current Public School system needs to be dissolved and replaced with another foundation as I have Chirped on, "03/24/21 Is it Time to End Public Education?". It also raises the questions of Education Vouchers, Charter Schools, and Private Schools for students in which the parents can determine what school their children attend, which I have Chirped on “02/25/23 Education Vouchers for all K-12 Education”.
We have also seen Public Libraries stock books and materials that parents may object to their children reading or reviewing. In no case, however, should a Public Library be restricted in the books and materials that they purchase, as this is book banning and a clear violation of free speech and the freedom of the press. Librarians should only be concerned about allowing children to review and check out these objectionable books and materials without parental consent. How to determine what may be objectionable and how to monitor and restrict these books and materials to children is another Sisyphean task that may not be possible to implement.
The history and dilemmas of free speech have bedeviled humankind for millennia, and the dilemma of Parental Rights and Free Speech is not new, but it has become more prominent today as a result of universal K-12 Public Education. Before we leap to action to resolve the problems of K-12 Public Education and Public Libraries' intrusion into Parental Rights, we should become familiar with this history to avoid the problems of free speech restrictions. To this end, I would recommend the book, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media by Jacob Mchangama, which is an excellent and readable book on the history of free speech.