Title: Book Banning | The First Amendment Encyclopedia
Headings: The First Amendment Encyclopedia
The First Amendment Encyclopedia
Book Banning
By Susan L. Webb
Book banning is the most widespread form of censorship in the United States
Community standards may be taken into account when deciding if materials are subject to censor
Opponents of book banning emphasize the First Amendment rights of students

Content: The Pat Conroy books "Beach Music" and "The Prince of Tides" were suspended from nearby Nitro High School English classes after parents of two students complained about depictions of violence, suicide and sexual assault. Conroy defended the books in an e-mail reply last month to Hatfield, who teamed with classmates and Nitro students to form a coalition against censorship. ( AP Photo/Jeff Gentner, used with permission from the Associated Press)
Opponents of book banning emphasize the First Amendment rights of students
Those who oppose book banning emphasize that the First Amendment protects students’ rights to receive and express ideas. The Supreme Court in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982) ruled 5-4 that public schools can bar books that are “pervasively vulgar” or not right for the curriculum, but they cannot remove books “simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.” The Court’s decision was, however, narrow, applying only to the removal of books from school library shelves. The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom documents censorship incidents around the country and suggests strategies for dealing with them. Each September, the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Association of American Publishers, and the National Association of College Stores sponsor Banned Books Week — Celebrating the Freedom to Read. Designed to “emphasize that imposing information restraints on a free people is far more dangerous than any ideas that may be expressed in that information,” the week highlights banned works, encourages citizens to explore new ideas, and provides a variety of materials to promote free speech events. The American Library Association publishes the bimonthly Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, which provides information on censorship, as well as an annual annotated list of books and other materials that have been censored. This article was originally published in 2009.