Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

Problems?
Ideas?
Suggestions?
Please email BudNotBuddy@aol.com

Thank You!

On April 23, 2003, William Baue reported in SocialFunds.com:

"Today, the US Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in the Nike v. Kasky case. Nike appealed the California Supreme Court decision in favor of social advocate Marc Kasky, who claimed that Nike's statements about its sweatshop labor practices were commercial speech and that Nike broke a state law against false advertising. Nike argued that its statements, which were not made in advertisements but in press releases and letters to editors and college sports administrators, contributed to the public debate on globalization and should be protected by First Amendment free speech rights. Nike defined its speech as political, not commercial."

The Court is expected to issue its ruling on this case at any moment. How DO they make a decision regarding such an issue?

While we were in Toronto this past week, attending the American Library Association's annual convention, the Supreme Court ruled against the ALA's challenge to the Internet Children's Protection Act. The Act requires libraries receiving federal funding to maintain removable Internet content filters on the computers patrons access. As reported in the Kansas City Star, "The Supreme Court majority upheld the law, in part, because it determined that the statute was not too burdensome on users because of the [content filter] disabling option available to adult patrons. The majority also determined that the blocking technology does not violate the First Amendment even though it shuts off some legitimate, informational Web sites."

What makes it permissible for the American Library Association to then freely and publicly denounce the Supreme Court's decision without government retaliation?

In another pair of landmark rulings issued while we were in Toronto, the Supreme Court upheld the use of race in college admissions decisions. The legitimacy of using race in admissions decisions has been unclear since the Court's decision twenty-five years ago in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke when the justices specifically decided that California's policy of admission quotas--16 out of 100 seats in the entering class were reserved for members of designated racial and ethnic minority groups--was unconstitutional.

However, as a CNN legal analysis just published today explains,

"There is another issue that has dogged the lower courts since Bakke: Do universities serve a 'compelling interest' (the kind of interest necessary to permit a racial classification) when they attempt to assemble a racially diverse student body? And if so, what exactly is that interest? In Bakke, Justice Powell said they did -- and the interest was the First Amendment interest in promoting the expression of diverse viewpoints on campus. He reasoned that such expression in a university was part of academic freedom; that academic freedom is itself a constitutional value under the First Amendment; that viewpoint and background are connected (though not perfectly so); and thus that universities could use race as one factor among others in their efforts to compose a diverse student body. But controversy remained as to whether Powell's individual view [in Bakke] was also that of the current Court."

That controversy was resolved with last week's decision, when "in her majority opinion on the law school's program, Justice O'Connor formally and unambiguously endorsed Justice Powell's position."

But what if O'Connor retires? Overhanging all of these cases is a campaign now underway--with television ads already being aired--in which both sides of the political spectrum hope to sway American opinion about the candidates who MAY be nominated for the Supreme Court by President Bush IF one or two of the older Justices decide to announce their retirement next week following the conclusion of the Court's current session. Since a Bush-appointed justice could be serving on the Court for the next thirty or forty years--the remainder of many Boomers' lifetimes--this campaign could hold the biggest of stakes for many of us.

IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY: THE STORY OF AMERICA'S BILL OF RIGHTS is first a brief history of the formulation of the US Bill of Rights. It is also a look at how the black-robed trustees of the "462 words written two centuries ago" which "promise the basic civil liberties that all Americans enjoy as their birthright" have not always kept that promise for all Americans, and it examines how these words are interpreted and reinterpreted as the group of individuals serving on the Supreme Court change, as society, technology, and other factors change, and as new circumstances and new laws come into play.

Interpretation of new laws in relationship to the Constitution is called judicial review. When it comes to the Bill of Rights, judicial review constantly reveals those 462 words to be a living, enduring organism that is relevant today, no matter what day today is. It causes many of us to be forever amazed by the genius of the Founding Fathers in gathering these words/ideas/ideals (particularly when they and their progeny were such jerks in keeping those sacred rights to themselves and their white male moneyed Protestant slave-owning counterparts for so damned long).

None of the three current Supreme Court cases I present above can be included in IN DEFENSE OF HISTORY which is already being printed and will be released in October. Thus, in one sense, such a book becomes outdated in the scarce months it takes to edit and publish it. For such a book to have some lasting value to a reader and to a library collection, it must illuminate the beginnings and flow of Constitutional history in such a way that readers can understand the process and utilize that understanding as a stepping stone for future exploration as the Bill of Rights continues evolving through new justices and new Court cases.

Russell Freedman's book does just that. It shows how times change and decisions change. It provides juicy, sometimes gross examples of behavior that resulted in the promulgation of the English Common Law, the English Bill of Rights and how those rights and American colonial-period behaviors all contributed to these first ten Amendments to the US Constitution.

Freedman presents many historic decisions--later "corrected" by more-recent Justices--that (hopefully) all of us would agree in retrospect were unfair. Some early examples are a result of a Supreme Court ruling in the early 1800s that the Bill of Rights applied only to the national government. Thus (besides the slaves, the Native Americans, and the boorish treatment of women) you had other situations I wasn't aware of such as:

"In New Jersey, non-Protestants weren't granted full civil rights until 1844. In New Hampshire, Catholics couldn't vote until 1851."

But the vast proportion of the information and cases that Russell Freedman presents involve issues that are relevant and vital to today's teens. Discussion of Japanese Internment is followed by a look at the treatment and roundups of Muslim and Arab men in America following September 11th. Freedman explores many other hot-button issues such as reproductive freedom, high-tech snooping, random drug testing, the Internet, and the Death Penalty. I found his presentation of the modern issues and historic precedents surrounding the Second Amendment to be especially thought-provoking. (I'd love to see classroom discussion of that chapter coupled with a viewing of Bowling for Columbine.)

Accompanying both the historic and current issues are great tie-in photos and other illustrations. For instance, back in February we discussed with our students Bretton Barber, the Michigan kid who was kicked out of school for wearing a shirt with a printed photo of the President captioned "International Terrorist." Barber--who along with the ACLU has a lawsuit pending against the school district--invoked the Tinker v. Des Moines case from the 1960s in asserting his right to wear that shirt. Not only does this book include discussion of the Tinker case, it has a great photo of the two Tinker kids holding their black armbands emblazoned with peace symbols. (In ruling for the Tinker siblings, the Court decreed that constitutional protections "are not shed at the school house gate.")

The more sophisticated history students will consume this book quickly and be hungry for more. They will be able to dig into the extensive bibliographical sources that Freedman provides us, the majority of which have been published within the last decade. But the typical eighth-grade American History student will find this book in itself a wealth of information and a doorway to the beauty and enduring nature of our country's most precious of documents.

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com