Island Trees School District v. Pico

SCOTUSCase
Litigants=Board of Education v. Pico
ArgueDate=March 2
ArgueYear=1982
DecideDate=June 25
DecideYear=1982
FullName=Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26, et al. v. Pico, by his next friend Pico, et al.
USVol=457
USPage=853
Citation=102 S. Ct. 2799; 73 L. Ed. 2d 435; 1982 U.S. LEXIS 8; 8 Media L. Rep. 1721
Prior=Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Subsequent=
Holding=The 1st Amendment limits the power of local school boards to remove library books from junior high schools and high schools.
SCOTUS=1981-1986
Plurality=Brennan
JoinPlurality=Marshall, Stevens; Blackmun (all but parts II-A(1))
Concurrence=Blackmun
Concurrence2=White
Dissent=Burger
JoinDissent=Powell, Rehnquist, O'Connor
Dissent2=Powell
Dissent3=Rehnquist
JoinDissent3=Burger, Powell
Dissent4=O'Connor
LawsApplied=U.S. Const. amend. I

"Board of Education v. Pico", 457 U.S. 853 (1982)ref|citation, was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that the First Amendment limits the power of local school boards to remove library books from junior high schools and high schools.

Facts

According to the syllabus of the case::Petitioner Board of Education, rejecting recommendations of a committee of parents and school staff that it had appointed, ordered that certain books, which the Board characterized as "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti- [Semitic] , and just plain filthy," be removed from high school and junior high school libraries. Respondent students then brought this action for declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Board and petitioner Board members, alleging that the Board's actions had denied respondents their rights under the First Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment in petitioners' favor. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a trial on the merits of respondents' allegations.

Opinion of the Court

While no single opinion commanded a majority of the Court—indeed, the case produced seven opinions from the nine Justices—the opinion of Justice Brennan, affirming the Court of Appeals, controlled the outcome of the case. Brennan announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion joined by Justices Marshall and Stevens, and joined in all but Part II-A(1) by Justice Blackmun. Justice Blackmun filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Justice White filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.

Justice Brennan noted the Court had previously held that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate," "Tinker v. Des Moines School District", 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969). The First Amendment in this case included the right to read library books of the student's choosing.

Justice Blackmun, concurring, concluded that a proper balance between the limited constitutional restriction imposed on school officials by the First Amendment and the broad state authority to regulate education, would be struck by holding that school officials may not remove books from school libraries for the purpose of restricting access to the political ideas or social perspectives discussed in the books, when that action is motivated simply by the officials' disapproval of the ideas involved.

Justice White, while agreeing that there should be a trial to resolve the factual issues, concluded that there is no necessity at this point for discussing the extent to which the First Amendment limits the school board's discretion to remove books from the school libraries.

Brennan concludes the plurality opinion with a discussion of the extent of the school board's authority to remove books from the school library:

quote|With respect to the present case, the message of these precedents is clear. Petitioners rightly possess significant discretion to determine the content of their school libraries. But that discretion may not be exercised in a narrowly partisan or political manner. If a Democratic school board, motivated by party affiliation, ordered the removal of all books written by or in favor of Republicans, few would doubt that the order violated the constitutional rights of the students denied access to those books. The same conclusion would surely apply if an all-white school board, motivated by racial animus, decided to remove all books authored by blacks or advocating racial equality and integration. Our Constitution does not permit the official suppression of ideas. Thus whether petitioners' removal of books from their school libraries denied respondents their First Amendment rights depends upon the motivation behind petitioners' actions. If petitioners intended by their removal decision to deny respondents access to ideas with which petitioners disagreed, and if this intent was the decisive factor in petitioners' decision,then petitioners have exercised their discretion in violation of the Constitution. To permit such intentions to control official actions would be to encourage the precise sort of officially prescribed orthodoxy unequivocally condemned in "Barnette". On the other hand, respondents implicitly concede that an unconstitutional motivation would not be demonstrated if it were shown that petitioners had decided to remove the books at issue because those books were pervasively vulgar. Tr. of Oral Arg. 36. And again, respondents concede that if it were demonstrated that the removal decision was based solely upon the "educational suitability" of the books in question, then their removal would be "perfectly permissible." Id., at 53. In other words, in respondents' view such motivations, if decisive of petitioners' actions, would not carry the danger of an official suppression of ideas, and thus would not violate respondents' First Amendment rights.

As noted earlier, nothing in our decision today affects in any way the discretion of a local school board to choose books to add to the libraries of their schools. Because we are concerned in this case with the suppression of ideas, our holding [457 U.S. 853, 872] today affects only the discretion to remove books. In brief, we hold that local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to "prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion." "West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette", 319 U.S., at 642 . Such purposes stand inescapably condemned by our precedents.

Dissenting opinions

Chief Justice Burger filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Powell, Rehnquist, and O'Connor joined. Justice Rehnquist filed a dissenting opinion, in which Chief Justice Burger and Justice Powell joined. Justices Powell and O'Connor each filled an additional dissenting opinion.

ee also

* List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 457
* Island Trees Union Free School District
* List of banned books

External links

*caselaw source
case="Island Trees School District v. Pico", 457 U.S. 853 (1982)
enfacto=http://www.enfacto.com/case/U.S./457/853/
findlaw=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=457&page=853
* [http://www.islandtrees.org Island Trees School District]
* [http://chriscrutcher.com/content/blogcategory/60/49/ Five Teens Win the Right to Read] by Chris Crutcher