Island Trees School District V. Pico Case Study

Once upon a time, in a world not far from here, there are students who are forced to miss their annual train ride to Hogwarts, lock the wardrobe to the magical land of Narnia, and walk through the English countryside themselves instead of upon the back of Black Beauty. Why are these students deprived of those occurrences? They live in America, the land of the free- except when it comes to the books they can read. In fact, many schools across America exercise the practice of banning books. Since 1982, libraries, parents, and schools have attempted to ban 11,300 novels, according to the American Library Association. The essentially innoxious books are challenged for an assortment of reasons, including use of malapropos language, graphic or explicit

“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” (Jacobus 93). Just like the Freedom of Religion there are limitations placed on the Freedom of Speech so that other people’s rights aren’t compromised. For example, people are not allowed to present true threats, or “fighting words” to another person. This restriction was put into play in the court case of Chaplinsky vs. New Hampshire. The Court ruled that “fighting words, by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace and may be punished consistent with the First Amendment.” (Ruane 3-4). In this case if someone was to use “fighting words” which is their perceived freedom of speech, it would not only violate the law, it could violate someone’s freedom of pursue life, liberty, and happiness. With this, we can see that freedom is not always as it

According to the American Library Association, the most common group of people, challenging a book being read in schools, was the parents of the students. Parents have a right to be in charge of what is put into the minds of their students, however just because one parent objects does not mean that the whole school should ban the book from the list. A solution for this book would be to enforce parental consent for books to be read in the classroom. If a parent does not want a book to be read in the classroom, then there should be other options for the student to read. The school and teacher should not trespass on a parent’s rights of raising their child. I believe that if a parent has a concern, they should go and discuss the problem with the teacher so that the teacher will be able to defend their reasoning for choosing the book to be read in the classroom.

There has recently been a renewed interest and passion in the issue of censorship. In the realm of the censorship of books in schools alone, several hundred cases have surfaced each year for nearly the past decade. Controversies over which books to include in the high school English curriculum present a clash of values between teachers, school systems, and parents over what is appropriate for and meaningful to students. It is important to strike a balance between English that is meaningful to students by relating to their lives and representing diversity and satisfying worries about the appropriateness of what is read. This burden often falls on teachers. The purpose of this research paper is to discuss

     The first and inargueably the most significant of the amendments to our Constitution is the First Amendment. The amendment that established our freedoms as citizens of our new confederation. The First Amendment insured, among other things, freedom of speech and of the press. Since the establishment of these rights, they have often been in question. People have debated over, "What is too much freedom?", and "When is this

The first amendment, the right of freedom of speech is one of the most important classic fantasy to almost anyone living in the United States, building the foundation of our nation. This right gives us plenty of different opportunities to express our opinions and political viewpoints on any issues in America. But it comes with a price, people have been protesting multiple different events trying to prevent people from expressing opposing opinions or political viewpoints on that has issues in America. For the minority of people, expressing a different opinion should be protected no matter how controversial or insensitive it may be.

     Since this country was founded, we have had a set of unalienable rights that our constitution guarantees us to as Americans. One of the most important rights that is mentioned in our constitution is the right to free speech. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the

Neil Gaiman once said, “The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed the freedom of speech. Other countries don’t have that.” At the time of the amendments’ creation, a vast majority of operating countries had not yet granted their people such freedoms. Granting every citizen of the United States this right seemed to have been an important landmark in this nation’s history. Along with others, this right is declared to the people in the first amendment of the constitution. The first amendment is the most important because it grants people freedom of speech, prohibits prior restraint, and declares the right to peaceable assembly.

Citizens in America are born with a various amount of rights. One of these rights include the freedom of speech and expression. However, school administrators have the ability to restrict a student’s expression. The Supreme Court Cases ‘Bethel School District v. Fraser’ and ‘Frederick V. Morse’ gave schools the right for the administrators to discipline children when they see fit. Students should be able to express themselves in any way without fearing that their school administrators will discipline

Under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution of December 1791, guaranteed the civil liberty of freedom of speech. It outlined that congress is not allowed to make any laws that may bridge a citizen’s freedom of speech, religion, press, and the right to assemble. This style of liberty gives all Americans the opportunity to express their thoughts openly without being shut down by the government. For example, there have been a great deal of protest the current president. Although, he is the president and should be respected Americans still have the right to display their opinions

In 1982, the Board of Education of Island Trees School District made an executive decision to try to remove eleven books from the district’s school libraries on the grounds of being "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy". Out of these eleven, nine were successfully removed. Aside from the supposed debauchery of the eleven titles, the board stated that the reason why they were so determined to go forward with banning these books is that the board needed to “protect the children in our schools from this moral danger”. Interestingly, the one who ultimately brought the case to court and gave it the name of “Island Trees Sch. Dist. v. Pico” was Steven Pico, a high school student. While the initial ruling at the federal court level was in favor of the protection the board

Across the globe, the classic story, Of Mice and Men is banned in public schools because of conflicting opinions on the book. The banning of Of Mice and Men is very common because of the dark and depressing tone and irrelevant word choice. Parents call school districts complaining about the unbefitting context that their teens are reading, and schools have no choice but to ban them. Although the language used in Of Mice and Men, can be considered inappropriate and vulgar to some, censoring books in schools, is a violation of the first amendment, as well as hides teens from the hardships of life, and disconnects teens from meeting inspiring characters.

A book is a door into a new world. When someone writes, they choose their words carefully so that the story flows, makes sense, and goes along with what they are writing about. Everything from the scenery, to the way a certain character talks is thought about and brought to life by a few simple scratches on a page. Some people want to suppress the writings of geniuses just because of an image, idea, or phrase on the grounds that they are morally objectionable by the standards applied by a censor. It has been like this for ages. As long as someone has something to tell, another will be there to try and prevent them. Schools have been doing this for quite a while now and there is a need to stop it. Censorship of books in schools should not

George Washington once said "If freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." This mentality still holds true in the United States today where the freedom of speech is held as one of the greatest rights Americans possess. However, to fully understand the first Amendment right of freedom of speech it is paramount to understand what it entails, its limitations, and how it has evolved over time.

Throughout the course of education, certain books are an informative resource to develop and learn new knowledge in progressing the brain ability to understand fundamental issue. The United States educational school boards and professors have the responsibility for protecting their student’s mind and cover the appropriate material for their students’ decision. However, does this responsibility cover the extreme act of no dignity from challenging certain books in the school library or public library? The repetition of censoring books in school has been widespread due to the explicit content of inappropriateness. Oftentimes books are challenged without literally understand the content by judging the author’s covers. When a book consists of offensive or sexual material, then parents would challenge the schools to prevent their children from reading them. Certain kinds of books are being challenged, challenge or banned books infringed upon the student’s freedom to read what they want in school which leads to ignorance on controversial topics.