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Vol. 44 No. 3 — April 2024

EDTECH
Intellectual Freedom Rights for Students in Our Schools
by Dianne Oberg

The concept of intellectual freedom includes a wide range of interlocking rights, such as freedom to read, freedom of expression, freedom to speak, freedom of the press, and freedom to know. These are the rights of everyone in the school community, including students. Teacher-librarians, by virtue of their dual professional qualifications in teaching and librarianship and their dual codes of ethics, often serve as standard-bearers for these rights within the school community. But all educators need to be familiar with the laws and conventions that define intellectual freedom rights, often referred to as freedom of expression rights.

For example, in Canada, intellectual freedom rights are guaranteed to everyone by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Part I, Section 2 of the 1982 Constitution Act. The K–12 education system in Canada is governed by provincial and territorial legislatures, and all laws, policies, and practices that affect education must be consistent with the charter. Schools must protect the charter rights and freedoms of their students and staffers or risk being subject to legal challenges. In Canada, only the courts may abridge intellectual freedom rights.

At the international level, freedom of expression rights are defined in two United Nations (UN) documents: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) of 1989. Canada has ratified both documents; the U.S. remains the one UN member that has not yet ratified the CRC, citing concerns about undermining U.S. sovereignty and interference with the rights of parents to educate or discipline their children.

Article 19 of the UDHR states the following: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Article 13 of the CRC states the following: “1. The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice.”

Intellectual Freedom: Not a Universal Value

Unfortunately, intellectual freedom is not always recognized as a universal value, despite many international, national, and local assertions of its importance. The fundamental rights of children are rarely addressed in discussions of intellectual freedom. Recognizing children’s rights means including the interests of children and young adults (from birth to age 18) in the discussions and deliberations related to intellectual freedom.

Sturges points out that responses to intellectual freedom rights vary across the spectrum, as do other human beliefs (2018). He says that about 20% of people are committed to intellectual freedom rights, and 80% fall somewhere on the spectrum from opposed to uninterested (see Table 1). This suggests why the promotion of intellectual freedom as a positive value can be a difficult enterprise.

Intellectual Freedom: Essential to Human Development

The findings of neuroscience related to childhood learning have implications for intellectual freedom. The flow of sensations into the child’s brain, beginning from birth, not only informs, but develops and supports the brain’s ability to think. “The neural equipment of the infant human has the basic capacity to cope with the information that reaches it, but more than that, the brain requires it. … The baby exercises a kind of basic intellectual freedom which we can support and nurture by … offering a banquet of sensations and communications from which it can choose,” Sturges writes (2018).

Early exposure to information and ideas offers advantages for the development of the brain’s capacity to meditate, speculate, and formulate concepts and new ideas. The human brain is very plastic, especially in the early years of its development. Deprivation of information and ideas can have long-lasting effects—take, for example, children whose are raised in isolation from the world or adults who have been subjected to brainwashing (Sturges 2006).

Intellectual Freedom for Students: A Duality

Questions of intellectual freedom rights for children and young adults inevitably bring to the surface the duality (and often the conflict) of care and protection versus rights and freedoms. Historically, children (those not yet at the legal age of maturity) have been considered as property of their parents and/or caretakers and not as persons in possession of their own rights-bearing freedoms. Debates continue about the intellectual freedom rights of children, especially related to whether they have the same rights as adults and to the place of the child in the family (Langlaude 2010).

This duality is evident in modern-day laws in Canada and in international agreements such as the CRC. Schools and school libraries are often the context within which the duality is played out “between care and protection (as defined and enforced by adults) and freedom for children” (Mackay and Burt-Gerrans 2005). Canadian law puts the onus on legislators and policymakers (including school officials) to justify any limitation put on students’ rights and freedoms. Issues based on this duality (including book challenges) offer an opportunity for the entire community to learn about democratic rights in Canadian society.

Intellectual Freedom Rights for Students: Benefits

In discussing book banning in schools, Peavoy proposes five benefits that are gained from recognizing students’ freedom of expression rights in law and in educational decision-making practices (2004):

Intellectual freedom rights further the purpose of education. A major goal of education in a free, democratic, and pluralistic society is providing the foundations of effective citizenship. This requires that students explore a range of ideas and points of view.

Intellectual freedom rights prevent indoctrination. Education is compulsory, and to some degree, students are a captive audience. Hearing dissenting voices and learning that not all people agree are important parts of developing the strategies needed for independent thinking.

Intellectual freedom rights can be used as a decision-making tool for reconciling individual and community rights. Educational authorities who decide school policy and practices must consider whether the policy decision promotes or unduly limits the Charter rights of students (see also Mackay and Gerrans 2005).

Intellectual freedom is important to the individual. Article 29 of the CRC states that education should develop “the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential” (see also Sturges 2006 and 2018).

Intellectual freedom rights enhance the participatory role of children. Recognition of their rights puts students’ interests at the center of educational decision-making processes, including when school authorities select materials for the classroom and the school library.

Dealing With Censorship Challenges in School Libraries

Each of the benefits identified by Peavoy provides a rationale for maximizing students’ freedom of expression rights. This means including the interests of the students who would be affected by the removal of challenged materials. Intellectual freedom rights apply to the communicator, and they also apply to the receiver. If one person is prevented from expressing his or her opinion, the rights of those who could have heard, read, or seen the opinion are also affected.

For older students, their views about matters that affect them should be elicited and seriously considered. For younger students, a “best interests of the child” approach, similar to that invoked in Canadian courts, would ensure that their needs are considered. This approach recognizes children’s freedom of expression rights based on the understanding that children develop through freedom of expression. It also acknowledges how that right applies to all children but in different ways, depending on their stage of development. Finally, it points out the positive duties of the state to protect children’s rights through providing them with information, creating structures and proceedings that enable them to speak and be listened to, and protecting them from harmful materials (Langlaude 2010). These are also the positive duties of the school system and of school libraries and teacher-librarians in particular.

The challenge of materials should be viewed as an important and valuable part of the democratic and educational process, but to my knowledge, no school or district guidelines for reconsideration of materials in Canada include a requirement for ensuring that students’ freedom of expression rights be considered. However, the good news is that, in Canada, when school or district guidelines for reconsideration of controversial materials are followed, most challenged materials are retained, and when censorship cases are considered by the courts, the outcome is most often retention of materials.

Author’s Notes

1. This article is an abridged version of an article developed for the 2023 Conference of the International Association of School Librarianship
(journals.library.ualberta.ca/slw/index.php/iasl/article/view/8765/5222). An earlier version of this article was written for the Book and Periodical Council’s 2022 Freedom to Read Week (freedom toread.ca). Canada’s Freedom to Read Week was started 40 years ago by the Freedom of Expression Committee, which was founded in response to challenges to Margaret Laurence’s novel The Diviners being taught in Ontario schools.

2. I acknowledge with thanks the contributions of my colleagues in Canada and of researchers around the world for their ideas related to the universality of intellectual freedom rights, the role of intellectual freedom in human development, and the benefits of recognizing the intellectual freedom rights of children in a democratic society.

Resources

American Library Association, (2022). Censorship by the Numbers [Infographic]. ala.org/advocacy/sites/ala.org.advocacy/files/content/banned/bannedbooksweek/BBW22-bythenumbers-fullpage.pdf.

Beaudry, Richard. (2022, May 4). “When a Book by an Eminent Indigenous Author Is Pulled From a School Library, Something Is Wrong.” Centre for Free Expression. cfe.ryerson.ca/blog/2022/05/when-book-eminent-indigenous-author-pulled-school-library-something-wrong.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. (1982). justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/resources-ressources.html#copy.

Foote, Carolyn. (2022). “10 Tips for Responding to Book Challenges in Schools.” Computers in Libraries, 42(7), 32–36.

IFLA. (2015). IFLA School Libraries Resource Centers (2nd rev. ed.). Edited by Barbara Schultz-Jones and Dianne Oberg. ifla.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/assets/school-libraries-resource-centers/publications/ifla-school-library-guidelines.pdf.

Langlaude, Sylvie. (2010). “On How to Build a Positive Understanding of the Child’s Right to Freedom of Expression.” Human Rights Law Review, 10(1), 33–66. doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngp039.

MacKay, A.W. and Burt-Gerrans, J. (2005). “Student Freedom of Expression: Violent Content and the Safe School Balance.” McGill Journal of Education, 40(3), 423–443.

Oberg, Dianne. (2022). “Freedom of Expression Rights and the School Library: Who Speaks for the Kids in Your School When the Censor Comes Calling?” freedomtoread.ca/articles/freedom-of-expression-rights-and-the-school-library.

Peavoy, D. (2004). “Banning Books, Burning Bridges: Recognizing Student Freedom of Expression Rights in Canadian Classrooms.” Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies, 13(1), 125–155. digitalcommons.schulichlaw
.dal.ca/djls/vol13/iss1/5.

Sturges, Paul. (2006). “Why Intellectual Freedom Matters.” Information, Innovation, Responsibility: Information Professional in the Network Society. Proceedings of the 14th BOBCATSSS Symposium, 30 Jan. to 1 Feb., 2006 (431–439). Tallin, Estonia.

Sturges, Paul. (2018). “‘Rich and Varied Ethical Standards’: Thoughts on Intellectual Freedom in a World of Many Cultures.” Journal of Information Ethics, 27(1), 17–30.

Convention on the Rights of the Child. (1989). www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (1948). un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.