I could not agree more that teachers should have their students discuss and debate the novel and the use of the N-word. However, if a teacher is going to open the discussion, what's the advantage of beginning with an expurgated version of the story? It seems to me that students mature enough to have the discussion must be also mature enough to read the original words.
I imagine the difference has everything to do with liability or the perception thereof. By this hypothesis, the educational infrastructure fears that presenting the original unexpurgated work may be taken as somehow
endorsing the use of the word. And since all manner of interest groups have nowadays found their voices with respect to what they find offensive, the educational powers-that-be don't want to be found insensitive to the preferences of such groups.
To present the redacted version as part of an official curriculum is to refuse to legitimize the word. I'm not saying I agree with this reasoning, but it does make at least a modicum of sense.
I'm more irritated by PRI's insistence on bleeping profanity from "spellbinding short stories by established and emerging writers" deemed of sufficient cultural value to be
read to a concert-hall audience by "stars of the stage and screen."
