Professor Saburo Ienaga brought a set of suits against the textbook authorization system operated by the Ministry of Education as illegal and unconstitutional. Under the 1955 system the suits became an arena of ideological controversies as to who has the right to children's education, the state or people. The "People's right to education" camp argued that teachers of primary and secondary schools, as well as professors in higher institutions, should enjoy academic freedom of teaching. During the development of the trial, the justification for this argument changed. Emphasizing children's right to learn, in turn, they asserted freedom of teaching on the ground that teachers can provide education adapted to each child's stage of development. According to this theory, because education is a self-directed activity based on educational values, it therefore should avoid any intervention by government. Although apolitical it might seem, paradoxically, this theoretical transition intensified the political conflict between the two camps. The new standpoint of "people's right to education" did not make any modification of roles that teachers as laboring class should play in the nation's united front. The textbook trial as mass movement reflected the Japanese Communist Party's political strategy, which ordained the struggle against both American imperialism and half-subjugated Japanese monopoly capitalism as the primary purpose.

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