Anthony Aycock is a writer, teacher, and librarian. His newest book, Just Plain Filthy: The Story Behind Book Banning’s Trial of the Century, is out this week from Bloomsbury Academic. Below, he discusses why the 1982 Supreme Court case Island Trees v. Pico is required reading for anyone interested in fighting censorship and book bans.
Book bans, which have been around almost as long as books themselves, have had a resurgence in recent years. In 2025, ALA tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged—the second highest ever. The highest: 4,240 in 2023.
County governments have legislated new bans, as have states. In March, Congress began considering the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, which Publishers Weekly calls a “national book ban.” The U.S. Supreme Court passed up a chance to outlaw book bans when it declined to hear Little v. Llano County last December, leaving in place its 44-year-old ruling in Island Trees v. Pico.
That case was the first—and, so far, only—book ban dispute ever heard by the high court. It began in 1975, when the board of education of Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 in Long Island, New York removed eleven books from its high school library, junior high library, and twelfth grade English curriculum. The books included classics—Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five—plus lesser-known works like Laughing Boy by Oliver LaFarge.
Naturally, there was an uproar. There usually is when you take literature out of readers’ hands. Richard Ahrens, president of the school board, defended the ban by calling the books “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy.” Maybe he thought that would settle the matter. Maybe he thought things would blow over. He certainly didn’t expect seven years later to be standing before nine black-robed jurists, struggling to explain his and his colleagues’ actions.
Richard Ahrens had not reckoned on Steven Pico.
In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the board should not have removed the books. It did not, however, recognize a constitutional right to read—an oversight that has complicated censorship battles since. The case deserves a slot alongside the court’s most famous disputes: Marbury v. Madison, Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade. Yet, in 2026, it is largely forgotten outside academe.
Now, I’m afraid, is the perfect time for a refresher. Just Plain Filthy: The Story Behind Book Banning’s Trial of the Century is required reading for librarians, book sellers and buyers, and anyone keen to preserve intellectual freedom.
English (US) · 