The textbook wars: when does a 'censor' become a 'positive pressure group'? Ask Holt Rinehart - the pressure to impose a liberal agenda on the publisher Holt, Rinehart and Winston's Holt Basic Reading textbook products

National Review, Sept 20, 1993 by Stephen Bates

Here is the point that the annual censorship articles usually overlook. Schoolbook protests most often come from conservatives, not because they are uniquely intolerant of ideas that differ from their own, but because liberals have found a far better way to influence books. While conservatives are noisily lobbying elected officials, liberals are collaborating with textbook editors. In large part, the clamorous, occasionally successful "censors" of the Right are reacting against the hushed, hugely successful "positive pressure groups" of the Left.

Mr. Bates is the author of the forthcoming Battleground: One Mother's Crusade, the Religious Right, and the Struggle for Control of Our Classrooms (Poseidon), from which portions of this article are drawn.