Daniel Ikenaga – Which information should be secret in your definition?

Julian Assagne – We often hear this type of question. However, it is better to rephrase it as follows: “who should be forced by the state into keeping information of a particular type from the rest of the population?” The answer to this question is clearly not everyone in the world and nor should it be, we believe, all persons in a particular state. Rather, say, your doctor is responsible for keeping your medical records secret under most (but not all) circumstances.

“On rare occasion, we have situations where a piece of material is not what it appears to be on the surface and the material is totally inappropriate for a school library. In that case, yes, it is appropriate to remove materials. If it doesn’t fit your material selection policy, get it out of there. But materials that adhere to the material selection statement that every school has, and that have been duly selected, we would fight alongside every librarian and every teacher to keep the books available.”

For you to so casually snip the tail of that quote to serve your purposes is inherently dishonest. The meaning changes entirely in the completely context of the quote, yet you parade the first two sentences as a ringing endorsement of book removal. It’s not.

Also, with all due deference to Judith Krug, she is not the sole arbitrator of what is censorship and what is not censorship for the entire profession.