Limits to Freedom: Oklahoma's Private Values and Public Policies on the Right to Read ; No. 2; Minors and Minorities

<v Narrator>This is limits to freedom. <v Narrator>Oklahoma's Private Values and Public Policies on the Right to Read. <v Narrator>This program is sponsored by the Public Library Systems of Oklahoma and supported in part <v Narrator>by a grant from the Oklahoma Humanities Committee and the National Endowment for the <v Narrator>Humanities. Views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily represent <v Narrator>those of either this radio station or the sponsoring agencies. <v Speaker>[Patriotic music plays]. <v Abraham Lincoln>Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth <v Abraham Lincoln>on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated <v Abraham Lincoln>to the proposition that all men are created equal. <v Abraham Lincoln>Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation <v Abraham Lincoln>or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

<v Citizen>Conceived in liberty? All men created equal? What kind of gibe is that? <v Citizen 2>You can count me out, man. I don't know whose fathers you're talking about. <v Citizen 3>Forefathers? All men equal? What about the women while all <v Citizen 3>this was happening? <v Child>Daddy, weren't there any kids back then? <v Abraham Lincoln>But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, <v Abraham Lincoln>we cannot hallow this ground. <v Abraham Lincoln>The brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far <v Abraham Lincoln>above our power to add or detract. <v Speaker>[Slow, patriotic song plays] <v Narrator>What you have just heard is a dramatization of a controversy which is challenging <v Narrator>traditional American education and history all over the country today. <v Narrator>The people involved in this challenge are complaining that for nearly 200 years, American

<v Narrator>history, as we learned it in school, has been the story of the few white men who have led <v Narrator>political movements. They're concerned that their children are growing up with virtually <v Narrator>no knowledge of all the different kinds of people who have made America what it is today. <v Narrator>And these people, not all of them members of minority groups, are charging that Americans <v Narrator>are, in effect, cut off from information about minorities. <v Narrator>They're demanding that this information be made available in our schools, our libraries, <v Narrator>on the television, the radio and in the newspapers. <v Narrator>There are more than two points of view on this subject, but it is clear that lined up on <v Narrator>the other side is a large group of people who, if they are not hostile to the idea of <v Narrator>minority education, at least are unconcerned. <v Narrator>They believe that public time, public money and public attention should focus on the <v Narrator>concerns of everyday life, how to get a job or make a marriage last or <v Narrator>raise healthy children. It is these subjects which this group of people wants to see <v Narrator>emphasized in our education and communication systems. <v Narrator>The demands of each of these groups and the controversy between them is what this program

<v Narrator>is all about. <v Speaker>[Banjo plays] <v Russell Bates>Many things that were available with the rather boiled out <v Russell Bates>and dry histories that they only taught, I had no concept of myself <v Russell Bates>as an Indian from history that I learned in school. <v Russell Bates>I was taught the same history as everyone else. Therefore, I must be the same as everyone <v Russell Bates>else. But the social difference that was very heavily demonstrated to <v Russell Bates>me in school meant that I was different. <v Russell Bates>I was being taught the same as everyone else to believe, the same as everyone else. <v Russell Bates>But the social system told me I was different, and I had no concept of why this should <v Russell Bates>be. I had no contact with anything that would tell me something <v Russell Bates>about myself. <v Narrator>Most of us can remember the experience of being left out at something at one time or <v Narrator>another while we were growing up.

<v Narrator>It's not a very pleasant experience, one which probably made us feel somehow inferior or <v Narrator>unwanted. But what Oklahoma Indian author Russell Bates has just recounted is <v Narrator>the experience of being left out of his own nation's history, not just as a single, <v Narrator>unimportant individual, but as a member of an entire group. <v Narrator>This feeling of exclusion explained by Bates is probably the major complaint of those <v Narrator>concerned about the education available to and about minorities. <v Narrator>But Russell Bates is an adult, you say, and his education was a long time ago. <v Narrator>A lot more information about minorities is being presented in the schools now. <v Narrator>Not so, says University of Oklahoma education consultant Mae Nolan. <v Mae Nolan>I found out in that textbook they portrayed girls in their stereotypical <v Mae Nolan>roles. Girls rather bicycle's. <v Mae Nolan>And I think 26 times I counted girls with with dolls. <v Mae Nolan>But even over and beyond that, they only had black males playing with <v Mae Nolan>white males. Indians were not allowed in that little textbook. <v Mae Nolan>And this is a very current textbook and adopted textbooks used in

<v Mae Nolan>the elementary schools in Oklahoma. <v Mae Nolan>And I think children get first information from the first books <v Mae Nolan>they read in the classrooms along with their own individual experiences. <v Mae Nolan>And if you never see yourself, then what kind of self-concept is that going to have? <v Narrator>What Mae Nolan has said is very interesting. <v Narrator>But after all, minorities in the United States taken separately, at least form a very <v Narrator>small part of our total society. <v Narrator>Why should the rest of us care whether information about them is available? <v Narrator>Oklahoma City educator Kay Teel answers that this lack of information has damaged us all. <v Kay Teel>The harm that this kind of thing does is not confined to just excluded group <v Kay Teel>either. For them, of course, I think the harm is possibly <v Kay Teel>greater, uh, has a more disastrous effect. <v Kay Teel>The not belonging, the exclusion, the feelings of rejection, <v Kay Teel>the feeling too, I think when you identify with your own grouping. <v Kay Teel>My case with women, with females, your feeling

<v Kay Teel>becomes - because children tend to trust books for some reason - as an adult, <v Kay Teel>I don't quite understand, but the feeling that you come out with is <v Kay Teel>that apparently your group, your background, your ancestors <v Kay Teel>never did anything worthwhile and therefore that's why they're not mentioned. <v Kay Teel>So if they were not contributors to this society, then <v Kay Teel>you're really not too much either. <v Kay Teel>But even for the others, for the elite group, for the group <v Kay Teel>that is mentioned, harm is done. <v Kay Teel>And I take this harm comes from a distorted picture of the society <v Kay Teel>that they receive from books like this. <v Kay Teel>In a sense, we could call it an erroneous map of reality because that is one <v Kay Teel>of the functions of education. One of the primary functions is to give the child <v Kay Teel>a map of reality, a picture of the society that he can trust and that he can base <v Kay Teel>his actions on. And when we give him a distorted map, <v Kay Teel>then that means that his behavior is going to be distorted.

<v Narrator>Even assuming that what Kay Teel says is true, that still leaves <v Narrator>us with no answer to the question of why minority groups have been excluded from American <v Narrator>history or what, if anything, we might want to do about it. <v Speaker>[Banjo music plays] <v Mae Nolan>I make the assumption that one reason information, accurate information, <v Mae Nolan>is not provided in textbooks about minorities is to <v Mae Nolan>force people to maintain their stereotypic viewpoints <v Mae Nolan>about groups of people. Therefore, certain people in a particular <v Mae Nolan>position and category, because we are prejudiced about <v Mae Nolan>most people and things because of our lack of knowledge. <v Mae Nolan>But if you know something about that person and you know that they tend <v Mae Nolan>to have more similarities than differences, then your <v Mae Nolan>prejudices might be to some degree eliminated.

<v Narrator>Even if American education is not specifically aimed at preserving the status <v Narrator>quo, as Mae Nolan claims, Kay Teel, who spoke a moment ago, says it has that effect. <v Kay Teel>It occurs to me that this may be one reason that there has been such fierce opposition <v Kay Teel>on the part of some to the idea of equality when the blacks sought it, <v Kay Teel>when the Indians sought it, when women sought it, those in a position of power - those <v Kay Teel>who have seen themselves as the active group, as the contributors, as the one who built <v Kay Teel>this country, who have been given <v Kay Teel>through omission, this idea that the other groups never contributed anything. <v Kay Teel>Then when the group says we want equality, we want all of these <v Kay Teel>goodies that you are getting, say to themselves, why should they? <v Kay Teel>They have never done anything. It's only we who have done these things. <v Kay Teel>So why should these others share in the rewards? <v Narrator>Most of us would probably agree that there are some things which need to be changed in <v Narrator>the United States right now.

<v Narrator>But just as probably we would disagree violently on what those things are. <v Narrator>Oklahoma City parent activist Mrs. Earl Naylor is one Oklahoman who does not believe the <v Narrator>schools have any place in the business of teaching children to change society. <v Mrs. Naylor>The most important right they have it is right under their nose and they are being <v Mrs. Naylor>denied it and they don't realize it. <v Mrs. Naylor>And that is the right to a good academic education. <v Mrs. Naylor>Children graduating from school today, they cannot read. <v Mrs. Naylor>They cannot spell. They cannot construct a sentence. <v Mrs. Naylor>And we have a public school system that everybody is hurting from <v Mrs. Naylor>because of all these social efforts being made in school. <v Mrs. Naylor>Now, something's going to suffer when you start bringing in all these new <v Mrs. Naylor>programs that don't concern themselves with reading, writing and arithmetic. <v Mrs. Naylor>Something's going to have to make room for that. <v Mrs. Naylor>And unfortunately, they are getting less grammar to make room for <v Mrs. Naylor>something else. You just cannot use the public schools for <v Mrs. Naylor>all kinds of social reform without hurting the child's academic education.

<v Mrs. Naylor>And that's not my opinion; it's happening. <v Mrs. Naylor>That's the way it's turning out. They're suffering academically because the schools are <v Mrs. Naylor>so bogged down in social reform. <v Mrs. Naylor>And I can only speak for myself, but I would bet anybody that if you could poll <v Mrs. Naylor>every parent of schoolchildren in this country, they would tell you that <v Mrs. Naylor>they would rather have their children come out of school with a good, solid education, <v Mrs. Naylor>either be prepared for college or be prepared for some kind of work and <v Mrs. Naylor>worry less about the social reforms. <v Narrator>Mrs. Naylor has just said that the function of the schools is in effect to prepare our <v Narrator>children for their future jobs, whatever those jobs might be. <v Narrator>She and a large group of parents, which she represents in philosophy, <v Narrator>believe that social or minority education is a waste of valuable learning time and <v Narrator>perhaps undesirable in itself when presented in school. <v Narrator>Mrs. Naylor and those who share her philosophy are putting a great deal of pressure on <v Narrator>the schools to stop teaching many of the new curricula which emphasize social issues.

<v Narrator>In 1972, a group with similar concerns prompted a grand jury investigation in Tulsa <v Narrator>into the propriety of supplemental materials on these issues purchased by the school <v Narrator>system there. These parents are concerned and justly so, in their position as parents, <v Narrator>because they fear their children are losing out on essential basic skills <v Narrator>while learning other ideas their parents find objectionable. <v Narrator>But there are others who believe that our distrust of thorough social investigation stems <v Narrator>from what they see as the paternalistic nature of American culture. <v Narrator>University of Oklahoma literature professor Gwenn Davis charges that we are actually <v Narrator>afraid of what might happen if we allow people to find out too much about each other. <v Gwenn Davis>I think one of the main reasons that we've not done the research <v Gwenn Davis>on minorities and not had free <v Gwenn Davis>access to information about those minorities is a traditional <v Gwenn Davis>idea that society needs a center, <v Gwenn Davis>a central authority, and that central authority is traditionally white

<v Gwenn Davis>and male. <v Gwenn Davis>Ah - one of the implications of this idea is that unless society has that <v Gwenn Davis>center to it, things are not going to work. <v Gwenn Davis>We won't be able to go on. We won't be able to maintain order. <v Gwenn Davis>This means that others are defined in their relationship <v Gwenn Davis>to that center. If you take women, for instance, the role of a woman traditionally <v Gwenn Davis>is to support and facilitate what that central authority <v Gwenn Davis>figure is doing rather than to strike out on their own. <v Gwenn Davis>The idea of, you know, if the husband doesn't run the family, the family <v Gwenn Davis>will somehow fall apart. <v Gwenn Davis>There is also a sort of benevolence that goes along with this. <v Gwenn Davis>If the central authority is white, male or is the father of the family, then he has <v Gwenn Davis>certain responsibilities to support the family, to maintain the family and so on. <v Gwenn Davis>So believing that he is doing things for their own good, the central <v Gwenn Davis>authority figure will impose certain roles and attitudes on the

<v Gwenn Davis>other members of the family. So a lot of this teaching only the white male <v Gwenn Davis>point of view, the white male history, if you will, is <v Gwenn Davis>part of this complex of well, but that's what it is. <v Gwenn Davis>And that's what's good for you. And you should know about that because I'm maintaining <v Gwenn Davis>our society. <v Gwenn Davis>One of the sad things that that's a result of this is that those who are in <v Gwenn Davis>the authority position really believe that they are doing <v Gwenn Davis>what they're doing for the good of others. <v Gwenn Davis>But it has certain unfortunate results in that minority groups, women, <v Gwenn Davis>children, do not have a full understanding of themselves, nor do those authority <v Gwenn Davis>figures have a full understanding of themselves. <v Gwenn Davis>And I think that impoverishes rather than enriches our culture. <v Gwenn Davis>I think it's a shame that we don't know as much as possible about the way other people <v Gwenn Davis>think. <v Narrator>That's a pretty complicated answer, even from a college professor like Dr. Davis. <v Narrator>A colleague of hers, university of Oklahoma history professor Wayne Morgan <v Narrator>says the answer to why minorities have been left out of so much of American history is

<v Narrator>actually quite simple. Until very recently, says Dr. Morgan, historians <v Narrator>have just not been interested in areas which involve minorities. <v Wayne Morgan>I think that historians and other academics have <v Wayne Morgan>had a perfectly rational and understandable view of American history and American <v Wayne Morgan>life that they simply made them unconscious of these groups as historical <v Wayne Morgan>movers and shakers. Let's put it that way. <v Wayne Morgan>They've put their emphasis in writing and studying history and American society <v Wayne Morgan>on what they conceived honestly to be larger, more important dominance. <v Wayne Morgan>We might say, such as National Party politics, international diplomacy, national economic <v Wayne Morgan>policy, things like- things of that nature from a national point of view. <v Speaker>[Banjo music plays] <v Narrator>Once again, we have reached a crossroads in our discussion of minority education in <v Narrator>Oklahoma and the rest of the country.

<v Narrator>If we accept the theory that minority groups have been left out of most of the <v Narrator>information we receive, and there has been little dispute of that point, then we have two <v Narrator>choices. We can either decide that minority education or information is not <v Narrator>very important and has been ignored for good reasons. <v Narrator>Or we can decide that information about minorities is essential to a society which claims <v Narrator>to have been conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are <v Narrator>created equal. <v Narrator>But if this isn't our choice, we face a major overhaul of virtually all our educational <v Narrator>and communications systems. <v Narrator>Some who believe in the importance of minority education will balk at this point as they <v Narrator>realize that including minorities in our national self-image would mean new or additional <v Narrator>textbooks. A different approach to news reporting and television programing, expansion <v Narrator>of library materials and a great deal of new research. <v Narrator>Oklahoma City School Superintendent Dr. Tom Smith has a $40 million plus school system <v Narrator>and is well aware of these problems. <v Narrator>Nonetheless, Dr. Smith says there is no excuse for not making sure that each student is <v Narrator>exposed to information about the country's minorities.

<v Tom Smith>There is a shortage of materials in the textbooks and other materials used by teachers <v Tom Smith>in the instructional program, and it will take time to bring this about. <v Tom Smith>There are some school systems, our school system, for example, did utilize <v Tom Smith>a major portion of a year in developing materials related to a minority group. <v Tom Smith>Then, of course, this does cost money and it will take time in order to bring this <v Tom Smith>about, particularly in times of financial shortages or financial <v Tom Smith>difficulties. But I think that we just must recognize that history <v Tom Smith>is history and that it should include all groups, all races, <v Tom Smith>all sexes, I guess there's only two. <v Tom Smith>But both sexes and all religions, not just <v Tom Smith>the white Caucasian male image <v Tom Smith>that tends to be left in some cases. <v Tom Smith>I think that we have an obligation to prepare the young people <v Tom Smith>to live in a society, live in this world that- as <v Tom Smith>I interpret- that it includes more than just what has been referred to

<v Tom Smith>the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. <v Tom Smith>I think the reading, writing and arithmetic certainly are important, but I think that <v Tom Smith>an education is far more comprehensive and inclusive than just those. <v Tom Smith>I think you could have those traits or those skills and still <v Tom Smith>not be able to fit successfully into into the modern day's world. <v Narrator>University of Oklahoma Professor Wayne Morgan, who we spoke earlier, agrees that minority <v Narrator>information is a value. But he says its omission has been understandable, largely <v Narrator>because, he says, it is so hard to find. <v Wayne Morgan>Persons who write textbooks and persons who to teach out of them and persons <v Wayne Morgan>to take these courses - formal courses - do have 18 weeks or 16 <v Wayne Morgan>weeks or whatever. And therefore, you simply have to say, if you're the instructor, well, <v Wayne Morgan>I've got 40 lectures and I'm going to choose what <v Wayne Morgan>I think are the 40 most important things in this arbitrary entity called the United <v Wayne Morgan>States since 1870 - sixty five or seventy seven or whatever your courses title is called. <v Wayne Morgan>And you know, you just do the things that the subjects that you think apply

<v Wayne Morgan>to most people. I don't think there's been any conspiracy. <v Wayne Morgan>I don't think there's been any conscious effort on the part of historians <v Wayne Morgan>to ignore. I think that's simply the way they saw the nation and the way it developed. <v Wayne Morgan>There is a very, you know, technical thing we should not forget. <v Wayne Morgan>You cannot, in fact, find out much about the daily life of most blacks <v Wayne Morgan>or women or whites in the 19th century. <v Wayne Morgan>You can find out a great deal out about the presidents <v Wayne Morgan>of the United States, the presidents who built the economic system, the person who <v Wayne Morgan>conducted the wars and so forth and so on, simply because that's where the written <v Wayne Morgan>records are. <v Narrator>But Dr. Morgan's contention that minority information is virtually inaccessible is <v Narrator>disputed by those who are involved in study in what are considered to be minorities. <v Narrator>Oklahoma City educator Kay Teel says the information is available and well worth the <v Narrator>effort involved in collecting it. <v Kay Teel>I say that there is an obligation on the part of education, on the part of the <v Kay Teel>educational establishment to provide each and every <v Kay Teel>child with the most accurate information about his or her society,

<v Kay Teel>about the background of this country, about the history and the real history of this <v Kay Teel>country. As accurate as humanly possible. <v Kay Teel>The problem, of course, and the one that you hear about frequently is that <v Kay Teel>devoting time and money and resources to this. <v Kay Teel>But then we always have to set priorities. <v Kay Teel>And I think our highest priority in education should be set upon the truth. <v Kay Teel>And certainly the material is available. <v Kay Teel>It does not take that much time and effort and digging to get; it's <v Kay Teel>there, if we simply believe in its importance enough <v Kay Teel>to gather it together and make it available to the schools. <v Narrator>Kay Teel and Dr. Tom Smith have both claimed that society has a responsibility to provide <v Narrator>information about minority groups to all its members. <v Narrator>But Mrs. Earl Naylor, who also spoke previously, says there should not be the <v Narrator>responsibility of the entire society. <v Mrs. Naylor>I think that the minorities can offer these programs

<v Mrs. Naylor>in their own communities through other agencies, to the young people. <v Mrs. Naylor>I'm not saying it shouldn't be in school, but it doesn't have to be and it can be taught <v Mrs. Naylor>somewhere else, some other way. <v Narrator>Mrs. Naylor gets some support for this view from Oklahoma State University professor Dr. <v Narrator>Peter Rollins. <v Peter Rollins>Minorities who are justifiably left out by public agencies must <v Peter Rollins>have- are duty bound to make their needs known to the administrator <v Peter Rollins>or to the agency in question. <v Peter Rollins>Now, there certainly are - if we're talking about libraries, there certainly <v Peter Rollins>are well known historic cases where people who were not <v Peter Rollins>serviced by public agencies created their own collections <v Peter Rollins>of materials. So we may if, let's say, the establishment with a capital <v Peter Rollins>E of any library system, is adamant and not recognizing <v Peter Rollins>the stated needs of a minority it then may be incumbent upon the minority <v Peter Rollins>to go out and create its own library and to create its own system of distribution <v Peter Rollins>of ideas and materials.

<v Speaker>[Banjo music plays] <v Narrator>We have now examined some aspects of the question, how much information about minorities <v Narrator>in this country do we want and need to have available? <v Narrator>But before we end this program, let's take a brief look at what might be considered the <v Narrator>newest and certainly in one sense, the smallest minority around- our children. <v Narrator>Children are a minority, not only because there are fewer children than adults, but more <v Narrator>importantly, they're what might be called a power minority. <v Narrator>With some important legal exceptions, children, for all practical purposes, <v Narrator>belong to their parents. Legally, parents have the right to do almost anything with their <v Narrator>children which will not physically harm them. <v Narrator>Teachers in their positions as substitute parents six hours a day to some extent share <v Narrator>these rights, just like other groups which have been denied rights and access to <v Narrator>information. Some children and some adults are beginning to believe that children should <v Narrator>have more control over what they do and, more importantly in this discussion, what they <v Narrator>learn. Oklahoma State University Professor Richard Eggemon and Oklahoma City Attorney

<v Narrator>Phil Horning offer a point counterpoint on the issue. <v Richard Eggemon>It seems clear to me that parents have a right and an obligation <v Richard Eggemon>to oversee the basic moral development of their children. <v Richard Eggemon>Children are not sufficiently mature to really tell <v Richard Eggemon>in many cases what is in their best interests or what would harm them. <v Richard Eggemon>I would think that as far as children are concerned, <v Richard Eggemon>parents should have the right to insist that children not <v Richard Eggemon>see certain things or not read certain things. <v Phil Horning>I don't see why you should restrict a child's access to ideas any more than you should <v Phil Horning>adults. The argument is that I suppose it is a lot more impressionable <v Phil Horning>and so forth that, but uh if he is if he's subjected to both <v Phil Horning>sides, that's that's gonna be a growing process for him. <v Phil Horning>It's gonna be freeing. I think he'll grow up less neurotic.

<v Narrator>Before Mr. Horning gets any angry letters, let us hasten to add that he, too, believes <v Narrator>that parents have the responsibility to protect their children from harm. <v Narrator>But he does not count ideas on any list of potential dangers to children. <v Narrator>The Limits to Freedom Project interviewed a number of Oklahoma parents on the issue of <v Narrator>children's rights. Perhaps surprisingly, virtually all of them agreed that parents have <v Narrator>the right and the responsibility to guide or determine their children's intellectual <v Narrator>growth. There was also complete agreement on the point that this was unrealistic. <v Narrator>The children are probably going to read and see a lot of things that their parents won't <v Narrator>like, and the best thing for parents to do is to make sure their children feel free to <v Narrator>talk with them about any subject they meet. <v Narrator>But after amassing all these interviews, we decided we probably hear too much from <v Narrator>parents on the subject of children and too much from adults on virtually everything. <v Narrator>So instead, our final interview is with 14 year old Kerry Divers of Norman. <v Narrator>On the subject of parents telling their children what to read or see, Ms. <v Narrator>Divers had this to say. <v Kerry Divers>People feel like they should be able to decide what they want to do and not <v Kerry Divers>always have their mother with them in deciding what they should do.

<v Kerry Divers>Like Dixie, and what record journalism, too. <v Kerry Divers>Anything like that. Movies, or. <v Kerry Divers>My mom told- raised us up so that we can decide mainly for ourselves what we <v Kerry Divers>thought we could do. And so she just tells us to do <v Kerry Divers>things that we should watch out for. But she doesn't tell us that we have to, because <v Kerry Divers>then they can decide for themselves. You have more responsibility when they grow up. <v Narrator>On the subject of teachers telling students want to read, Kerry takes an even stronger <v Narrator>line. <v Kerry Divers>They don't have the right because they're just there to teach you. <v Kerry Divers>And if you have free time, you should be able to do whatever you want because they gave <v Kerry Divers>you that free time. They didn't. if they told you to read a precise book, they have the <v Kerry Divers>right to tell you to put that other one up. <v Kerry Divers>But when you grow up you're going to leave their ideas anyway and decide your own. <v Kerry Divers>So you should just be able to learn what you feel is right. <v Narrator>Kerry assures us that if her parents or teachers try to interfere with what she reads, <v Narrator>she will definitely want to know why. <v Narrator>And if she doesn't agree, they can expect an argument.

<v Narrator>But sounding surprisingly like the parents who said they wouldn't know how to stop their <v Narrator>children from reading undesirable material, Kerry was also at a loss when we asked what <v Narrator>she would do if arguing failed. <v Speaker>[Banjo music plays] <v Narrator>This program has attempted to present a number of different opinions from various <v Narrator>Oklahomans on the important issue of access to information about minorities and whether <v Narrator>society as a whole has a responsibility to provide that information. <v Narrator>We have not tried to present any one answer on that subject because it is the essence of <v Narrator>democracy that if people are allowed to hear both sides of almost any issue, they will be <v Narrator>able to reach their own intelligent conclusions. <v Narrator>These conclusions may be different, as different as the opinions expressed in this <v Narrator>program, but living in a democracy means tolerating and even welcoming differences. <v Narrator>As American president and philosopher Thomas Jefferson put it, establish the law for <v Narrator>educating the common people. <v Narrator>This is the business of the state. <v Narrator>What kind of education we want and need is the question that faces Oklahoma in 1975. <v Speaker>[Patriotic music plays]

<v Narrator>This has been Limits to Freedom: Oklahoma's Private Values and Public Policies on the <v Narrator>Right to Read. This program is sponsored by the Public Library Systems of Oklahoma <v Narrator>and supported in part by a grant and the Oklahoma Humanities Committee and the National <v Narrator>Endowment for the Humanities. <v Narrator>Views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of either <v Narrator>this radio station or the sponsoring agencies.