5. Rule of Law

The Island Trees School Board has a special interest in providing an educationally suitable archive of reading material to their students and they already have regulations in place to decide which books to purchase and keep. The Superintendent stated, "We already have a policy . . . designed expressly to handle such problems. It calls for the Superintendent, upon receiving an objection to a book or books, to appoint a committee to study them and make recommendations. I feel it is a good policy -- and it is Board policy -- and that it should be followed in this instance. Furthermore, I think it can be followed quietly, and in such a way as to reduce, perhaps avoid, the public furor which has always attended such issues in the past." (http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0457_0853_ZO.html) The Board removed the 9 books from the library, which has been done before at other schools when someone deems a book inappropriate for minors or a certain grade level, but the students who brought the case to court believed the school's motives were narrow minded and motivated by their disagreement with the ideas written. The Federal District Court in favor of the Board did not see the action as an infringement on First Amendment Rights. But 5 to 4 in the Supreme Court were in favor of the students and Justice Brennan mentioned a right to receive information and saw a limitation on that "right" in the case. They had concluded that, "The law requires that if a book is to be removed, an inquiry must be made to the motivation and intention of the party calling for its removal. If the party's intention is to deny students' access to ideas with which the party disagrees, it is a violation of the First Amendment." ( http://www.thencbla.org/BPOSpages/supremectcase.html) The concurring judges cited Tinker v. Des Moines School District (Pledge), Meyer v. Nebraska (teaching foreign language) and Epperson v. Arkansas (teaching evolution) along with a few other First Amendment cases as supporting precedents in this instance. But not all of the judges agreed.