ABSTRACT
Book banning has a long history, both in the United States and elsewhere, and is usually motivated by the conviction that public access to certain materials might be harmful to the public's common interest and morals. Of course, the mere attempt to ban information immediately raises issues involving the right to free speech found in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The most obvious form of politically motivated book banning involves the prohibition of works that undermine respect for the established government or for powerful religious authorities. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, laws under the Comstock Act of 1873 effectively halted interstate distribution of "lewd" and "indecent" books such as The Arabian Nights and The Canterbury Tales. Between 1990 and 2000, most challenges seeking the removal of books from libraries involved school districts. Parents instigated the majority of these challenges. The most frequently cited justification for a challenge was that the book contained sexually explicit material.
