Home For Young People
Intellectual Freedom for Young People
The Very Basics
Young people have First Amendment rights. This page will provide information and links to explore these rights. This page explores those rights in school. See also School: Intellectual Freedom for Young People, Hot Issues, and Especially for Young People and Their Parents.
Below are links to information on basic intellectual freedom principles, including links to the fundamental principles of American and international libraries. Also included are links to pages to help you understand why censoring the Internet is the same as censoring a book. Intellectual Freedom Issues will take you to Hot Topics in Intellectual Freedom. Intellectual Freedom and Censorship Q&A explains what intellectual freedom is and why it is important.
Worthwhile Places to Visit
Quotations
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."—The First Amendment
“Children . . . are the ones with the greatest stake in the decisions that are or are not being made right now. Most of the people currently in power in government and business will not have to live with the consequences of their action or inaction; it will be today‛s youngsters who become adults in the twenty-first century. That‛s why children have to take an active role in shaping their own destiny. ”—(from The David Suzuki Reader, p. 344) David Suzuki, coauthor of The Sacred Balance
"Even the smallest, most heroic of acts adds to the store of kindling that may be ignited by some surprising circumstance into tumultuous change. . . . What the [civil rights] movement proved is that even if people lack the customary attributes of power—money, political authority, physical force—as the the black people of the Deep South, there is a power that can be created out of pent-up indignation, courage, and the inspiration of a common cause, and that if enough people put their minds and bodies into that cause, they can win. It is a phenomenon recorded again and again in the history of popular movements against injustice all over the world."—Howard Zinn, as recorded by Paul Rogat Loeb in his Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time.
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”—Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, “The One Un-American Act.” Nieman Reports, vol. 7, no. 1 (Jan. 1953): p. 20.
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”—Dissertations on First Principles of Government, Thomas Paine
“The longer we listen to one another—with real attention, sharing more than opinion but life experiences—the more commonalty we will find in all our lives”—Barbara Deming
“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”—Noam Chomsky
“Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black-mustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the Police Patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.”—George Orwell, 1984
Links to non-ALA sites have been provided because these sites may have information of interest. Neither the American Library Association nor the Office for Intellectual Freedom necessarily endorses the views expressed or the facts presented on these sites; and furthermore, ALA and OIF do not endorse any commercial products that may be advertised or available on these sites.
Mail comments on OIF Web site to nperez@ala.org
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