This proposed legislation in Arkansas names a specific author whose books are to be disallowed from being included in courses and curricula in public schools:
Is it a bill of attainder that is prohibited by the United States and Arkansas constitutions?
(Note: this thread is not intended to be about the political viewpoint of the author. It is about whether naming a specific author whose books are to be disallowed is a bill of attainder. You can imagine if the proposal named some other author for the purpose of this discussion.)
The term seems to apply to criminal acts, so not relevant to this legislation. But sometimes I can use a good reminder of why I’m happy to live in the Northeast, so thanks!
Are there actually schools in AR (or anywhere?) using Howard Zinn? I certainly wasn’t exposed to it until undergrad and even that wasn’t through required course texts.
I was assigned A People’s History of the United States in my high school course. We were expected to read it in its entirety as well as several other Zinn writings. This was in the South too, btw.
My son was assigned Zinn’s book in APUSH – but of course it was only one book assigned, and their primary text was quite traditional. The point is to present alternative view points, to enable the students to learn to rely on multiple sources and to also help high school understand that history is not a cut-and-dry recording of facts or memorization of dates, but rather a field of study in which there can be considerable disagreement and debate.
It would be insane of a high school teacher assigned Zinn’s book as the primary text in a class… but it’s a mark of a good course and good teacher when there are multiple sources with differing viewpoints in a class, particularly a history class.
I know that my son had Zinn’s book in his class, but i don’t know whether he was assigned to read the entire book or if the teacher just assigned specific chapter at appropriate points. I agree with critiques about Zinn’s methodology, but I was glad that my son had the book and was exposed to those viewpoints-- again, in the context where he was also required to read a traditional text and class discussion and writing assignments were often some variation “compare and contrast”. My son happened to attend a very ethnically diverse high school – I’m wondering if that was a factor in text choice – because traditional US history books do tend to be written from a white, ethnocentric point of view.