Fights Censorship, Gets Scholarship
Poulsbo student wins national award for civil-liberties activism
from Washington ACLU
Jessica Beckett, a Poulsbo student, received an award recently for
fighting against censorship of a book about Vietnam at North Kitsap
High School. She was one of nine students around the country awarded a
$4,000 college scholarship by the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU). "She is one of the next generation of civil libertarians
willing to stand up for their rights," said a spokesperson for the
Washington State chapter of the ACLU.
In the spring of 2001, while Beckett was a junior, a parent objected
to the assignment of The Vietnam Reader, in an elective course on "The
Vietnam Experience." Beckett said students deserved to have the
subject presented as the teacher intended, that removing readings
would constitute censorship and that material should not be censored
because of the objections of a group of parents.
Beckett and another student drafted a petition against the censorship
and garnered 500 student signatures in a single day. They presented
the petition to a school administrator and attended a district meeting
on the book challenge where student testimony was not allowed. The
committee decided to allow only certain selections from the book and
to omit four of them.
Beckett and her allies responded by printing copies of the censored
readings and circulating them among the students with a heading "What
the School Doesn't Want You to Know about Vietnam." She and her
father spoke before the school board, urging it to rescind the
committee's decision, but the board refused, citing a two-week window
for appeals that the Becketts had not been informed of.
Beckett's efforts helped generate community discussion of the issue.
"How could I claim to honor truth and let an issue like this die
without a fight," said Beckett. As a result of the controversy, the
school board finally changed its policy for resolving book challenges.
Beckett is still speaking out for civil liberties. She recently
distributed a flyer opposing the federal government's plans for
military tribunals.
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