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Tinker v. Des Moines
Mary Beth Tinker, John Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt, along with friends, wore black armbands to school in a silent stance supporting a truce in regards to the Vietnam War. After students were sent home from school for wearing the armbands, the case against the school district made it to the Supreme Court, who ruled in a 7-2 decision that punishing the students for their peaceful protest was a direct violation of their freedom of speech. -
Minarcini v. Strongsville City School District
Catch 22 and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater were taken out of libraries and classrooms in Ohio. The School Board decided that they were unsuitable for the classroom because they were “objectionable,” which in reality is just a cover-up for words like offensive, distasteful, and disagreeable. After the trial, the court ruled that the School Board in fact did have the right to withhold the books from being taught and removed from the curriculum, but they had to be returned to the libraries. -
Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico
The School Board from the Island Trees Union in New York decided to remove certain books from the libraries. A few of the books on the list included Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Langston Hughes’s Best Short Stories by Negro Writers. The Supreme Court Justices claimed that the School Board “could not restrict the availability of books in its libraries simply because its members disagreed with their idea content." -
Texas v. Johnson
After Gregory Lee Johnson decided to stage a political protest during the Regan administration by burning an American flag. he was jailed and fined, but after his case went to the Supreme Court, they ruled in a 5-4 decision that the First Amendment protected burning the flag as an act of political protest. -
Case v. Unified School District
In 1995, Kansas found itself at the center of a highly controversial court case involving the book Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden. Many of the Board Members supported the ban because they felt the book was a propaganda piece that promoted a homosexual lifestyle. The books was returned when the Supreme Court ruled that the School Board had removed Annie on My Mind due to personal biases against the content and material. -
Counts v. Cedarville School District
Angie Haney filed a complaint against the Harry Potter books because she believed they taught children to misbehave and promoted magic. The Board said they had the “right to decide what is available in its libraries." The books were being targeted because the Board did not agree with the content, not because it had no educational value. The Court found that the ban was an unlawful infringement and order that the Harry Potter book series be returned to the libraries.
