Censorship: Island V. Pico

My Sister’s Keeper Censorship
“The Discussion of Censorship”

Censorship has been going on for many years. The first place that book censorship has taken place ever since people have started to write books. One of the early reasons why books are censored was because some people didn’t like the religious views of the book. In an overview by Claire Mullally called banned books she said that Plato stated “ our first business will be to supervise the making of fables and legends; rejecting all which are unsatisfactory.”(12/16/10) The is one of the biggest things that had started books to be censored. Another way people would censor books in the early ages is by burning the books in the middle of town. The people who would burn the books the most
Pico is one of the biggest cases that have come out of censorship. This is one of the biggest cases because they show how the children in a school and the parents go head to head and try to ban a book or to keep the book at the school. This event took place in the public schools in New York in 1975. A group of parents called the Parents of New York United or for short “PONYU”(2001) formed a group to try and get a list of nine books banned from the school’s library. According to the article Island Trees Union Free School District Board of Education v. Pico 1982, some of the books that were banned were Slaughterhouse Five and Best Short Stories of Negro Writers.(2001) The reason why these specific titles were banned is because the books contained graphic descriptions of sexual actions. The student who was going against the parents was Steven A. Pico and some other students.(2001) Pico took the parents to court because he thought that it was going against the first amendment to get rid of the books. When Pico and the group of parents went to court they kept going back and forth on if they should allow the students to read the books or if they should take the books off the shelves. The decision that the court had agreed on is that removing the books from the public schools because of the things that they say or do in the books violated the Freedom of Speech. This decision was decided on June, 25, 1982.(2001) Clearly, this was one of the biggest cases of
Pico. Censorship has been since people have started to write books. The main reason why books have been censored is because of the things that they say or mean in the books. Island Trees v. Pico showed the parents that they do not have the power to get rid of the books that are in the school's library. Jodi Picoult wrote the book My Sister’s Keeper and it has since become a very popular book. My Sister’s Keeper was one of the books that has been censored in schools because of things that they showed in the book. Clearly, books of all kinds have been censored to stop children from reading things that can hurt them is some