We Censor Ourselves in Education

MY VIEW

When I was a teacher in China, my intern ultimately became the anchor of the evening news on China Central Television. When she appeared a few years later at an educational forum in Cambridge, Mass., this brilliant and self-assured journalist startled the audience by saying, “We have no censorship in China.” When she was challenged at this evidently absurd statement, she replied, “We do not need censorship in China. We censor ourselves.”

So it is in American education today.

This is not about critical race theory, a subject that does not appear in the curricula in any of the 50 states. This is about benign subjects that, until recently, parents and educational leaders expected teachers to understand and teach as they had for decades.