Board of Education v. Pico: A Landmark Case on School Censorship and Students' Rights
Introduction
The Supreme Court case Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico remains a significant legal precedent concerning censorship in schools and the First Amendment rights of students. This article delves into the details of the case, its legal arguments, and its lasting impact on the ongoing debate over access to information in educational settings.
Background of the Case
In 1975, members of the Island Trees school board attended a conference sponsored by a politically conservative parent group. At the conference, they received a list of books the parent group considered "objectionable" and "improper fare for school students". This list served as the catalyst for the events that would lead to the landmark Supreme Court case.
The School Board's Actions
Following the conference, in February 1976, the Board directed the Superintendent of Schools and the Principals of both the Junior and High schools to remove the books so the Board could read them in a closed meeting. In March, the Board appointed a "Book Review Committee" comprised of eight members: four Island Tree parents and four members of school staff. The committee was tasked with reading the books and providing recommendations to the Board based on “educational suitability,” “good taste,” “relevance,” and “appropriateness to age and grade level”.
By July 1976, the committee had reached a decision: five of the books should be returned to the libraries, two should be removed completely, one should be retained but should require parental approval to check out, and two they were undecided about.
The Students' Lawsuit
Fed up with books being banned by the school administration, on January 4, 1977, students at Island Trees High School in Long Island, New York, along with the New York Civil Liberties Union, sued the school board for this unconstitutional censorship. Led by Island Trees student council president Steven Pico, the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v.
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The Legal Journey
After an initial burst of media attention, the plaintiffs returned to being students, leaving the legal work to the lawyers. In 1979, the district court ruled in favor of the school board. The District Court found in favor of the School Board immediately, saying the Board had the authority to remove anything they found vulgar, in bad taste, immoral, or irrelevant. The students, aged 13 to 17 at the time the books were removed, appealed. Two more judgements, and a second appeal later, the case was presented in front of the Supreme Court on March 2, 1982.
The Supreme Court Decision
In June 1982, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the students' favor. While the Supreme Court found in favor of Steven Pico and the other students, there were seven different opinions written regarding the decision. Justices Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens, and Byron White concurred with the decision; Justice Harry Blackmum concurred in part; and Chief Justice Burger, and Justices Lewis Powell, William Rehnquist, and Sandra Day O’Connor dissented, rejecting the right of the students to have access to particular books.
Justice Brennan's Opinion
In his opinion, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote that while “local school boards have a substantial legitimate role to play in the determination of school library content,” those boards’ authority “must be exercised in a manner that comports with the transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment.” In other words, school officials can’t ditch books just because they don’t like them. Justice Brennan noted the Court had previously held that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate" (Tinker v.).
Justice White's Concurrence
Justice White provided the necessary fifth vote for the outcome, which was to allow the case to proceed in the lower court. Rather, he rejected the plurality's decision to speak about "the extent to which the First Amendment limits the discretion of the school board to remove books from the school library," and he concluded that there was "no necessity for doing so at this point. When findings of fact and conclusions of law are made by the District Court, that may end the case. If, for example, the District Court concludes after a trial that the books were removed for their vulgarity, there may be no appeal.
Dissenting Opinions
Chief Justice Burger filed a dissenting opinion in which Justices Powell, Rehnquist, and O'Connor joined. Justices Powell and O'Connor each filed an additional dissenting opinion. Writing about the plurality opinion, Burger stated, "Were this to become the law, this Court would come perilously close to becoming a 'super censor' of school board library decisions." Justice Burger disagreed with the plurality's view that students have an enforceable right to receive information and ideas that are contained in junior and senior high school library books: "[n]o such right… Presumably all activity within a primary or secondary school involves the conveyance of information and at least an implied approval of the worth of that information.
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In a very short dissenting opinion, Justice O'Connor found the school board to take on a special role as educator.
The Core Issue: Limiting School Board Authority
Board of Education v. Pico addressed the First Amendment issue of local school boards removing library books from junior high schools and high schools. The case hinged on whether a school board's decision to remove books from a school library violated students' First Amendment rights. The students argued that the Board's actions denied them their rights under the First Amendment. The Board characterized the removed books as "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy."
Books at the Center of the Controversy
Eleven books were the subject of the case. Some of the books that the parent group complained about included Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Langston Hughes’s Best Short Stories by Negro Writers. The local school board had ordered that certain books written by celebrated authors such as Richard Wright and Kurt Vonnegut be removed from the district’s school libraries.
The Ruling and its Nuances
No single opinion commanded a majority of the Court or announced any legal binding rule. Justice Brennan announced the judgment of the Court affirming the Court of Appeals and delivered an opinion joined by Justices Marshall and Stevens and joined in all but Part II-A(1) by Justice Blackmun.
The Supreme Court ruled in the students’ favor on First Amendment grounds, holding that the right to read is implied by the First Amendment. The government-in this case, a public school-cannot restrict speech because it does not agree with the content of that speech.
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The Aftermath and Lasting Impact
While the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Island Trees students, the decision was not as decisive as it could have been. The decision, while technically in favor of Steven Pico and his fellow students, should have been the final answer on the issue. However, it was not definitive nor clear enough to dissuade or prevent repeated censorship attempts by school boards and parents alike in the intervening decades.
Additionally, the decision states materials cannot be removed if they violate a governing body’s personal political or social views; it does not protect materials that are removed under the argument of vulgarity or education suitability, nor does it protect materials that have yet to be added to collections in schools. The Justices discussed at length the right to receive information and what was considered appropriate scope of authority by school boards to control the information available to students; however, they did not show a clear majority in their decision. In essence, the Supreme Court decided this particular case but failed to do so in a way that was clear and final that would prevent future censorship attempts by governing bodies-the fallout of which we are now seeing nationwide.
The "Educational Appropriateness" Loophole
The latest wave of challenges we have seen recently take advantage of the loophole left in the Supreme Court’s ruling by using justifications and language related to “educational appropriateness” and “pornographic material.” The language choice should not come as a surprise. Using this framework, the challenges aren’t technically based on personal political views or values, but whether something is “appropriate” or “pornographic” (the apparent modern-day equivalent of vulgar), the clear loopholes left in the decision.
Contemporary Challenges
Perhaps more frightening are the laws passing at the state legislative level in several states across the country. Tennessee’s HB 2666/SB 2247 in particular stands out, where not only is the state trying to censor access, but the bill’s sponsor also flat out admitted he’d burn materials he found offensive. Florida’s CS/HB 1467 caused the Brevard Public Schools to remove the app Epic from its computer system as a preemptive move, sparking alarm by parents at how quickly electronic resources that had gotten children through the pandemic could be taken away with the flip of a switch.
The parallels from forty years ago are numerous, but the problem remains the same: a loud minority of people are pushing to censor what students have access to in schools on unprecedented levels. While we can look at the Pico decision to draw some comfort, it does not mean the same case would play out similarly with today’s Supreme Court.
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