John Donvan:

Hi everybody, and welcome to Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan. And this time the question we’re debating addresses an argument that is playing out all across the United States, and with a good deal of acrimony and often noise in school board meetings. And that’s a setting where, let’s be honest, most of the time the proceedings are pretty, well, subdued, almost sleepy, but not so much lately.

Speaker 2:

Next speaker.

Roxanne McDonald:

I’m asking that everyone be calm and respectful, and I want to remind everyone that you need to address the board, don’t address the audience. Address the board.

John Donvan:

That’s Roxanne McDonald, she is chair of the Dearborn, Michigan, board of education. Trying, last fall, to bring order to a meeting where the crowd did a lot of shouting. Most of them were there angry about books in the school library that they wanted removed, they were passionate about it. But there were also people at that meeting who were pushing back against that idea, and they were also passionate.

And it’s not just Dearborn. Since 2021, the struggle over books in the classroom and school libraries, certain books, has spread across the land with a new energy and urgency. The content that is proving most sensitive are books with explicit depictions of sex, and also books that while not explicit in their depiction of sex, are taking on themes around LGBTQ experience. Another sensitive area under US history, how to interpret the impact of 400 years of black slavery in teaching school children who we are as a nation.

When it comes down to banning books it all comes down to principals and to content. So we are debating this question, should certain books be banned in schools? Let’s meet our debaters, and arguing that the answer to that question is yes, activist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Chris Rufo. Welcome, Chris, to Open to Debate.

Chris Rufo:

It’s good to be with you.

John Donvan:

And arguing that the answer to the question, should certain books be banned in schools, is a no, political scientist, author, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a very, very frequent visitor to our program, Yascha Mounk. Welcome back, Yascha.

Yascha Mounk:

Thank you. Great to see you, John.

John Donvan:

So, we wanna get to your opening statements in just about a minute. But first, uh, a slightly more personal question for each of you, about, about why you’re here, to understand your connection to this question. And Chris, can you go first? Why do you wanna take on this topic with us? What are your stakes in this?

Chris Rufo:

Sure. Well, I, I mean, it’s, it’s both, uh, personal and also political. I have, uh, kids in school, so I care about, uh, what their education will be. Uh, and I also care about the country. And so, as we are playing out these sometimes fraught debates, um, I, I think it’s important that conservative families, conservative parents and, and conservative states, uh, have a voice in the debate.

John Donvan:

Thank you, Chris. Yascha, same question to you. You, you’re, again, you consider your in no position important enough to be here debating it. What are your stakes in this?

Yascha Mounk:

Well, first I’m an educator, I’m in the classroom at the college level all of the time and so I care about, uh, my freedom to teach, uh, what I can. And [inaudible

] I care about free speech and the First Amendment. I care about protecting Americans from government intrusion.

John Donvan:

All right. Thank you, Yascha. It’s good to have that perspective from both of you, but I wanna now get onto our opening statements. We wanna give each of you a couple of minutes to make your case. And, Chris, you’re up first. Again, your answer to the question, should certain books be banned in school, is yes. Tell us why.

Chris Rufo:

Yeah. And I, I’d like to clarify even right off the bat that [inaudible

], should certain books ever be banned? And so, I, I don’t have to convince you or anyone listening that certain books should be banned or many books should be banned, just that at least it’s sometimes appropriate for s- for schools to restrict content within the K through 12 environment. Then, in a lot of ways, I’m in a difficult position. We’re in a society, uh, a- and a culture that would like to abolish all limits, uh, and I’m arguing for a prudent, uh, uh, reestablishment of those limits. But I’d like to make, really, four key arguments, uh, on this question.

The first is a legal argument. Uh, the Supreme Court has held that schools have an absolute right to regulate books in the curriculum, and a partial right to regulate books in school libraries, and to, uh, restrict books that are quote, “Pervasively vulgar or educationally unsuitable.” Again, this is not an unlimited right but it is a partial right where in some cases it’s prudent, uh, to restrict certain content.

The second is a political argument. Uh, as we’ve seen in that clip, the voters of Dearborn that elect their local school district should have a say in what kind of ideas and concepts and ideologies are transmitted to their kids. Both as voters and as parents, uh, they should be the ultimate arbiters of what values the schools teach to their kids. Um, and the parent revolt across the country shows that, um, this is a political question. The nature of it is inherently democratic. And I believe, uh, in opposition to my opponents on this debate, uh, in the democratic principal that the people should decide.

The third is a practical argument. Schools has limited time in the curriculum, and schools have limited space on library shelves. This requires selection. Certain books will be picked, other books will not be picked. And so the question isn’t simply should certain books be banned, although that is part of it, uh, it’s really, uh, uh, baked into the very nature of limitation itself. And I would argue that there are five categories that, uh, uh, uh, or criteria, that we should think about. Age inappropriate books, pseudoscientific books, uh, books that advance race hatred, books, uh, that are better understood as political propaganda, and then of course, pornography.

Um, as we’re looking at the literature, should we have, uh, you know, Odyss- you know, Homer’s The Odyssey or a book on, uh, uh, pornography and sex apps, I would say that the only prudent choice is to choose the great literature.

And finally the moral argument. We’ve known since Aristotle that there is a noble education and a vulgar or base education. And it is our duty as parents, as voters, and at citizens to shape the values in our institutions towards those highest principles. Uh, and, again, this is a liberal principle from Latin root of the word liber, meaning free, we want educate- education that liberates students, not just, uh, from external constraints but also, uh, from the passions and other, uh, uh, uh, and other internal or psychological things that would tear them down.

So, um, uh, the stakes of this debate, uh, a- a- again, are not if certain books should be banned but if it is ever appropriate, and my argument is in the affirmative. Uh, we would all like an unlimited and open, free society with no restrictions, but when we’re talking about kids, when we’re talking about the democratic governance of schools, uh, i- it’s only prudent to take some of the most toxic, uh, uh, a- and partisan and false, uh, uh, content, and, uh, and restrict it from classrooms.

John Donvan:

Thank you, Chris Rufo. And that, uh, brings us now to you, Yascha Mounk. Yascha, your answer to the question, should certain books be banned in school is a no. Please tell us why.

Yascha Mounk:

It is no. Look, I have some of obvious points of agreements with, uh, Chris Rufo. Um, you know, obviously there needs to be a process to decide what gets taught in classrooms and, uh, what kind of books a library stocks. Nobody thinks that you should be able to consume porn in your middle school library. Uh, so the question is not whether it responsibility of teachers and librarians and schools to form minds and to educate children, to think about what kind of content they need in order to have, uh, rich lives and, uh, be, uh, productive members of society. That is obvious.

The real question is whether books should be banned and who is doing the banning? Um, what, uh, uh, uh, Chris Rufo has supported across, uh, state legislation, what he’s proposing for federal legislation, is an end round around the current system in which rather than, uh, teachers decided what to teach, librarians, who the great majority of public school parents trust, uh, making decisions about what to purchase, uh, you know, principals and super sc- um, and school superintendents and local school boards, uh, stepping in when there’s gross errors of judgment by these people. He would have far-away legislators in your state capital, congressmen in Washington, DC pass very vaguely-worded legislation about what kind of content schools should never touch.

Very wor- vaguely-worded registr- r- r- restrictions on anything a- about, uh, sexuality, about, uh, identity politics, uh, about quote-unquote “critical race theory.” And this is already leading to the kind of chilling effects, to the kind of abuses that broadly-worded restrictions on speech always entail. Many teachers are afraid to do simple things like mention a weekend trip with a same-sex partner. When we look at the kind of books that have been challenged, that have banned in America recently, it’s not frivolous books, it is not, uh, books of pornography. Uh, i- i- it is, uh, popular (laughing) works of fiction, and often very good works of fiction. In the 2000s the most challenged book was Harry Potter. Uh, in the last years, one of the most challenged books has been The Handmaiden’s, uh, Tale by the renowned Canadian author, Margaret Atwood.

And, you know, this banning that i- is happening, it’s not whether books are banned, it is who is doing the banning, is part of a wider program because, uh, Republican politicians like Ron DeSantis in Florida… Uh, and by the way, some Democrats like Gavin Newsom in, in California as well, are trying to weaponize the state in order to interfere with how Americans lead their life. According to HB 999, a bill that’s now pending in the Florida legislature, whole majors would be abolished in public universities in the state. Uh, professors would not be allowed to teach anything that constitutes identity politics. Political appointees could fire faculty members at will, for example, when they engage in political speech or activities that they dislike.

Uh, Ron DeSantis has been using legislation to punish corporations for, uh, opposing legislation [inaudible

], for engaging in political speech. And Chris Rufo is the intellectual godfather of these efforts, has been, uh, proposing and cheerleading them, uh, all the way. Um, I came to American in good part because I love the United States Constitution. I care deeply about the Bill of Rights. I believe in freedom of speech. I’ve been dismayed in the last years about the fact that some of my friends and colleagues on the left have started to dis free speech, have started to think of it as conservative value. But we’re seeing with these attacks, starting with books in schools but going well beyond that, by conservatives like Chris Rufo, is a betrayal of just those values. Banning books in schools by faraway legislatures is attack on the First Amendment. It is a betrayal of the American culture of free speech. It is deeply un-American, and that’s why I oppose such efforts.

John Donvan:

Thank you Yascha Mounk. Okay, sounds like we have a lot to get there. Um, we are gonna be moving into our next round in just a moment. The question is, should certain books be banned in schools? We’ll be back right after this.

Welcome back to Open to Debate. We are asking this question. Should certain books be banned in schools?

Speaker 6:

I find that these books have no value whatsoever to the benefit of the education of our children in Marion County public schools. And as far as a summation of this book, this is a work of pornographic pornography romanticized as normal life.

John Donvan:

That’s a member of the public speaking in Marion County, Florida in opposition to a book called Red Hood, the sort of public engagement that we are seeing a lot of and that has prompted, uh, the debate that we’re having right now. We have heard opening statements from Chris Rufo and Yascha Mounk. Let’s move into some discussion.

Chris Rufo:

I- I- I’m sure it was well-intentioned, but I would like to correct the record ’cause some of the things that Yascha said are just flat-out factually untrue. He said that I’ve advocated for federal legislation regulating what’s happening in the local curricula in public schools. Uh, this is of course totally false. Um, he talked about, uh, uh, university regulation in Florida which is, again, uh, uh, totally unrelated to the topic at hand of should, should schoolbooks be banned in the K-through-12 environment. He also claimed that Harry Potter and Handmaid’s Tale are the kind of books that are being challenged in schools.

I personally, uh, would not advocate for those books being excluded from schools. I think they’re totally appropriate at the correct age levels. Um, but in fact the books that are most challenged in recent years are, are, are books like, uh, Gender Queer, uh, are books, uh, uh, like This Book is Gay that talk about, uh, uh, s- you know, sexual devices, they talk about how to use, uh, sex apps to hook up with people. Uh, the depict, uh, graphic, uh, uh, sexual activities between adults and minors in some cases. And so, you know, h- he’s got his head in the sand here, uh, that the nature of the p- parents’ objection, uh, is to this, uh, material that is wildly inappropriate for s- for students.

And on a substantive level, um, uh, he, he likes to kind of hide behind the First Amendment saying that he loves the First Amendment, but, uh, he should look at the jurisprudence. Uh, Island Trees School District versus Pico, a 1982 case that is really, uh, the, the, the, the es- established standard here, says, uh, that p- schools have an absolute right to regulate what’s happening in the, in the classroom. And finally th- the last point is that he says that state governments should have no role in dictating what happens in public school classrooms. This is of course absolutely preposterous. The state government is the, uh, uh, is the authority over classrooms. State governments in all 50 states currently set the curriculum for what happens in all public schools.

And so w- what he’s maybe thinking is that we need a totally different education system from the ground up. [inaudible

] can make that argument. But this is already the status quo. The state decides the curriculum. The state decides standards. The state derides wo- wo- decides required textbooks. And so this is simply a case of the state doing what it always does, making decisions, this book or that book, this idea, that idea. Um, this is a normal part of business. And ultimately what I think Yascha and, and his, a- and his allies would like is outside, uh, uh, uh, uh, pressure groups and then unelected bureaucrats to decide what they wanna do with other people’s kids instead of parents and voters through their legislature.

And so, again, I’m on the side of the First Amendment. I’m on a side of democratic principles. I’m the side of allowing the 14 thousand local school districts to decide at that school-board level what they wanna teach. And Yascha’s on the side of, of unelected, uh, bureaucrats and activist organizations that want to shove ideology, and in some cases shove pornographic materials unto other people’s young children. Uh, and I think that’s why you see such a furious reaction from parents.

John Donvan:

Yascha.

Yascha Mounk:

Uh, w- well, I’m afraid to say that the facts that Chris has on this are, are simply wrong. I’m looking at the moment at a list of the 10 most banned books in the first half of the 2022-2023 school year, uh, compiled by PEN. And among the 10 most banned books is precisely The Handmaid’s Tale, the graphic novel version. There’s a book that is among the 10 most-

Chris Rufo:

But, but-

Yascha Mounk:

… banned-

Chris Rufo:

… what is-

Yascha Mounk:

… this is called-

Chris Rufo:

… the number one book?

Yascha Mounk:

… that is called Sold, which is about a-

Chris Rufo:

I’m looking at [inaudible

]-

Yascha Mounk:

… a girl, Lakshmi, who is, who is, who is sold into sexual slavery, so it obviously has some mature content in it, but not for prurient purposes, not for purposes of pornography but for purposes of telling this harrowing story. And, by the way, telling us some of the terrible things that are happening in the world that might put into context for students in America, uh, some of, uh, uh, own chances that we have and, and [inaudible

] not as pervasive as, uh, terrible as they are in other places, they are something that could actually make students more patriotic as well. So the point is not whether, um, you know, sometimes books that are banned are books that I as a teacher would not decide to assign or I as a librarian would not decide to buy.

The point is that when you have a system that encourages, um, activists and, uh, often extremists to come into the process and to try and ban books, a lot of the time this will have a severe chilling effect on the very worthwhile forms of classroom instruction and very worthwhile literature. And these two books I think are an important example of that.

Um, lemme make another important point because-

John Donvan:

Mm-hmm.

Yascha Mounk:

… you know, Chris is saying that this is just about local people deciding what, uh, kind of things are being taught in their schools and making those democratic decisions. I don’t think that that is true. I’m looking at a post that he himself has published, um, less than two months ago on his Substack called Planning for the Next White House, um, uh, uh, touting the anti-woke policy, uh, s- touting a summit that he has hosted developing an anti-woke policy agenda for the next conservative administration, which includes executive orders, uh, uh, interfering with how universities and corporations should govern themselves which has a point called University Reform, uh, Policy, um, which wants to use [inaudible

] the executive-

Chris Rufo:

That’s not a, that not a-

Yascha Mounk:

… authority of the federal government-

Chris Rufo:

… [inaudible

], that’s a, that’s irrelevant.

Yascha Mounk:

… in order to interfere with those, uh, public colleges and universities, which explicitly is talking about, uh, uh, using executive power to quote-unquote “defund the left.” These are inextricably related. The question we’re asking here is not whether every book that has ever been published should be taught to 12-year-olds. Of course the answer to that is no. That is a silly debate. The question is whether Chris’s broader policy agenda of trying to use and weaponize state and federal power to reshape the cultural landscape in the United States is healthy, is appropriate, is conformable with a culture of free speech. And the answer to that is very clearly no.

John Donvan:

I think it’s gonna be helpful for people who are unfamiliar with some of the content of the books that are in dispute had some picture of that. So, Chris, you mentioned Gender Queer, and Gender Queer is a book by Maia Kobabe, who s- identifies as non-binary a- about their experience through a period of coming out as a teenager. It’s a graphic memoir, by which I mean it’s g- it’s like a comic book. It’s, it’s got drawings and it’s got word balloons. It’s very personal. It shares a lot. But some of the illustrations that have been brought up at school board meetings include a teenager full-frontal, the thighs of a person that are smeared with blood from menstruation, and a person depicted in a fantasy sequence or memory sequence performing oral sex on a sex toy that is worn by another person at the waist.

And my question to you, Yascha, is if you’re eight years old and if you’re 14 years old and if you’re 18 years old would this be material that you would consider appropriate for s- for, for students? Or would you see the case for saying this stuff should not be in the classroom or in the school library?

Yascha Mounk:

So, look, I haven’t read this particular book, so I can’t express my opinion on this particular book. Some of what you describe certainly doesn’t seem appropriate for young children. When you talk about older teenagers I think they, you know, are close to adulthood and a, a much broader range of material may be appropriate for them. Um, uh, I don’t want to get into the specifics of debating a book I haven’t read. Here’s, here’s, here’s, here’s I think the-

Chris Rufo:

But you should-

Yascha Mounk:

No, no. Here’s-

Chris Rufo:

… this, this, according to the PEN list, is the number one most banned book of 2022. It’s Gender Queer. So even citing the own resources that you brought to the table, this is number one. Answer the question.

Yascha Mounk:

But, but, but-

Chris Rufo:

Would you-

Yascha Mounk:

… Chris, I-

Chris Rufo:

… if you [inaudible

]

Yascha Mounk:

… I have agreed from, from-

Chris Rufo:

… this book is appropriate in, in K-through-12 schools or not?

Yascha Mounk:

I, I’m not going to say this about a book I haven’t read, but it sounds from some of what John said that certainly would not be appropriate for younger children and probably not be appropriate for middle-school children. Maybe appropriate for older 16 and 17-year-old high school students. I agree with Chris that some material is not appropriate for younger children. I agree, obviously. But it is the responsibility of teachers and of librarians and of schools to make educationally and age-appropriate decisions about what kind of content they teach and what is in the local library. What we profoundly disagree about is, uh, how that model of governance, uh, should look like.

And here I am actually taking in some ways a small-C conservative opinion. I think that we have an organically-grown system in which local people make those decisions. Over 90% of parents of children in public schools trusts their librarians to make those kinds of decisions. When librarians make inappropriate decisions, when teachers teach something that is inappropriate you have, uh, principals of schools, you have superintendents of local school systems that can step in. The question is whether we should be encouraging outsiders to step into this process, encouraging a culture of censorship where people get into moral panics about Harry Potter, into moral panics about Handmaiden’s Tale, about moral pa- panics about all kinds of books.

And the question is whether we should have legislation as we have had in Florida that makes very broad restrictions on the kind of content relating for example to gender and sexuality that teachers are allowed.

John Donvan:

I want to ask th- you this question about Gender Queer, Chris, because I’ve cited the pages that have been held up at the meetings, that have cau- that have, have, uh, in the view parents who are upset about the book, mostly been used to justify the book. The rest of the book is not like that. The rest of the book is a very personal, sensitive tale of Maia Kobabe’s coming out. They, they’ve, they show a lot personally, um, and my question would be, if those illustrations were not in the book but the book told the rest of the story about a non-binary person telling their story, would that be a book that deserved banning or not? In other words, is it just about those images and those scenes? If they were cut or were never there in the first place does this book have a place?

Chris Rufo:

Well, n- n- no, ’cause I, I think it’s, I think it’s much more than that. Uh, Gender Queer, of course, encourages young girls to, and teaching them how to bind their breasts with binders.

John Donvan:

It’s not a teaching book, it’s a sharing book.

Chris Rufo:

Uh, it has a character dreaming and kinda glamorizing getting a top surgery, or a double mastectomy. And then I’ll read a quote from this book. I mean, it say, quote, “I got a new strap-on harness today. I can’t wait to put it in you. It will fit my da- favorite dildo perfectly. I can’t wait to have your cock in my mouth. I’m gonna have… I’m gonna give you the blowjob of your life, then I want you inside me.” And so, Y- Yascha, y- you shouldn’t have to have read the book to know, and I’ll and ask you very pointblank, uh, would you feel comfortable, for example, reading that your own children, or I’m not sure if you have children, but, uh, to call the neighbors in your neighborhood around and reading that to a group of kids?

Yascha Mounk:

Um, I have not read the book. I’m not gonna get into specifics about it. The way that-

Chris Rufo:

S-

Yascha Mounk:

… uh [inaudible

]-

Chris Rufo:

That quote is not enough-

Yascha Mounk:

… sounds-

Chris Rufo:

… for you-

Yascha Mounk:

… sounds-

Chris Rufo:

to make-

Yascha Mounk:

…. sounds-

Chris Rufo:

a decision? You think that you-

Yascha Mounk:

… sounds, sounds-

John Donvan:

Wait a, wait, wait-

Yascha Mounk:

[inaudible

]

John Donvan:

… wait, wait, please. Wait. What we’re talking about, what’s the, the more difficult conversation here is about books that some people want removed but other people don’t want removed because of what, of what contains. And there’re very, very few people who are really gonna argue for explicit sex in books. So I wanna bring up another book that I happen to have b- become a- aware (laughing) of. Years ago when I was living in London there was a book called Heather Has Two Mommies. And this book about, uh, a young girl who had two lesbian mothers, uh, caused a b- a, a big uproar at the time in, in the United Kingdom. But it’s about 30 years old. And I, in preparing for this, I looked at it again. And it’s a book about a little girl who, um, becomes aware that most of the kids in her community had a mother and a father but she has two mothers, and she sort of thinks about it and talks about it.

You know, a, a day in her life. (laughing) And there’s no explicit sex whatsoever in the book. Now, this book a few months ago in Bucks County, Pennsylvania there was a move to get this pulled off the shelf. To me this is the har- kind of the hard case that we’re debating here, n- not the easy cases. M- Maybe a case where, where Yascha would, would make the argument that he would stand up for it. Again, (laughing) I know you haven’t read the book, Yascha, but I wanna move the, the conversation to sort of a more realistic place in that sense.

Chris Rufo:

Yeah, I, I, I mean, a- again, I, I haven’t read this book about Heather Has Two Mommies. From your description it sounds, uh, relative anodyne. I don’t know if I even personally, uh, uh, would find it o- objectionable. But, but what I do believe, um, is that local school districts that elect a local board in 14 thousand jurisdictions across the country should have the ability to select which books they want to be taught in the classroom, and select which values they wanna be transmitting to their kids.

And so, for example, the Muslim Americans in Dearborn, Michigan that you highlighted at the beginning of the show, um, you know, they’re gonna have a different, uh, uh, set of values in priorities than I would and than certain than, than, Yascha would. But I respect that they have local autonomy to decide what they want in the classroom.

John Donvan:

I do think it matters what the content of the books is, because you, for example, cited Harry Potter, which some parents have objected to. Or how about To Kill a Mockingbird? To Kill a Mockingbird is a book that’s been banned again and again and again. Most recently, the effort has been because there’s an argument made from the left that To Kill a Mockingbird-

Chris Rufo:

Yes.

John Donvan:

… a book about a White lawyer defending a Black man accused of a rape in the South centers Whiteness and promotes White supremacy-

Chris Rufo:

(laughs)

John Donvan:

… and, and creates a White savior, uh, s- uh, scenario. So there’s an argument made by, potentially, by parents-

Chris Rufo:

Yes.

John Donvan:

… to get the book out. So should To Kill a Mockingbird be pulled off the shelf because of protests from the left?

Chris Rufo:

From my point of view, I would oppose something to, to restrict Harry Potter, to restrict To Kill a Mockingbird, to restrict Huckleberry Finn.

John Donvan:

But if the parents want it, your principle is that if the parents want it that that’s, that that should rule.

Chris Rufo:

I- In essence, if the Berkeley County school district wants to restrict Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, um, I, I would oppose that, I’d r- argue against it, but I would also, uh, respect their rights to have a different curriculum then other jurisdictions. What we’re having right now is this attempt to homogenize all school districts with left-wing, race and gender ideologies. Um, this idea that, uh, it’s illegitimate for local conservative parents and school board members to place any restrictions on content. Um, but, look, if Berkeley wants to ban Huckleberry Finn I oppose it but it’s their right, and I would respect it because I believe in pluralism, I believe in local control, I believe in local elected officials and parents deciding what’s best-

John Donvan:

Yascha.

Yascha Mounk:

But, Chris, I’m, I’m, I’m astonished to hear you say this, because what I thought was an issue between us, what our profound disagreement is, is precisely whether those decisions should be made in a local way by school teachers and librarians and principals or whether it should be made by state and federal legislation. You have supported very, very vocally legislation in the State of Florida that bans any instruction about, uh, sex and gender up to third grade, and any instruction where it is called, called age-inappropriate, which is a very vague, difficult to interpret standard, above the third grade. That is not local. That is state legislation we’re talking about here.

And so what I’m concerned about is precisely the role of a state of faraway legislators and governors in trying to intrude on local decision making in the precise way you claim you oppose. So are you saying that at this point you distance yourself from the piece of legislation in Florida because-

Chris Rufo:

No.

Yascha Mounk:

… it is… S- So that’s what we’re talking about [inaudible

]. No, we’re not-

Chris Rufo:

No, of course not. W- B-

Yascha Mounk:

Then we’re not talking about local decisions. We’re talking about-

Chris Rufo:

I think you don’t understand-

Yascha Mounk:

… state legislatures-

Chris Rufo:

… that-

Yascha Mounk:

… overriding local decision makings, and homogenizing what’s happening in their state, not allowing for-

Chris Rufo:

No.

Yascha Mounk:

… the kind of variety and diversity of local decision making about what’s appropriate in particular communities that you were touting a moment ago.

Chris Rufo:

So, no, no, no. Y- Y- Y- You misunderstand how the system of federalism works in, in the United States, unfortunately. A, again, I’m gonna correct you. I have never advocated for federal control over the curriculum. But, second, the state sets the, every state, all 50 states are the ultimate curricular authority. That’s the status quo. They set the state standards. They set learning objectives. They set the core curriculum. Uh, they have a, uh, uh, the most profound influence. And then they also delegate to local jurisdictions. And so, uh, the State of Florida had gender and sexuality guidelines at the state level previously. Now they have ones. You can say the new ones are not correct or not wise or not just. You can make any argument you want.

Look, states fund K-though-12 schools. States set the standards. Taxpayers get to vote for their state representatives. Uh, and they have education committees, uh, and they vote on legislation. Voters can then kick them out if they make the, the wrong decision according to their, to the, to the voters’ wisdom. And if we wanna talk about democracy, this is how democracy works. Florida says, “No radical gender theory in K-through-12 public schools.” California says, “We’re gonna be pushing trans-activism.” They’re different. They should be different. Uh, that’s how the federalist system, uh, works in the United States.

Yascha Mounk:

I- I- I think that’s a misrepresentation of how the system works and how some of the recent action by, uh, conservatives and Republican governors like DeSantis ha- uh, are trying to, to change the system. Clearly, states fund public education in the United States. Clearly, states appropriately set, for example, broad learning goals that, uh, structure what kind of things schools should broadly teach. What is happening at the moment is a wave of, uh, blanket bans of the discussion of broad subjects which are worded so vaguely that they have a very deep and persistent chilling effect on the kind of things that teachers feel they can bring up in the classroom. And that is a new departure.

John Donvan:

When we come back we’re gonna be bringing in some more voices here to move the questions along. Should certain books be banned in schools? That’s what we’ll be talking about when we come back.

Welcome back to Open to Debate. I’m John Donvan. I’m joined by Chris Rufo and Yascha Mounk to debate the question, should certain books be banned in schools?

Speaker 7:

… characters in books deserve to be defended. Every kind of character. Gay characters, Black characters, every diverse kind of character that can exist in a book belongs in our libraries. And you know what? They belong for one very simple reason, because literature reflects reality.

Roxanne McDonald:

Address the board, please.

John Donvan:

There again from the Dearborn, Michigan event. A sample of some of the pushback against efforts to get certain books removed from school libraries and classroom reading lists. In a moment, I, I wanna bring in some other voices, some journalists who cover this topic, to the conversation. But before that there’s one other topic I wanna touch on, and that is the 1619 Project. And for those who don’t know, this was an undertaking by the New York Times, initially a, a package of articles and videos and podcasts. It presented the legacy of A- American slavery as central to the story of the nation with an impact that continues profoundly to this day.

The project was expanded into a curriculum which some school districts adopted, but there’s been a strong backlash. But more recently we’ve seen the curriculum canceled and banned outright in several parts of the country. Chris, I wanna ask you to take on the question of the history, uh, the history argument that’s going on a- about books and curriculum.

Chris Rufo:

Look, I- I- I think 1619 Project, uh, is not good journalism. It’s certainly not good scholarship. It advances a number of just absurd and false claims. Um, I- I- I think it’s best looked at as, as a form of political propaganda. And yet, uh, while I would certainly, uh, uh, if I were a school board member, for example, I would vote to, uh, restrict it from the curriculum in, in my school district. I would respect the rights of, uh, schools in New York City or San Francisco or Los Angeles to include it in their curricula. I would prefer a Hillsdale K-through-12, uh, history curriculum. Um, I would also respect the rights of others, uh, to disagree with me and to, to take that debate and to make other decisions, uh, as they see fit.

John Donvan:

Yascha?

Yascha Mounk:

Well, so let me ask a question to Chris, because HB 999, which is this, uh, bill on higher education but is currently pending in Florida, which has the support of governor Ron DeSantis, would ban discussion of identity politics and critical race theory at public colleges and universities in the State of Florida. So according to Chris’ argument at the moment it would be appropriate to teach the 1619 Project in certain public school districts that decide in a local way to adopt it, but it would not be appropriate to teach it at a higher level in colleges and universities, in public colleges and universities, in the State of Florida. Uh, that doesn’t make much sense to me. If anything when older, uh, students should, uh, be able to discuss these ideas better than younger students. So Chris, do you oppose HB 999? Do you think that here your friend, uh, Ron DeSantis is going too far? Or try to square these two positions for me so I understand what we’re talking about.

Chris Rufo:

Yeah, I, I, I mean, it doesn’t make sense to you because you, you, you don’t understand the legislation. Maybe you haven’t read it carefully. Uh, uh, or maybe some explanation. But it absolutely doesn’t do that.

Yascha Mounk:

So let me, so let me go toe-to-toe, uh, with you on the interpretation of this. The measure would prohibit faculty teaching these courses from including material that teaches identity politics, which the b- the bill defines as critical race theory, something the bill does not define. So this is precisely the kind of sloppily-written, vaguely-worded legislation both about higher education and in many cases about secondary education that are being passed all through the country. And when we’re talking in a real way about what material is being banned from classrooms at the moment, that’s what we’re talking about. Broad, vaguely-worded bans that have a huge chilling effect because no actual teacher, no actual professor in the classroom can be sure what material they assign, want they conversation they spontaneously have as a classroom discussion evolves might be considered across the line.

Chris Rufo:

I appreciate your passion. But again you have the facts, uh, totally wrong. That language has since been struck based feedback the legislators got, uh, and the bill that actually passed both the House and the Senate, um, that is going to the governor’s desk does not include that language at all, and-

John Donvan:

I wanna bring in some of our journalists who have joined the conversation. And I wanna start with Suzy Weiss who is co-founder of The Free Press. Suzy, thank you so much for joining us, and we’d love to hear your question.

Suzy Weiss:

I- I think it’s interesting that we’re having this conversation, this discussion, at a moment where something like 70% of kids have a smartphone by the time they’re 12, and therefore have access to the internet where they can find way (laughing) worse things than whatever John was quoting and God knows what untold horrors. Um, and I’m wondering if that changes the calculus here. And if not, should it? I- I- I do wonder if while the parents are getting worked up at board meetings about, you know, this or that graphic novel, if their kids are at home experiencing God knows what, uh, on the computer.

Yascha Mounk:

Uh, yeah, I think, you know, e- e- especially in a moment in which so much material is accessible to everybody in a smartphone, what we need to do is to bring discussions about difficult and sensitive topics into the classroom in a responsible manner. No doubt some teachers aren’t doing that. No doubt, uh, some schools are instead indoctrinating kids, and, and that is something that, that should be opposed, uh, strongly. Um, but the goal cannot be for politicians to step in and try counter-indoctrination. Um, you know, Chris Rufo has complained about the capture of higher education in the United States when he has celebrated when he was appointed a trustee of New College in Florida that he’s now recapturing education.

I don’t want education to be captured or recaptured. I want, uh, teachers in classroom to actually be able to deal with important and difficult issues, whether it’s, uh, sexuality, whether it’s the, the nation’s history in a sensitive way that gives voice to different interpretations, to different ways of understanding our country’s present and our country’s past, um, and that allows students to contextualize the kind of material that they’re going to encounter among their friends, on TikTok, on YouTube in any case. That to me is more than ever the role of a high quality education. And these blanket bans, these blanket pieces of legislation, are not going to help students and teachers accomplish that.

John Donvan:

Okay, Chris, uh, back to you with the question about the impact of the fact that kids, some of their phones can do end-runs i- i- i- in any kinda way they might imagine on some of this material.

Chris Rufo:

Yeah, I, I mean, I look at it in the same way that you could say, “Well, you know, k- kids, kids, high school kids can play Hey, Mister, and, uh, ha- have someone buy them a, a six-pack of beer, uh, so we’d be better off, you know, uh, kind of, lowering the a- the drinking age.” And I, I’d say no, and the, the reason is this. I actually take the, the precise o- o- opposite position that w- was implied is that in an age where there is a glut of content of all varying degrees of quality, it’s more important than ever for our official institutions, especially our state institutions, to maintain the highest moral, ethical, uh, uh, and academic standards.

John Donvan:

Thanks, uh, for your question, Suzy. I wanna go now to Betsy Bird. And Betsy is a writer for the School Library Journal, and collection, development, and materials manager for the Evanston Public Library. Betsy, thanks so much for joining us. And, uh, you’re kind of the midst of the whole story here. So, uh, we’re, we’re glad to have you, and what’s your question, please?

Betsy Bird:

Oh, well, thank you so much for having me here. Um, yeah, so book banning isn’t new, but banning books that have, uh, uh, critical race theory content, uh, now that is relatively new. So this touches on some of what you’ve already said but I’d like to know, um, on the p- case for Chris, like, what’s the worst-case scenario if these particular books are not banned? Uh, and then for Yascha, what’s the worst-case scenario if these are banned through legislation? Like, to your mind, what is the real threat here?

Chris Rufo:

Sure, well, I- I mean, uh, uh, great, great to meet you. And I would just say I actually done some reporting on, uh, Evanston/Skokie School District. I believe that’s, uh, kind of the, the region where you are. And, uh, and, look, they said that they should be breaking the gender binary and the damage for something like that is quite clear. Uh, you can get kids on the path to permanent medicalization. And so if you want a dramatic example of the damage that this can do, uh, look no further than your local school district.

John Donvan:

Yascha.

Betsy Bird:

(laughs)

Yascha Mounk:

Well, well, the question from Betsy I think was about, uh, critical race theory, not about, uh, the issues that, that Chris immediately defaulted to. Uh, so, so let me address that. Uh, you know, I- I- I, like Chris, have some, uh, disagreements with the 1619 Project. I think it is, um, an, an, an interesting and thought-provoking approach to say that 1619 alongside 1776 should be considered one of the founding moments of the United States. But at least in some iterations the project has gone well beyond that, saying that 1619 was quote-unquote, “the true” founding of the United States.

I profoundly disagree with that. I don’t think that students encountering that material, grappling with it, thinking about it, is going to cause damage to our students, because I believe in the ability of an education to expose students to all kinds of different ideas. I believe that, uh, in a time, as Suzy was saying, in which they have access to all kinds of different information through social media and, uh, other things, they’re going to be hearing from every side of the political discourse, um, and we should be trusting our students to be smart enough, to be intelligent enough, to inquisitive enough, to come, uh, up with their own conclusions, to make up their own minds about how they think about the nature of race in the country today and the history of the United States.

So, um, you know, in my mind shouldn’t be banning those materials. We should be bringing them in, contextualizing them. What I do think teachers should be doing, and school districts should be doing, is to make sure that on, uh, controversial issues students have access to a broad range of views, a broad range of approaches. We should never be indoctrinating them into one particular viewpoint. That means more quality instruction, more challenging material, not more book bans.

John Donvan:

Thank you, Yascha. And thank you, Betsy Bird, for joining us with that question. I wanna go now to Zack Beauchamp, who is a senior correspondent at Vox. Hi, Zack.

Zack Beauchamp:

Thank you. Uh, it’s been very interesting to listen to both of you talk about, uh, the specifics of these things. But I’d like to move a little bit more to a broader scope because I think the sort of philosophical underpinnings of your two positions ha- have not been fully explored in this conversation. And I guess I wanna start by asking both of you questions that push you at the edges of that. So, Chris, your position throughout this debate has been one in favor of localism primarily. But I, I wanna read you some things that you’ve proposed in general, right? You have described your project as being a counter-revolution in which you advance a defund-the-left strategy where conservatives quote-unquote “cripple the critical ideologies within the federal agencies through executive order, strangle new identity programs in red tapes, and disrupt financing for such programs.”

You see your role specifically, again I quote, as “a narrative that can direct the emotions and energy of the public against the right targets.” Now, to me that doesn’t sound like what you’re saying is, “To each their own. Each community can do whatever they wanna do.” [inaudible

] you see these little individual battles in specific school districts as part the fundamental strategy for reshaping the ideological character of the United States. Not localism, right, but a counter-revolution across the nation.

Chris Rufo:

I- It’s good question, and, and, and I won’t duck, and in, in fact, uh, I embrace it and I appreciate Zack picking some very spicy, uh, quotes. Um, but, but w- what we have to understand here is that o- our system operates at multiple levels, primarily the local level, the state level, and the federal level. Education in the United States is predominantly a state and local issue, and so a conservative counter-revolution is gonna mobilize along those lines of our democratic system at school boards and then at state legislatures.

And in the quotes that you specifically pulled from, are from federal policy proposals dealing with federal personnel, federal grant funding, federal training programs, and federal, uh, uh, uh, distributions of, of resources to nonprofits and contractors and such. And so I, I advocate a conservative counter-revolution across all institutions at all levels while respecting the nature of federalism in our country, recognizing that education is best fought at the state and local level. All these federal policy issues are of course by the nature of their very, uh, e- existence fought at the federal level both through congress and through executive order.

John Donvan:

Okay, uh, thank you very much for your question, Zack. And, uh, I wanna thank all of our journalists for, uh, taking part in this part of the program, and I wanna move into our closing round. And our closing round is very simply, uh, closing statements by each of you very, very briefly. Yascha, since Chris went first for our opening statements, you have the floor now. Again, reminding people but although I think they remember, in answer to the question should certain books be banned in school, your answer is no. And here’s your closing.

Yascha Mounk:

Over the course of this debate some of these questions have come to feel quite abstract. To me, they’re not. I am in the classroom all of the time. And I think about how to get students to engage in a deep and meaningful way with difficult issues. Uh, Chris and I may some agreements about, uh, uh, American values. We may have some agreements, for example, at least at the theoretical level, about the importance of free speech. And in a class I teach on identity and liberalism and democracy, uh, I make a- a strong and ringing defense of free speech, including [inaudible

] some of the ideas that are now popular on the progressive left.

But what I think of as my task in the classroom is to give students the tools to make up their own minds. So along with my defense of free speech, I also assign articles that are deeply critical of free speech. I think that’s how we treat students as responsible future citizens. According to some, some of the legislation that are now pending in various state legislatures across the country those readings that I assign would be banned from consideration in public collages and universities because any mention of things like identity politics or critical race theory would not be appropriate for undergraduate instruction.

This is the real thing where we’re talking about here. It is not a question of whether this book or that book is appropriate in a classroom setting. It is about the role of the government in interfering with decision makers by teachers, college professors. It is the new role that some governors are pushing for federal government even in punishing corporations for expressing in expression of political opinion. I think that this move to use coercive power to reshape the culture of the United States from the top down is a deep threat to the culture of free speech in this country. It is deeply un-American and we should oppose it.

John Donvan:

Thank you Yascha. And now, Chris, you have the final say here. Your answer, again, to the question, should certain books be banned in school, is yes. Last time to hear why.

Zack Beauchamp:

Well, we have to, a- a- again, regain focus. We’re not talking about the federal government. We’re not talking about universities. We’re not talking about corporations. We’re talking about children, sometimes very young children, in publicly-funded government schools. And there are two key questions that we’ve debated, and I like to make closing thoughts on each. First, is a procedural question. Um, who decides what is in the classroom and what is not in the classroom? Uh, I believe that it’s up to local, uh, school districts, parents and voters, as well as state legislators who state, who make curriculum standards.

Um, rather than a kind of free-for-all in which activist teachers can do whatever they want and impose their private ideologies and in some cases pornographic materials on other people’s children. But the more significant question is a moral question. I think what Yascha is saying is adopting a more relativistic mode in which you present things such as the 1619 Project, which he and I both believe contains many things that are false, other things that are true, and letting the students decide.

But to me this is like laying out, uh, healthy food and junk food, uh, in front of group of eight year olds and letting them eat whatever they want and make the best decisions. These are kids. Their education has to be shaped. Their education has to be carefully considered. Their education has to be carefully curated. And I think as the, as Western tradition has dictated an education for more than 2000 years, that we should be teaching kids how to pursue the true, the good, and the beautiful. Our education should be ennobling. We should not be teaching them lies. We should not be teaching them hatred. We should not be teaching them propaganda. And we certainly shouldn’t be teaching them pornography.

Uh, it’s up to us as parents, as voters, as school officials, as legislators to true, do the best we can within the realm of public debate, using the democratic process to make the best possible education. That requires prudent restrictions on materials that are inappropriate, uh, and, and ultimately, uh, don’t serve kids and their development.

John Donvan:

And that is a wrap everybody. I wanna thank our debaters Chris and Yascha, uh, for, for hearing each other out even as you disagreed fundamentally. You were both at the very least open to debate, and we appreciate that. I also wanna thank our reporters. Thank you for adding perspective via some very good questions. And to everybody out there listening, thank you for tuning in this episode of Open to Debate. You know, as a nonprofit, we work to combat extreme polarization through civil and respectful debate, and that effort is generously funded by listeners like you, by the Rosenkranz Foundation, and by supporters of Open to Debate.

Open to Debate is also made possible by a generous grant from the Laura and Gary Lauder Family Venture Philanthropy Fund. Robert Rosenkranz is our chairman. Clea Conner is CEO. Lia Matthow is our chief content officer. Julia Melfi is our senior producer. Marlette Sandoval is our editorial producer, and Gabriella Mayer is our editorial and research manager. Gabrielle Iannucelli is our social media and digital platforms coordinator. Andrew Lipson is head of production. Max Fulton is our production coordinator. Raven Baker is events and operations manager. Rachel Kemp is our chief of staff. And I’m your host, John Donvan. We’ll see you next time.