Talk:Island Trees School District v. Pico

When the Supreme Court made the call

LONG ISLAND BOOK BATTLES

When the Supreme Court made the call
BY SOPHIA CHANG
sophia.chang@newsday.com; Staff writer Jennifer

June 19, 2007

Long Island has had its share of controversies over what constitutes acceptable reading for students.

None was more heated than the book-banning controversy that rocked the Island Trees school district in the 1970s, ultimately delineating First Amendment rights for students in a protracted and hard-fought manifestation of the era's culture wars.

On one side was the politically conservative school board.

In March 1976, the board, headed by Levittown resident Richard Ahrens, pulled nine books out of the high school library and one from the junior high, saying the volumes were "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy."

Their list of banned books included the Pulitzer Prize-winner "The Fixer" by Bernard Malamud, Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughter-house Five," and Richard Wright's "Black Boy."

On the other side was a group of Island Trees students led by student council president Steven Pico and civil liberties advocates who sued the school board over violating their First Amendment rights.

Six years later, the suit reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that while schools "rightly possess significant discretion to determine the content of their school libraries," they cannot ban material based on ideology.

But the issue of school sovereignty was so loaded that even the land's highest court could not fully agree.

Justice Lewis Powell wrote in a dissenting opinion that he was worried about changing education policy through litigation.

The books were ultimately returned to Island Trees' libraries.

But beyond the immediate impact, the case has a robust First Amendment legacy, said Arthur Eisenberg, legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and one of the litigators for the students in the lawsuit.

"I think it has served as a limitation on organized political efforts to remove books from schools, based on ideological content," Eisenberg said.

And the Supreme Court decision also clarified another constitutional right, said scholar David Hudson of the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn.

He pointed out that Justice William Brennan wrote that the right to free speech also includes the right to receive information.

"That's a First Amendment principle that applies way outside the school library. I think that was a real golden nugget," Hudson said.

No formal process for dealing with controversial books came out of what happened in the 1970s, said current Island Trees Superintendent James Parla.

"That was just an unfortunate situation that happened 30 years ago."

Staff writer Jennifer Sinco Kelleher contributed to this story. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling 01:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Edits to the "perfectly permissible" paragraph

The paragraph as written misrepresents the statements made in the plurality's opinion. The quoted words, "perfectly permissible," are not the court's holding, but a statement made by the respondents' counsel at oral argument (the citations to the oral argument transcript make this clear.) When discussing the respondents' statements, Justice Brennan uses the phrase, "in respondents' view" to further distinguish the statements made by respondents at oral argument from the opinion of the court. The introductory statement goes too far when it claims "the court says" it is perfectly permissible to remove books that are pervasively vulgar, at least based on the quoted language. It is reflective of original research.

Moreover, in using the phrase, "perfectly permissible," the respondents' counsel was discussing books that were educationally unsuitable, not books categorized as "pervasively vulgar."

The actual holding of the case may be found one paragraph below, clearly identified as the holding by Justice Brennan: "In brief, we hold that local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to "prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion." West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S., at 642 . Such purposes stand inescapably condemned by our precedents."

I have edited the article to remove the original research and to include the full holding of the court, including the original quotation, so as to accurately represent the plurality's opinion (that is, let the court speak for itself.)

Great, but the parties stipulated that "pervasively vulgar" books may obviously be removed by public schools. Your argument above cannot whitewash that. Books that are "pervasively vulgar" can be removed at any time from any public school anywhere within the jurisdiction of the US Supreme Court. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling 13:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

What the parties stipulated - that is, what they concede for the sake of argument - isn't necessarily the law. Here, the parties' stipulations are bare dicta not explicitly adopted or endorsed by the plurality opinion. The sole holding of the opinion for the purposes of legal authority is the holding found in Justice Brennan's concluding paragraph, at least if one is following the accepted canons of legal interpretation. Absent the citation of subsequent legal authorities supporting your claim, or further clarification by the Supreme Court itself in a later opinion, presenting your conclusion as encyclopedic or authoritative is at best misleading and may well be wrong.

Of course, the problem is who gets to define "vulgarity." Several groups that advocate removing books from schools and libraries describe books using swear words, or depicting sex, or depicting same-sex couples as "vulgar" and "filthy." Yet, several federal courts have found school boards' removal of such books unconstitutional, since denouncing something as "vulgar" can also be a means of "prescribing what is orthodox," and therefore unconstitutional. (If, indeed, it is "permissible," as you claim, for the school board to remove books they see as "pervasively vulgar," then the Island Trees school board should have succeeded in this case, at least in part, based on the school board's claim that some of the books were "filthy.")

Interesting argument. I agree with some of what you said. Regarding "[w]hat the parties stipulated - that is, what they concede for the sake of argument - isn't necessarily the law," that is absolutely correct. But the issue was the political nature of the books in question, and the parties stipulated that "pervasively vulgar" books are not part of that political subset of books because of the obvious fact that public schools should not be giving pervasively vulgar books to children. In other words, it was so obvious to everyone, that discussion of such books was removed from the playing field because even the opposing parties agreed such books should not be made available to children in public schools. That's the point: obviously, public schools should not be providing children with pervasively vulgar books.

But you go on to say, "presenting your conclusion as encyclopedic or authoritative is at best misleading and may well be wrong." You are correct again, in a vacuum, but in the context of the matter, you are incorrect. The issue was so obvious to the parties, to the Court, and to everyone in the world -- public schools should not make available pervasively vulgar books for children -- that my saying the obvious is obvious is not "at best misleading and may well be wrong."

If I said there is no Santa Claus but did not provide a citation, should people really be persuaded by your statement that "[a]bsent the citation of subsequent legal authorities supporting your claim, or further clarification by the Supreme Court itself in a later opinion, presenting your conclusion as encyclopedic or authoritative is at best misleading and may well be wrong"? Santa Claus not existing is as obvious as not giving children pervasively vulgar books.

Now on to your second paragraph. You make the silly argument that no one can say a book is vulgar. Really, that is a silly statement. Oh I know the American Library Association makes local libraries impose policies that refuse to remove such material until a court says otherwise [1], but that really is silly. With so many pervasively vulgar books, and films, and web sites, are people really supposed to think each one has to take years to drag through the courts before obviously inappropriate material for children is kept from the children? Indeed, that is partially why the ALA makes that argument, but I have no clue why people in local communities stand for such obvious delay tactics, especially when such material falls outside of the powers of the library as created by statute.

Then you say, "several federal courts have found school boards' removal of such books unconstitutional, since denouncing something as 'vulgar' can also be a means of 'prescribing what is orthodox,' and therefore unconstitutional." Well I have an open mind. Please provide the citations for these cases. Then people will be in a better postion to evaluate your argument.

Thank you. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling 04:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Redirect

Could someone make Board of Education v. Pico redirect here? It won't let me do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.96.128.36 (talk) 21:41, 22 October 2008 (UTC)