On curse words and publishing

Here is an article from the New York Times on the subject that I have kept.

When I do a quick search on the Student Press Law Center site, I get this collection of links on the topic.

This a terrific radio essay from NPR's Jeremy Nunberg that aired on "Fresh Air."

From my own perspective, it is important to get students to see that "curse words" are not obscene (as defined by the law). However, they are often "vulgar," and courts have generally maintained that schools have some power to limit the amount of vulgar speech.

In my own conversations with students, we have talked about whether including the vulgarity is necessary for readers to understand the quote or incident. In many cases, the vulgarity comes out in a stressful situation, full of emotion (as in right after a close loss in a game, or after a person has been physically hurt). In those case, we never printed the vulgarity, since it seemed we were taking advantage of a person's emotional situation. But those were always students, and we felt we had a duty to avoid unnecessarily embarrassing students.

On the other hand, if a national political figure uses vulgarities, there is less need to protect such public figures from embarrassment. They should know better.

In the end, it is always about community standards when it comes to making the call on whether to print a curse word. Even when I taught in liberal Iowa City, students and parents did not favor "free and easy" use of vulgarities in the student press, or the professional press. This is an ethical decision, as opposed to a legal decision, which is why deciding what to do needs some serious discussion.

A personal memory: When I was 13 years old (in 1963), I was babysitting my younger siblings and watching the Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson, when he actually said "hell" and "damn" on the air. It was the first time, evidently, those particular four-letter words had been uttered on network TV. I was shocked and thrilled! On a recent Wednesday night, I was watching Samantha Bee on TBS and she said "shit" without batting an eye. Clearly, use of language evolves. The republic still stands, though it may be a bit wobbly.