Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982)

Island Trees School District v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982) is a U.S. Supreme Court case that addressed whether the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevented a public school board from removing certain books from school libraries. Justice Brennan’s majority opinion reasoned that the school board could not remove books from school libraries simply because the books contained ideas that the Board objected to.

Members of the Island Trees Union Free School District Board of Education attended a conference sponsored by a politically conservative organization. At this conference, members of the school board obtained a list of books that they described as “objectionable” and “improper fare for school students.” After the school board discovered that the school libraries carried ten of these books, board members gave an “unofficial direction” to remove the books so they could read them. In a press release issued by the Board justifying the removal, the Board asserted that the books were “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy,” and the Board had a duty to protect children from the “moral danger” posed by the books. Soon thereafter, the Board appointed a “Book Review Committee” composed of an equal number of Island Trees parents and school staff. The Board tasked the committee with reading the books and returning with a recommendation as to whether they should remove the books from school libraries. Despite the committee recommending that five of the ten books stay in the libraries, the Board removed all but one. 

The respondents, a group of students, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the Eastern District of New York. They alleged that the Board removed the books out of a dislike of the ideas presented within, and not because the books lacked educational value, in violation of the First Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the school board. The Second Circuit reversed and remanded the case for trial. Subsequently, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.

The Court framed the case around two questions: 

  1. Does the First Amendment place limits on the discretion of a school board to remove books from school libraries? 
  2. If so, did the record create an issue of triable fact, that the Board exceeded these limits?

For the first question, the Court held that while the petitioners (the Board) have the discretion to decide the contents of their school libraries, that discretion has limits. While Pico was a case of first impression for the Supreme Court, the Court drew on other precedent on the interplay of public schools and the First Amendment. In Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), the Court recognized that federal courts should not interfere with daily conflicts in school systems unless “basic constitutional values” are "directly and sharply implicated.” In Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), the Court held that the First Amendment rights of students “must be construed “in light of the special characteristics of the school environment.” The Court also relied on the First Circuit's decision in Right to Read Defense Committee v. School Committee, 454 F. Supp. 703 (D. Mass. 1978), which distinguished school libraries from the school curriculum. The Court in this case reasoned that the school library serves a unique role because it facilitates students' voluntary inquiry and access to information. For that reason, the broader discretion that school boards possess in selecting a curriculum does not necessarily extend to removing books from school libraries because of a disagreement on the content within.

Having concluded that the First Amendment imposes some limits on the Board's authority, the Court then considered the scope of those limits. Again, the Court considered First Amendment precedent in schools. In West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), the Court held that “no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.” In a later case, the Court noted that the First Amendment did not permit “laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom” see: Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589 (1967). After consideration of these precedents, the Court held that while the Board possessed significant discretion to control the content of their libraries, the Board could not exercise that discretion in a narrowly partisan or political manner. 

Having determined that the First Amendment did place limitations on the Board’s discretion and defining those limitations, the Court then addressed the evidentiary question. The record contained evidence from which a fact finder could conclude that the Board was motivated, at least in part, by a disagreement with the ideas expressed in the particular books that were removed. Additionally, the initial public explanation for the removal was that the books were “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy.” Although the Board charged the Book Review Committee with criteria that were not obviously problematic; the Board effectively ignored the Committee’s recommendations. This evidence further suggested that the removal of these books was the product of the personal and political views of the Board. The Court concluded that the Board did not meet the standard of summary judgment. Thus, the Court affirmed the Second Circuit’s decision to reverse and remand the case back to the District Court.

[Last reviewed in August of 2026 by the Wex Definitions Team]

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