Changes in Policy

The legal history of banned books is brief. For many years, the First Amendment served as a blanket argument in opposition of censorship. Yet, in recent decades, many have attempted to poke holes in the blanket, pulling on loose constitutional threads. While the First Amendment seems simple, after decades of judicial interpretation, it has come to mean much more.

Evolving past the basic protection of the right to speak, Free Speech now stands as a protection for the dissemination and reception of information in any form it may take. An evolution that has transpired due to various courts having unanimously agreed that access to information precedes and enables speech, thus protection of speech must also protect what precedes it.

An idea cemented in the case of Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico. Board of Education v. Pico was centered around the Island Trees School District’s decision to remove several controversial books from their school’s library. Books including Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Bernard Malamud’s The Fixer, and Richard Wright’s Black Boy, which were removed for being “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy.”

Their removal, amongst others, sparked outrage among students, who began to rally and sued the school board for infringing upon their First Amendment rights. The principal and concluding opinion was that “the right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate to the recipient’s meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom,” and as such information could not be censored based on “narrowly partisan and political grounds.”

Censoring information with the intent to hide an opposing viewpoint and alter students’ perspectives is considered unconstitutional. Yet, there was a loose thread in this conclusion. 

While books could not be removed for partisan and political reasons, no mention was made of books being removed for other reasons. Thus, arose the idea of book removal based on community standards. If community standards deemed a book too obscene it could be subject to censorship.

Community standards as a legal idea were established in Miller v. California, which sought to establish a definition of “obscenity” for legal procedure. The result of Miller v. California as it pertains to the case of banned books is that there is no national standard for “obscenity.” Rather, it is left up to individual communities.

As such, locals could push for the removal of books based on the idea of community standards. While Board of Education v. Pico deals with the removal of books in schools and public institutions, it does not limit an individual from bringing a banned book to those institutions.

Currently, there exists no legislation that outright bans students from reading certain books, but past cases such as Tinker v. Des Moines give institutions greater power to do so. Schools are permitted to ban books from being brought on campus if they believe it will disrupt the learning environment. 

This legal history has positioned the argument of banned books to be one centered around whether it is more important to maintain community standards or the meaningful exercise of free speech. In the past year, there has been an increase in the number of advocacy groups seeking to regulate books.

What were previously small movements enacted by concerned parents have evolved to well-resourced coordinated campaigns — an important transition to note, as it has changed the nature of the movement. Community standards are being redefined, no longer reflecting the community as a whole, but rather the interests of individual groups.

Often these groups are found in conservative towns, and reflect conservative perspectives, meaning their interests match up with community standards. Yet, there is always apprehension when great power is concentrated in the hands of one group.

These groups include organizations such as Parents Defending Education, Moms for Liberty, and No Left Turn. Their efforts are concentrated on removing books that cause conflict in the classroom. This means removing books dealing with racism, homosexuality, and politics.

These groups maintain that their focus is not erasing history but lessening divides. Parents Defending Education state that they oppose “idea laundering” where ideas of “oppressor vs oppressed” and “privilege walks” enter the classroom and create distrust and confusion. This is the common thought in book-banning groups spearheaded by parents, not repressing information but regaining parental authority. 

On the opposing side there are organizations such as the American Library Association, #FReadom, and the National Coalition Against Censorship, who oppose book banning in any form and for any reason. These organizations, much like Justice Brennan, believe that freedom of ideas is integral to the meaningful exercise of speech and politics.

These groups argue that by limiting them in the school environment, one limits the very mission of education: individual thinking. Furthermore, they believe that the censorship of books is the censorship of history and marginalized communities, as the books most often targeted by bans are those of oppression, persecution, racism, gender inequality, sexuality, and injustice.

The banning signaling to marginalized students that their school is unwilling to foster inclusivity, rather continuing a cycle of ignorance and isolation. 

Ostracizing minorities from their peers, while they fail to educate their peers beyond a white-washed heteronormative narrative. While these groups may seem at odds in their missions, the reality is that both seek to create the most conducive environment for students’ growth, albeit through different means. 

Policies Regarding Banned Books

There have been several communities with policies for book banning. In regard to the legality of book banning, according to MTSU, censorship of any kind violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

But courts have told public officials throughout the country that they may “take community standards into account when deciding whether materials are obscene” and subject to censor. These rules do not, however, apply to publications by generally accepted authors, like Mark Twain, Judy Blume, or R.L. Stine.

The Supreme Court in the 1982 case Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico ruled 5-4 that public schools can ban books that are vulgar, but cannot ban books “simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.” This decision only applies to the removal of books from the shelves of school libraries.

In terms of specific cases, in July, the Central Bucks School Board in Pennsylvania voted 6-3 to put a policy in place to keep books deemed “inappropriate” out of school libraries. The policy allows community members to challenge books they find inappropriate to then remove from shelves.

The move was seen as unprecedented for Pennsylvania according to the American Library Association, and approximately 100 community members protested the policy. The policy is vague and has left many librarians and teachers wondering which books they can ask to be approved. Additionally, the Nixa School Board in Missouri voted in May to restrict access to three books from their district, citing sexual content.

All three books, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto, and Homegoing are queer memoirs. “Homegoing” was restricted, and the other two were banned. Six other books were also banned more recently, including Looking for Alaska by John Green and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.