Lama said: "My sister-in-law is a librarian at a public middle school housing
13 year-old children in a rural atmosphere. She told me that they are
studying the Ku Klux Klan so she, *the librarian* 'opened up the web browsers
so the kids could read the Klan's web sites firsthand'. I was completely
shocked. I said that kids should *never* have access to Klan sites in a
public school. She countered with, "Well, that would be censorship. They
should have free access to do research."
Jim, you're 95% right, and your sis-in-law 95% wrong, IMO. To expose a group
of 13 year-olds with that kind of propaganda is potentially damaging. The
only exception I'd make (accounting for my equivocation) would be to present
the Klan site "in context" - balancing their rhetoric with other points of
view and as much objective history as one could find. Of course, then, you'd
need to find a teacher with some common sense - perhaps a difficult task in
today's world of public education.
