A Reader for Writers: A Critical Anthology of Prose Readings by Jerome W. Archer and Joseph Schwartz eds. | Banned Book Project

A Reader for Writers Synopsis:

A critical anthology of prose readings edited by Jerome W. Archer and Joseph Schwartz.

Location Banned:

Island Trees, Long Island, New York, 1976. The parents and board of education didn’t take issue with the whole of the anthology, but rather with one specific short story which the Board considered in bad taste and justified its removal from the library. The essay with which the Board took issue was A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People of Ireland from Being a Burden to Their
‘Parents or Country by Jonathan Swift, aka, A Modest Proposal. In his satirical essay, Swift advised, in detail, how the problem of overpopulation could be resolved by eating children.   If that wasn’t enough, Swift goes on to expound on how the slaughtered children’s skins could be used to make boots (Bowers, 1983).

In addition to Swift’s A Modest Proposal, another essay equated Malcolm X, whom many regards as a traitor to his country, to the founding fathers (Pico v. Board of Ed., 1980).

Reasons:

Deemed anti-Christian, anti-American, and obscene.

Court Cases:

Board of Education v. Pico, 1982

In 1982, the Supreme Court heard a case known as the Board of Education, Island Trees School District v. Pico.

In it, seventeen-year-old Steven Pico and four other teens, 14 to 16, challenged the school board’s decision to pull eleven titles from library shelves in 1976, based on a complaint by conservative community group, Parents of New York United.

This group maintained that The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud; Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.; The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris; Down These Mean Streets, by Piri Thomas; Best Short Stories of Negro Writers, edited by Langston Hughes; Go Ask Alice, authorship anonymous; Laughing Boy, by Oliver LaFarge; Black Boy, by Richard Wright; A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich, by Alice Childress; Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver; and A Reader for Writers, edited by Jerome Archer were objectionable —  many based on the review of excerpts only.

High school senior Steven Pico and his peers filed a lawsuit challenging the board’s ruling that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court and won.

According to legal expert Claire Mullally, “The Court recognized that the First Amendment rights of students are ‘directly and sharply implicated’ when a book is removed from a school library. Therefore, the discretion of school boards to remove books from school libraries is limited. The law requires that if a book is to be removed, an inquiry must be made as to the motivation and intention of the party calling for its removal.  If the party’s intention is to deny students access to ideas with which the party disagrees, it is a violation of the First Amendment.” (Stotan, n.d.)

Articles:

Bowers, Kelly. “Banning Books in Public Schools: Board of Education v. Pico”. Pepperdine Law Review, v. 10, no. 3, 1983. Retrieved May 3, 2018, from https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1961&context=plr

Campbell, Colin. “Book Banning in America.” The New York Times. December 20, 1981. Accesses January 26, 2018. http://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/20/books/book-banning-in-america.html?pagewanted=all

Dupre, Anne Proffitt. Speaking Up: The Unintended Costs of Free Speech in Public Schools. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Masschuttess, 2009.

Fellion, Matthew, and Inglis, Katherine. Censored: A Literary History of Subversion and Control. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017.

Foerstel, Herbert N. Banned in the U.S.A.: A Reference Guide to Book Censorship in Schools and Public Libraries. Revised and Expanded Edition. Greenwood Press, Westport Connecticut. 2002.

Pico v. Board of Ed., Island Trees Union Free School Dist. No. 26. 638 F.2d 404 (2nd Cir. 1980), 619.

Raskin, Jamin B. We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and About Students, 3rd Ed.. CQ Press, 2008.

Schultz, David. Encyclopedia of American Law. “Library book banning,” pg. 285. Facts on File, Inc., 2002.

Stotan, Chris. “Five Teens Win the Right to Read: Island Trees School District vs. Pico.” Author & Loudmouth. No date. Accessed January 26, 2018. http://www.chriscrutcher.com/teens-can-stop-censors.html