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Whatever the merits might be of that argument in some contexts, in the contexts of removals of books which are currently on library shelves, it amounts to a claim that the majority has the right to silence the views of the minority. Which they don't.
Neither the minority nor the majority have any right to expression of their views in this context, because the library is not a public forum for the expression of views.
The books got on shelves because people chose to put them there, pursuant to a public service. That public service is helping kids improve their reading skills, and perhaps, maybe, their general knowledge. Excluding specific books or even topics of books that some consider objectionable compromises neither of those goals. It does compromise the ability of individuals or groups to see their views represented, but no group, whether majority or minority, has any right to have their views presented at all.
The library cannot present all views, because space is limited.
The library will not present all views, because it is run by humans, and humans are biased.
The library should not present all views, because many of the parents the library exists to serve consider exposure a wide variety of views to be harmful.
Presentation and non-presentation are not equivalent, and non-presentation is by necessity the default.
The desire for presentation can be satisfied elsewhere. The desire for protection cannot; there is no way to un-expose a kid.
Majorities getting their way over minorities is the basis for our entire system, and the will of the majority is overridden only when doing so preserves some necessary right. There is no necessary right being preserved here, but even if there were, the better solution would be to simply allow anyone, majority or minority, group or individual, to exclude whichever books they wish. Allowing anyone to add whichever books they want is not possible, and allowing the majority to pick the books would be less fair than allowing the majority to exclude books, for the reasons stated above.
They absolutely do, have and will. As I have pointed out repeatedly, books I think should be in school libraries absolutely are not allowed in school libraries, for exactly the reasons stated above. I do not object when this principle cuts against me, and you have presented no realistic alternative, because there is no realistic alternative. You can't un-bias the system, and you can't give libraries infinite space. You are not engaging with either limitation in any principled fashion.
Because you are talking about something different. There is a difference between 1) not going out of your way to provide the means for someone who wants to speak; and 2) silencing someone who is already speaking.
When there is no right to speak at all, silencing people for speaking at the expense of the proper function of a system is entirely reasonable. The people in question here did not have a right to start speaking, and indeed doing so was a defection against the commons. Using public resources to advertise your personal ideology or to expose other people's kids to media their parents do not wish them exposed to is unacceptable behavior. Preventing people from doing so is the norm, and always has been. When people violate these norms, there is no requirement to allow them to continue to do so because they are "already speaking". The fact that they are "speaking" where they should not is exactly the reason it is good to stop them.
You are claiming they have a right to continue speaking. This implies they had a right to begin speaking. I know that I do not enjoy such a right, so I do not believe they enjoy it either. If this is "something different", I do not see how.
[EDIT] - Maybe I'm wrong! Maybe school libraries are a forum for speech. If they are, how do I get my prefered material into them? As I've mentioned previously, I think students should have access to gun culture media. Can you describe a plausible way for me to get back issues of Guns & Ammo magazine into public school libraries in New York City? If there's a right to speech, what is the plausible procedure by which I can access that right? It can't be down to the Librarian's choice, because they are a public employee and have no right to use their platform for personal or partisan promotion; we pay them to do a job, and we can absolutely specify exactly how we want that job performed. It has to be the parents or the kids, right? So if I'm a parent, how do I get my stuff stocked in the library, over the objections of the other parents, staff, etc?
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