ABSTRACT
In Board of Education v. Pico the US Supreme Court invalidated the removal of books from a school library. The dispute arose from a September 1975 meeting in which three members of the Board of Education of the Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 in Long Island, New York, attended a conference sponsored by a politically conservative parents organization. The US District Court for the Eastern District of New York rejected their claim, but they won on appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded that the school board must demonstrate a reasonable basis for interfering with the students' First Amendment rights. By a five-four majority, the Court ruled that under the First Amendment school boards cannot remove books from school libraries in order to deny access to ideas with which it disagrees for political reasons. The dissenters rejected the argument that the First Amendment includes a right of school children to receive information and ideas.
