The Chronicle‘s Editorial LiveJournalists certainly have an entertaining view of what is required by the First Amendment.
In a Sunday editorial on a new academic textbook on the Bible, the Editorial LiveJournalists wrote:
Admirably, the book also states students’ First Amendment rights in the first pages. “You are going to study the Bible academically, not devotionally,” it reads. “You will not be pressed into accepting religion … you will not be engaged in the practice of religion.”
Even so, the textbook includes a few of the biases its authors tried so hard to fight. It doesn’t mention that the Bible’s influence has not always been positive. Slave owners, for example, cited scripture urging slaves to obey masters. And the textbook’s last paragraph contains this statement from a Chinese academic: “We were asked to look into what accounted for the … preeminence of the West all over the world. … [W]e have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.”
As the coda in an academic textbook, this passage undermines the entire project. It also raises a question. If a multimillion-dollar tome reviewed by First Amendment scholars still harbors such flaws, can ordinary teachers avoid similar bias?
It is bizarre to contend that the First Amendment requires an academic textbook about the Bible to purge any positive references to it and/or Christianity. As Orrin Judd asked, “do biology classes have to dwell on eugenics and Nazism?”
Today, the Editorial LiveJournalists revisit the topic of MediaSource:
New safeguards against obscene programming and the promise of more innovative management should satisfy council and allow swift approval of a new contract. Rather than play censor, elected city officials, access channel managers and trustees should strive to produce a free speech cable outlet that airs quality programming that will attract a substantial viewership.
If that happens, any future attempt by city officials to censor the channel’s programs would face the vociferous objections of a devoted audience.
The Editorial LiveJournalists have previously accused Councilmember Wiseman of trying to play censor. The notion that minimal oversight of the public access channel by the city’s elected officials is censorship or prior restraint stretches the First Amendment beyond common sense.
Just as a refresher, here is the text of the First Amendment:
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; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
It’s hard to find anything in the text to justify the bizarre notion that a textbook on the Bible must treat Christianity negatively, or that municipal officials cannot engage in oversight of a public access television channel.
