Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico
Board of Education v. Pico, was a Supreme Court case that came out of Long Island, New York, which was heard on March 2nd, 1982 and decided on June 25th, 1982. But the problem that had arisen in the case happened many years before. In 1975 Island Trees’ Board of Education attended a conference held by the Parents of New York United (PONYU). Those parents presented a list of books to the board, including: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Go Ask Alice by Oliver LaFarge, and Best Short Stories of Negro Writers which was edited by Langston Hughes (American Library Association). Of the listed books, nine were present in the Island Trees’ high school library, another one was in the junior high. The board then removed the books claiming they were “anti-American” and that it was the board’s duty to protect their children from moral danger as well as physical and mental ones (FindLaw). Of course, this angered some students so much that some of them -- most notably Steven Pico -- decided to take it to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
At the district court, the defendants argued that since “the books offended their [the board’s/PONYU] social, political, and moral tastes and not
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Stating that even though the school did have the students best interest in mind, that only comes second to the rights stated in the first amendment. Also, since the books were banned solely based on the fact that the board did not like the content in those books, the board could not ban them (Oyez, Board of Education v. Pico). Therefore, the court basically reaffirmed the appellate court's ruling, and stated that “the Constitution, through the First Amendment, does not permit suppression of ideas” (Case Briefs, Board of Education v.