Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press....
-U. S. Constitution, The First Amendment
Although any book may offend some reader's sensibilities, the first target of
censors from Plato onward has been those works that raise questions about
the meaning of life and human values - the humanities. Despite eloquent arguments
and Constitutional guarantees of intellectual freedom, public access to books and ideas
in the humanities continues to be challenged.
|