In a 1953 edition of the Nieman Report, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas stated, "Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us." I wonder what Justice Douglas would say about today's society if he found out that some of America's greatest pieces of literature, such as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, are banned from schools across the nation because of their controversial content.

Between 1990 and 2000, there were 6,364 challenges to ban books recorded by the Office of Intellectual Freedom. In most cases, these books are challenged because they contain profanity or violence, sex or sex education, homosexuality, witchcraft and the occult, 'new age' philosophies, portrayals of rebellious children, or 'politically incorrect,' racist, or sexist language. The concept I still can't seem to grasp is why we as a society try to protect our children from 'the big, bad book' when you can see any of these issues on the nightly news or just by taking a walk around town. If we are going to deny these children some of the greatest works of art, why don't we also eliminate the news, where the only thing you really ever see is the pain and destruction human beings can bring down upon one another.

One of the most influential U.S. Supreme Court cases to date pertaining to the banning of books, school libraries, and the First Amendment was the Board of Education, Island Trees School District v. Pico case. The Island Trees' Board of Education went against the requests of a committee of school staff and parents and ordered that several "questionable" books be removed from the junior high and high school libraries. When questioned about what they had done, the Board stated that the books in question were "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy." Acting through a friend, with several other students to back up his argument, Steven Pico challenged the Board's decision in a federal district court. In the original trial, the Board won; however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the decision. Following this the Board petitioned to the U.S. Supreme Court and was granted a certiorari.

The question presented to the U.S. Supreme Court Justices during this court case was whether the Board of Education's decision to ban certain books from the school library violated the First Amendment's freedom of speech protections. On June 25, 1982, the Supreme Court Justices ruled that the Board of Education had in fact violated the First Amendment's freedom of speech protections. The majority opinion of the agreeing Justices was that "Although school boards have a vested interest in promoting respect for social, moral, and political community values, their discretionary power is secondary to the transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment. The Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, held that as centers for voluntary inquiry and the dissemination of information and ideas, school libraries enjoy a special affinity with the rights of free speech and press. Therefore, the Board could not restrict the availability of books in its libraries simply because its members disagreed with their idea content."

One of the major counter-arguments for banning books in school libraries was brought up by Justice Rehnquist during his dissenting opinion after the conclusion of the Board of Education, Island Trees School District v. Pico case. Justice Rehnquist stated, "this Court has never held that the First Amendment grants junior high school and high school students a right of access to certain information in school." Well what good is it for us to be able to write whatever we want if we cannot read whatever we want?

During the Keyishian v. Board of Regents case in 1967, it was said that "students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding." One of the main objectives of the school library is to provide students with this freedom. In a later case, Right to Read Defense Committee v. School Committee in 1978, it was brought up that "a student can literally explore the unknown, and discover areas of interest and thought not covered by the prescribed curriculum. The student learns that a library is a place to test or expand upon ideas presented to him, in or out of the classroom." If schools ban all books that are controversial, racist, sexist, non-age appropriate, 'new age,' or violent, how are we supposed to learn anything from past mistakes or explore new topics from which we can form our own, independent opinions. Face it, it's either this, or we allow schools to force feed whatever information they deem useful in transforming us into their 'model citizen.'

Judy Blume, who now has two of her own books on the "100 Most Banned Books" list, once said, "It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers."

Footnotes:
1 http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/1060/abstract
2 http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/speech/libraries/topic.aspx?topic=banned_books