Nord discusses why religion has disappeared from public school textbooks and explores the significance of this absence for assessing whether the textbooks are religiously neutral. Argues that an understanding of politics, history, economics, and sociology demands the study of religion. Yusof, the responder, points out that the First Amendment does…

Recent court decisions in Tennessee and Alabama requiring the teaching of "creationism" and the banning of "secular humanism" challenge educators to listen to the critics and present a wider curriculum including the role of religion in human affairs while protecting our heritage of intellectual freedom. (MD)

Presents four essays that discuss (1) the continued apathy of many English teachers toward censorship of textbooks, (2) the tenuous commitment of the general public to the First Amendment rights of speech and assembly, (3) feminists as censors, and (4) the tendency of conflicts between censors and anticensors to be dominated by the extremes. (RBW)