The Day They Came to Arrest the Book

The day of the debate between the Kent Dickinson, the ACLU attorney, and Matthew Griswold, the religious spokesman, arrives. Since the teachers’ classrooms are not large enough to hold the attendees, the debate moves to the auditorium. Before the event, Kate, Luke, Barney, and Gordon discuss whether they actually have individual freedoms. Luke and Gordon talk about the rigid rules their parents set for them. Barney reveals that his parents are not strict. While they keep an eye on him, he is mostly free to do as he wishes. The other two boys make note of the fact that Barney is near the top of the class, is the editor of the George Mason Standard, and is well-liked by his teachers.

Griswold arrives early and cordially greets the teachers. Dickinson, who is scheduled to speak first, arrives last. He suffers a clumsy beginning as he drops his banana and spills water on the table. He has brought a stack of newspapers and begins by reading a lengthy quote from Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black about America as an experiment in freedom of speech. He says that the nation Black described, where people are free to question authority, does exist and that everyone present is a part of it. He adds that “there are a lot of groups going around the country these days trying to destroy that vision—that marvelous vision of a country where individual liberty is so natural a right that it is in the very air the citizens breathe” (51). He gives several examples of schools that banned, and even burned, books. He also describes how 24 states made it illegal to hang a red flag outside your house in the early 20th century. Citizens received jail sentences for violating those laws. He uses this example to urge students to stand up for their rights, warning that “[n]o Government craziness is impossible if people just let it happen” (54). The students give Dickinson rousing applause. Nora cautions Maggie, however, not to underestimate Griswold, who has not spoken yet.

Griswold rises to make his counterargument. Rather than relying upon historical precedent or principle, however, Griswold focuses on examples that he deems inappropriate uses of liberty. He interacts a great deal with the students. He suggests that those who espouse freedom of speech may have ulterior motives: “Is it possible that while they sing you songs of freedom, they are actually preparing you for their own orthodoxy, their own standard time to which everybody must march?” (57).

As the debate continues, a back and forth develops between Dickinson and Griswold. Dickinson believes it is essential for young people to be able to evaluate literature and life circumstances for themselves, while Griswold believes students are too young to make such decisions. He believes that, in addition to traditional education, public school students must be exposed to religion. Griswold agrees that freedom requires informed choices, but insists that schools, as a place of learning, have a moral duty “not to pollute […] fine young minds with ignorance and superstition” (63).

Summoned to the principal’s office, Deirdre meets with Mike. He fields a call from a school board member who met with a group of Black parents insisting on the removal of Huckleberry Finn. Mike asks Deirdre to conceal any copies of the book that are in the school library. Deirdre refuses, saying, “I can’t justify removing the book from my shelves while it’s still being taught in nineteenth-century history” (70). Mike dismisses her, implying that she is too young and inexperienced to grasp the situation the school faces.

Later, in the library, Deirdre converses with Kate and Barney about whether Huckleberry Finn is inappropriate because of its racial expletives and its portrayal of Black Americans. Kate holds that, because it is offensive to Gordon and other Black students, the book should not be included in the library. Deirdre states that every book in the library could potentially offend someone, and that banning one book sets a dangerous precedent for anyone to ban anything.

Nora enters the library with a copy of the complaint from Carl McLean. They read the complaint, which argues there is no virtue whatsoever in the novel. Nora tells Deirdre she looks forward to hearing her debate Carl. Deirdre says she anticipates that she will.

To prepare for impending conflict, businessman Reuben Forster, who is the chairman of the school board, acts out the various voices he anticipates hearing at the book review meeting. His wife encourages him to preside over the already controversial hearing but not vote in the process until the committee’s decision comes to the full school board.

Nora, Barney, and Luke gather in the library after school to await the names of those appointed to the textbook review committee. The committee will vote on the inclusion, censoring, or banning of Huckleberry Finn from George Mason High School. As they wait, they discuss Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451, in which he describes a future in which all books are burned. In order to save books, people memorize them to pass them to future generations.

Deirdre comes in with the list of names. As they try to decide which members will vote to keep or ban Huckleberry Finn, they realize that the committee members are almost evenly divided in their stances on censorship. Nora declares that those in favor of censorship are enemies to those who favor the rights of liberty. Deirdre cautions her against making enemies of those who disagree with her, saying that such a stance violates the principle of free speech they’re trying to preserve.

The group discovers there are several complaints about Huckleberry Finn. Kate’s math teacher, Cynthia Morgan, complained that the book marginalizes women. The citizens’ group Parents for Moral Schools complained because Huck and Jim are often unclothed as they float down the Mississippi River. The group even attached a Concord Massachusetts newspaper clipping from 1885 that says the public library banned the book, “…characterizing it as rough, coarse, and inelegant, dealing with a series of experiences not elevating, the whole book being more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people” (89).

At the beginning of Nora’s class, Gordon leads a boycott because Nora is still using Huckleberry Finn as a resource. All but one of the Black students, Steve Turney, depart. Steve insists he will make up his own mind about the book and wants to study it.

Maggie and Barney discuss the new edition of the George Mason Standard that they are about print. Barney has written an editorial strongly defending Huckleberry Finn as appropriate for use in the school. Maggie, his faculty advisor, praises the editorial apart from two paragraphs. In those, Barney discusses the patriot George Mason, for whom the school is named, as a defender of freedom of speech. He writes that if George Mason were their principal, he would be standing up for Huckleberry Finn, whereas Principal Mike does nothing but sit on his hands and wait for the verdict to come in.

Barney and Maggie have a lengthy discussion about whether or not it is wise include those two paragraphs in the editorial. Maggie says that, if the editorial is published with those paragraphs, she will likely be removed as the advisor to the newspaper: “I am strongly advising you to cut out those two paragraphs for your own good—but also for my own good, and for the good of the paper” (96). She asks Barney to weigh the good that has come from the freedom of speech they currently have against the potential pushback they will receive if they attack the principal. Ultimately, Barney decides he will not include the paragraphs. Maggie and Barney also discuss the fact that Gordon has written his own editorial, in which he argues that Huckleberry Finn is not fit for the school.