Everyone has the right to write and read what they want.
So, if students may feel offended by it, then everyone has the power to deny reading a book because of its content. For this particular book, alternate assignments are most always provided in school. You do not have to read every book, so you do not have to change this one so you can. There are plenty of books people find offensive that are not censored. If every single person wanted it changed, then that would be different, but since not everyone does, there are still people unhappy with it. If the book needs to be changed so someone can read it, what is the point in reading it at all? .
Further, the people that want Huck Finn censored do not seem to realize that Huck Finn is not about the n-word. F.R Leavis comments that, even though Twain used such harsh words, the message in the end was still "innate, natural human goodness, which would flower into brotherhood if it could only be protected against the taint of society" (Modern American Literature 295) The n-word is used because the book it is about that time period and what it was like. The book is historically accurate, whereas if the n-word was replaced with the word slave, it would not be because slaves were not called slaves. Mark Twain wrote the book this way because he wanted to make it realistic and emphasize the poor treatment of the slaves then. Twain stresses the dehumanization that slaves faced during this time, like when Aunt Sally asks if anyone was hurt in a riverboat accident, and Huck himself answers "No'm. Killed a nigger," she replies, "Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt" (Twain 224), this showing them disregarding a slave as a human life. Also, Twain shows Huck's internal battle with his learned, racist tendencies and his moral obligation to do what he knows what is right. One instance of this is when Huck apologizes to Jim after the fog incident even when he does not feel like he has to (89).
