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Just Plain Filthy: The Story Behind Book Banning's Trial of the Century
With the threat to intellectual freedom increasing around the country, this book takes a look at the...
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With the threat to intellectual freedom increasing around the country, this book takes a look at the first ever school book ban case to be decided by the high courts, and offers insights into how we can use history to help the future.
In 1975, the school board members of a small Long Island town did what they thought was a no-brainer: they ordered the removal of nine books from a high school library. The books included some classics - Richard Wright's Black Boy; Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape; Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five - but that didn't matter to board chair Richard Ahrens, who called the collection "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy." Maybe he thought the town was with him. Maybe he thought nobody would care. He certainly didn't think he would be sued by seventeen-year-old Steven Pico or that the case would end up before the United States Supreme Court, the first and only book ban dispute ever to do so. The only one so far. Recent years have seen a surge in book challenges, and it is only a matter of time before another reaches the high court. Island Trees v. Pico ended in a loss for the school board, but not a resounding one. It left enough daylight for the current justices to reach a different conclusion. What was the court's ruling? How did it come about? What was the book ban climate in the 1970s and 80s, and how did it differ from today's? Just Plain Filthy is the first book to tell the complete story of Island Trees v. Pico, the flawed yet fascinating case that is the cornerstone of intellectual freedom in America. For now.Author: Anthony Aycock
Publisher: Bloomsbury Libraries Unlimited
Published: 06/11/2026
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.20w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9798216196471
Review Citation(s):
Booklist 05/01/2026
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2026
About the Author
Anthony Aycock is the legislative library director at the North Carolina General Assembly. He is a writer, teacher, and librarian and has spent 25 years working in government, academic, and private law libraries, as well as teaching academic and creative writing. A frequent contributor to Medium and Information Today, he has also written for Slate, the Washington Post, Literary Hub, Reactor (formerly Tor.com), the Missouri Review, the Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, and more.
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