Ohio Legislators Demand Ban on “Porn” at Kent State University

BY JOHN K. WILSON

I have an essay posted today at the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) blog about a particularly disturbing case at Kent State University where state legislators are explicitly threatening millions of dollars in state funding unless the university bans a textbook that offended the Republican politicians. Here are the opening paragraphs:

Ohio State Representative Reggie Stoltzfus (R-Paris Township) chose an unusual way to celebrate Banned Books Week this year: he contacted Kent State University to demand that they ban a book he claimed was “porn.” When Kent State refused to violate the First Amendment and its policies on academic freedom, Stoltzfus threatened to cut millions of dollars in retaliation, and hopes to pass legislation imposing his views on public universities.

This shocking act of censorship received no national media attention, even though it’s one of the most dramatic examples of the power of conservative cancel culture to repress free expression.

The controversy began when a 17-year-old high school student enrolled in a course at Kent State University, “College Writing 1: Social Issues Through Anime.” The main textbook for the course is “Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation” by  Susan J. Napier, and it includes a chapter on “Controlling Bodies: The Body in Pornographic Anime.”

Read the rest of the essay, visit the Intellectual Freedom Blog, and subscribe to receive updates, including the OIF’s excellent weekly summaries of intellectual freedom news.

3 thoughts on “Ohio Legislators Demand Ban on “Porn” at Kent State University

  1. He is right: It is “porn” if by such a term one may be referring to material rather inappropriate or utterly unnecessary given many alternatives. Moreover, what kind of academic would even want to”teach” such a course? I recall last year at UChicago Law a day-long seminar on the future of free speech (“What’s the Harm?” https://legal-forum.uchicago.edu/2019-symposium-whats-harm-future-first-amendment) and two visiting law professors, in front of numerous freshman 18 year old girls who came over to hear the lectures, were treated to multiple graphic images of a “famous free speech advocate” rending himself in self-inflicted “S&M” complete with leather gear, restraining devices and pain expressions. I found it not just questionable judgement, but hardly a powerful symbol for the First Amendment. Surely there were alternatives and more powerful ones. This is somewhat related to the misguided Court judgement on flag desecration: yes, it surely can be done, and may be “expressive,” but what does it really accomplish outside a private act? And what is the unintended harm, and cost-benefit calculus? The Kent State matter, like many others, really isn’t about free speech; it involves judgements of value, ethics, aesthetics and cultural strength, or decline. Regards, ’96, UChicago

    • You seem to have an issue with sexuality and flag desecration. Other people are offended by racism, sexism, and political viewpoints. I don’t agree that the leading textbook on anime is “porn” because it includes a chapter that analyzes and criticizes porn. And I would not attack the pedagogical decisions of a professor before I know how this is being taught. But clearly this is a question of free speech because it is about taking pedagogical judgments away from the instructor and giving it to state legislators and students. The question is, what system of free speech should we have that applies to everyone who is offended by ideas they don’t like. In this case, there are two questions: 1) Should state legislators have the right to micromanage all college syllabi by demanding the power to censor any textbooks they dislike and retaliating with budget cuts against any college that resists their commands? 2) Should students have the right to reject any course assignment that offends them for any reason?

      If your answer is that all legislators should get to ban any books that offend them, and all students should have the right to reject any assignments that offend them, I would disagree with you strongly, and encourage you to imagine the possible consequences of such principles. If your answer is that only legislators and students you agree with should have these rights, then I would suggest you are a hypocrite. It seems to be that the best principle is to uphold the right of professors to decide what academic books are allowed in an academic environment, and not let students or legislators veto that decision, whatever the reason. Once we have established those principles of academic freedom and free speech which are key to this case, then we can have a pedagogical discussion about what are the best assignments to make in a class.

      • Your argument is reasonable and I agree with most of it. I don’t have a “problem” with any issue, per se, if by problem you mean an irrational response. I do have a value sensibility, and it is in this context that the debate becomes more manageable. I suppose there is a “marketplace” of ideas (although not per se), and students, parents, donors, and alumnae can put their stakes down in the ground as they please. This particular course would likely strike most parents (financiers) as unsuitable in several dimensions of utility, but then I suppose that is why one can choose say Utah over Berkeley, Texas over Middlebury; Hillsdale over Yale, or Wheaton over Chicago. But the danger of moral collapse (at a social level; e.g. in history, Rome) remains a great risk. Societies need values. As for legislation of speech, I agree it is very problematic; however it is interesting how in this context it seems objectionable, but if I express support for the President, for example, my electronic speech is suppressed, modified, blocked or even expunged by an authority that deems itself a super-legislature: the Silicon Valley Tech Trust. In both cases, suppression stems from some element of a dangerous authoritarianism, which I suspect is one of the risks you are rightly rejecting as it pertains to expression. I’m not sure that a universal right to free speech can ever be reconciled with a value matrix, and therefore, an absolute free speech liberty is probably a necessary trade-off, at least in the US. BTW, why is it I’ve never seen these kinds of issues emerge visibly on one of our nation’s great universities, the Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus? It seems a higher education culture that transcends the problem. Students seem too busy and happy there. A role model? Regards.

Comments are closed.