Only One Library Book Ban Case Has Ever Made It to the Supreme Court
Remembering 1982’s Island Trees v. Pico
In 1982, the US Supreme Court decided Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico, a case in which a school board was sued over its decision to remove books from a school library.
You may be surprised to learn that it was the first — and, so far, only — library book ban case to be heard by the Supreme Court.
What happened was this: Shortly after the start of the 1975 school year, three members of the New York-based Island Trees Board of Education — Frank Martin, Patrick Hughes, and board chair Richard Ahrens — attended a conference sponsored by the conservative activist group Parents of New York United. At the conference, someone circulated a list of books that they considered “objectionable.”
When nine of those books were later found in the library of Island Trees High School, Ahrens and the board ordered them removed, calling them “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Sem[i]tic, and just plain filthy.” The books were:
- Richard Wright’s Black Boy;
