Homedefault.xml Other Groups and Organizations Freedom to Read Foundation FTRF in Action Time Line 1980-1989

Bicknell v. Vergennes Union High School Board of Directors
Continuing its involvement with this Vermont school library book removal case, the Vermont Civil Liberties Union was awarded an additional grant to help defray legal expenses incurred in prosecuting an appeal of the district court decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Zykan v. Warsaw Community School Corp.
Continuing its involvement in the Indiana school censorship case, begun in 1979, an amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court (in cooperation with the National Council of Teachers of English). The decision of the trial court dismissing the lawsuit had been upheld on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The Supreme Court ultimately denied review.

Layton v. Swapp
A grant was awarded to Jeanne Layton, director of the Davis County (UT) Public Library, to help defray legal expenses in a lawsuit resulting from her dismissal for refusing to remove Don DeLillo’s Americana from the shelves of the library. Her dismissal was the result of a county commissioner’s complaint. The Foundation offered a challenge grant, matching $2 for every $1 contributed to the Layton defense fund, between June 27 and year’s end.

1981

Layton v. Swapp
Continuing its involvement with this dismissal case, Layton was granted an additional amount to meet her outstanding legal debts.

McKamey v. Mt. Diablo Unified School District
A grant was awarded to the plaintiffs to assist in an action protesting restrictions imposed by the school board on access to Ms. magazine in the Ygnacio (CA) High School library.

Association of American Publishers v. Rendell
A lawsuit was filed (with the Association of American Publishers, the American Booksellers Association, and others) challenging amendments to the Pennsylvania criminal law dealing with the exhibit and display of “explicit sexual materials” to minors. In a decision affirmed on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the federal district court abstained from the case. A related challenge in state court concluded with a determination that the statute was constitutional.

Penthouse v. McAuliffe
Continuing an involvement with this case, additional grants were awarded to support the lawsuit against the Fulton County (GA) Solicitor General. Ultimately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that an entire magazine issue constitutes a work that must be “taken as a whole” when determining whether the magazine possesses serious value under the third prong of the Miller v. California test for obscenity. The court found two of the three magazines at issue in the case obscene. Additional proceedings in the U.S. Supreme Court were discontinued.

Saryn Paris grant
Assistance was awarded to the publisher of Jerry Falwell: An Unauthorized Profile.

Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico
Continuing an involvement with this case, begun in 1978, an amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court (in cooperation with the American Library Association and the New York Library Association) urging the Court to settle the standard for judicial review to be applied in school library book removal cases.

1982

Layton v. Swapp
Additional grants were awarded to settle Jeanne Layton’s remaining legal debts, concluding FTRF involvement with this case, begun in 1980. Layton ultimately won reinstatement as director of the Davis County (UT) Public Library.

New York v. Ferber
The Media Coalition was given a grant to prepare an amicus brief addressing the impact of a New York state child pornography statute on publishers, booksellers, and librarians. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the statute in question, deciding that child pornography is a category of speech excluded from First Amendment protection.

Tattered Cover Bookstore v. Tooley
An amicus brief was filed in a challenge to a Colorado minors access law. Ultimately, the Supreme Court of Colorado held the act unconstitutional. It found that the provisions of the statute designed to restrict children’s access to sexually explicit materials were overly broad and infringed adults’ rights. [See also Tattered Cover Bookstore, Inc. v. City and County of Denver, 2000.]

Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico
Still involved in this 1978 case, a grant was awarded to the New York Civil Liberties Union to continue the school library book removal challenge. Ultimately, in a 5–4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the students’ challenge to the school board’s actions. A majority of the Court held that the First Amendment is implicated when a school board removes books arbitrarily. The plurality opinion by Justice Brennan declared, “If petitioners intended by their removal decision to deny” students “access to ideas with which petitioners disagreed ... then petitioners have exercised their discretion in violation of the Constitution.”

1983

McKamey v. Mt. Diablo Unified School District
An additional grant was awarded in this school library restriction case, first started in 1981. Ultimately, a California Superior Court struck down the school district requirement that students get parental permission before reading Ms. magazine in the school library.

Stark v. Special School District No. 1; Stark v. Independent School District No. 179; and Stark v. Osseo School District
Assistance was granted to the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union to defend teachers’ rights to invite outside speakers on alternative lifestyles into public school classes and to uphold the speakers’ rights to address students. Stark’s lawsuits were eventually settled favorably. In the case involving Osseo School District, Stark was permitted to speak on alternative lifestyle issues and the school district agreed to adopt a policy on speakers consistent with First Amendment guarantees.

Robertson v. Special School District No. 1
A challenge grant was awarded to the Student Press Law Center matching $1 for $1 all funds raised during the year to support litigation over student press rights in Minnesota.

Janklow v. Dyer
Donna Dyer was awarded a grant to assist her defense in a libel suit filed by South Dakota Governor William J. Janklow in connection with a book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, by Peter Matthiessien, sold by Dyer in Hot Springs, South Dakota.

Peterzell v. Faurer
Support was given to an American Civil Liberties Union National Security Project litigation effort to invalidate actions by the U.S. National Security Agency withdrawing the personal documents of cryptologist William Friedman from open access shelves at the Virginia Military Institute’s George C. Marshall Research Library. The cryptologist’s letters had been used in the research and writing of James Bamford’s The Puzzle Palace.

M.S. News Co. v. Casado
An amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit supporting a challenge to a local ordinance in Wichita, Kansas, banning open display of sexually explicit materials. The appellate court upheld the ordinance.

1984

American Library Ass’n v. Faurer (formerly Peterzell v. Faurer)
Continuing its involvement in this case concerning a cryptologist’s personal papers, a grant was given to the American Library Association, the District of Columbia Library Association, and the Virginia Library Association for expenses incurred in the litigation. A grant also was given to the American Civil Liberties Union National Security Project for its role in the legal action.

American Booksellers Ass’n v. Hudnut
An amicus brief was filed on behalf of the Indiana Library Association and the Indiana Library Trustees Association supporting a constitutional challenge of an Indianapolis (IN) anti-pornography ordinance. The ordinance outlawed “pornography” defined as “graphic, sexually explicit subordination of women, whether in pictures or in words,” presenting women as sex objects, or as enjoying pain, humiliation, or servility. The challenge argued that the ordinance imposed viewpoint discrimination.

English v. Evergreen School District
A grant was awarded to support a lawsuit challenging the removal of books from a school library in Washington state. The case was eventually settled when the school board returned all books, including two books on homosexuality that the school board had especially opposed. In accord with the settlement, policies for handling complaints about instructional materials were rewritten.

Janklow v. Viking Press
Continuing its involvement in this matter involving Governor William J. Janklow of South Dakota, an amicus brief was filed supporting the publisher, booksellers, and Peter Matthiessien, author of In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, in their defense against the lawsuit accusing them of libel. Ultimately, the court dismissed the libel suit as asserted against the publisher on the basis that the alleged defamatory statements were “neutral reportage” accurately repeating the statements of another.

Bullfrog Films, Inc. v. Wick
A grant was given to the Center for Constitutional Rights to support a lawsuit to invalidate regulations promulgated by the U.S. Information Agency denying “certificates of educational character” to U.S. documentary films judged to be misrepresentative of the United States, thereby limiting their access to foreign markets. An amicus brief also was filed in the matter.

Maryland v. Macon
An amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting a bookstore clerk’s appeal of his conviction for distributing obscenity. The brief argued that the arrest of the clerk without first obtaining a court-issued warrant constituted a “prior restraint” violating the First Amendment. Police “purchased” the obscene magazine and, without obtaining a review of the material by a court, took the clerk into custody. The Court eventually ruled that the risk of “prior restraint” did not come into play where the police purchased the materials in question.

Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc.
An amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a constitutional challenge to a Washington state obscenity statute, urging that its definition of “lewd matter” was overbroad and reached materials that arouse nothing more than a normal interest in sex. The Court eventually ruled that the statute should not be invalidated in its entirety but, rather, only insofar as it reached constitutionally protected materials.

1985

American Library Ass’n v. Faurer (formerly Peterzell v. Faurer)
In further involvement in this case concerning a cryptologist’s personal papers, an additional grant was given to the American Civil Liberties Union National Security Project to support the lawsuit against the U.S. National Security Agency. Ultimately, on the appeal, U.S. Circuit Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg ruled that the library associations and other plaintiffs lacked standing to bring their lawsuit in the first instance. In the proceedings below, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had ruled that the U.S. National Security Agency had authority to withdraw the papers in question from the Virginia Military Institute library.

American Booksellers Ass’n v. Hudnut
Further involvement in this constitutional challenge to the Indianapolis anti-pornography ordinance led to an amicus brief being filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Ultimately, the decision of the court below, which struck down the law, was affirmed on the appeal. The appellate court stated that the ordinance impermissibly established an “approved” view of women and how they react in sexual encounters, and banned sexually explicit words and images that did not adhere to that view. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision.

Illinois v. Heinrich
A grant was awarded to the DePaul University College of Law to cover printing costs incurred in challenging a criminal libel law.

Pagitt v. Independent School District No. 270
The Minnesota Coalition Against Censorship and the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union received a grant to assist two high school students prohibited, even before the start of the school day, from distributing a religious newspaper to fellow students. The lawsuit brought by the students was dismissed as moot after they had graduated.

American Council of the Blind v. Boorstin
An amicus brief was filed in support of a lawsuit challenging, as discrimination against protected speech, a Library of Congress decision to cease publication of Playboy magazine in Braille. Ultimately, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the library had violated the First Amendment rights of blind people.

Faulkenberry v. Board of Education, Sallisaw Public Schools
Legal counsel and financial assistance was awarded to parents protesting a school board’s removal of J.D. Landis’ The Sisters Impossible from the elementary school library. After a lengthy struggle and, eventually, a lawsuit, the school board agreed to return the book to the library shelves. It also agreed to follow ALA and Oklahoma Library Association recommended review procedures for library materials and pay a significant portion of the plaintiffs’ legal expenses.

1986

Bullfrog Films, Inc. v. Wick
Continuing an involvement begun in 1984, an additional grant was awarded to the Center for Constitutional Rights to reimburse litigation expenses in this challenge to regulations promulgated by the U.S. Information Agency.

Fraser v. Bethel School District No. 403
An amicus brief was filed in a challenge to the two-day suspension of a high school student who used sexual puns in a student-government nominating speech at a school-sponsored, but voluntary, assembly of students. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed lower court decisions enjoining the student’s suspension. It does not follow, the Court held, that “simply because the use of an offensive form of expression may not be prohibited to adults making what the speaker considers a political point, that the same latitude must be permitted to children in a public school.”

McCarthy v. Fletcher
A grant was given to the American Civil Liberties Foundation of Southern California to support a lawsuit filed by Lee McCarthy, a Wasco (CA) Union High School teacher, and others challenging the school board’s prohibition against teaching John Gardner’s Grendel in a senior English class without first obtaining the consent of every parent.

Bystrom v. Fridley High School Independent School District No. 14
A grant was given to the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union to assist in the defense of students who published an underground newspaper with “lewd” content, allegedly potentially inciting violence. The students brought the lawsuit challenging a school policy under which officials reviewed the publication and blocked its distribution on school premises.

Maine Citizens Against Government Censorship
A grant was awarded on behalf of the Maine Library Association supporting a successful fight against a proposed law to ban the sale of sexually explicit materials.

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Meese
An amicus brief was filed opposing actions of the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography warning retailers to cease distributing materials that it judged might be pornographic. A federal district court eventually ruled that the commission’s actions violated the First Amendment.

Pope v. Illinois
An amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the use of community standards, rather than a generalized “reasonable person” standard, in the third prong of the test in Miller v. California used to judge whether an allegedly obscene work has “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Ultimately, the Court held that only the first and second prongs of the test—appeal to prurient interest and patent offensiveness—should be decided with reference to community standards. It upheld, however, the obscenity convictions in question.

1987

Bullfrog Films, Inc. v. Wick
Continuing involvement in this case, begun in 1984, another grant was given to the Center for Constitutional Rights for legal expenses in its challenge of regulations promulgated by the U.S. Information Agency.

Bystrom v. Fridley High School Independent School District No. 14
Supplementing its first grant to the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union, in 1986, a second grant was given to further assist the civil liberties group in representing students in their challenge of a school policy restricting an underground newspaper. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit eventually upheld the school policy. The court found that prior restraints in the high school context are not per se unconstitutional, and that the government may regulate the distribution of written materials that fall within guidelines outlining what is “obscene to minors,” libelous, pervasively indecent or vulgar, invading privacy, or advertising products or services not permitted to minors by law.

McCarthy v. Fletcher
Continuing its involvement in this matter, begun in 1986, an amicus brief was filed and an additional grant was given to the American Civil Liberties Foundation of Southern California in support of the challenge to a school board action banning Grendel. Ultimately, the California Court of Appeal ruled that school boards do not enjoy absolute discretion to remove books. Reversing the lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit, the appellate court held that improper motives violate the First Amendment and that the plaintiffs had a right to probe further into the motives behind the banning.

Meese v. Keene
An amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court urging the Court to uphold an injunction against enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act used to require labeling, as “political propaganda,” films about acid rain produced by the National Film Board of Canada. The Court reversed the decision granting the injunction.

Smith v. Board of Commissioners, Mobile County
An amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (in cooperation with the Association of American Publishers) supporting the appeal of a decision that found that textbooks used at various grade levels taught the “religion” of secular humanism and ordered their removal from the school curriculum. The appellate court reversed the lower court ruling. It held that, as long as the school was motivated by a secular purpose, it didn’t matter whether the curriculum and texts shared ideas held by one or more religious groups.

American Booksellers Ass’n v. Virginia
An amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting a challenge to a Virginia “harmful to minors” law restricting the display of “harmful” materials. The Court ordered a return of the case to the Virginia Supreme Court for a ruling in the matter. The Virginia Attorney General had urged that the law be construed narrowly and interpreted to apply to the most mature minors. The Virginia Supreme Court accepted that construction.

Randall v. Meese
An amicus brief was filed (in cooperation with the American Association of University Professors and other groups) in support of author Margaret Randall’s appeal for permanent residency in this country because her writings criticized the role of the United States in Vietnam and the actions of the National Guard at Kent State (OH) University. Ultimately, efforts to deport Randall were abandoned after Congress removed “ideology” as a ground for excluding aliens from the United States under the McCarran-Walter Act.

1988

Bullfrog Films, Inc. v. Wick
In a continuation of its involvement, another grant was awarded to the Center for Constitutional Rights to defray legal costs in the U.S. Information Agency challenge. Ultimately, the regulations denying “certificates of educational character” to films judged to be misrepresentative of the United States were invalidated. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California that such regulations violated the First Amendment. Subsequently, the lower court invalidated a second attempt to promulgate similar regulations.

Village Books v. City of Bellingham
A lawsuit was filed (with Village Books, the American Booksellers Association, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, the Washington State Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, and three individuals) challenging the constitutionality of a city anti-pornography initiative in Bellingham, Washington, targeting sexually explicit speech involving the subordination of women. The challenge was successful and the ordinance ruled unconstitutional.

Virgil v. School Board of Columbia County
An amicus brief was filed in a federal district court challenge to a school board’s decision to remove from classroom use a literature textbook entitled Humanities: Cultural Roots and Continuities. Parents had objected to alleged vulgar and sexually explicit language contained in excerpts from the classic Greek comedy Lysistrata and Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale. Ultimately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the school board’s action. The court focused on the fact that the books were used within the curriculum and thus bore the school’s stamp of approval. It found that the reason for the removal—sexuality and vulgar language—was a legitimate pedagogical concern.

1989

American Library Ass’n v. Thornburgh
A lawsuit was filed (with the American Library Association, the American Society of Magazine Editors, the American Society of Magazine Photographers, the Council for Periodical Distributors Associations, the International Periodical Distributors Association, the Magazine Publishers of America, Satellite Broadcasting and Communications of America, and the American Booksellers Association) challenging the constitutionality of the record-keeping, labeling, and forfeiture provisions contained in the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act, and seeking to enjoin enforcement of the statute.

FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas
An amicus brief was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court (in cooperation with the American Booksellers Association, the Council for Periodical Distributors Association, and others) in a constitutional challenge of a Dallas (TX) regulation of “sexually oriented businesses” that denied licenses to “adult” book and video retailers on the basis of a single past misdemeanor conviction. The Court’s eventual ruling did not reach the First Amendment issues. Nevertheless, the Court did find that the licensing scheme gave local officials too much discretion to inflict barriers on speech.

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
An amicus brief was filed (with the American Library Association) in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a constitutional challenge of a Missouri statute prohibiting the expenditure of public funds to “encourage or counsel” woman about abortion. The Court eventually determined that, owing to procedural considerations in the case, the controversy over funds for encouraging or counseling women about abortion was moot.

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