In the 1970s, high school student Steven Pico challenged his Long Island school board after it removed books, including “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Down These Mean Streets,” from his school library. Pico argued that the bans violated students’ First Amendment rights, and his lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court.
The court agreed in part, ruling in Island Trees v. Pico (1982) that school boards cannot remove books simply because they dislike the ideas contained in them. Yet the justices issued seven different opinions, leaving a precedent that is influential but unsettled.
This video examines the fractured nature of the justices’ decision, the First Amendment principles at stake, and how the court’s ambiguity left lasting uncertainty. Steven Pico’s story connects today’s controversies over what’s allowed on library shelves to a case that continues to influence debates about censorship, free expression, student rights and the tension between local control and constitutional protections.
View transcript here.