River Readings: Steven Pico

On Tuesday, October 6, Augustana’s River Readings series will celebrate Banned Books Week with Steven Pico’s lecture “UNCENSORED,” about his success against book banning, the importance of non-violent activism, and the state of Freedom of Expression in the U.S.A today. The lecture is free and open to the public.

2027 marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark book-banning case, Island Trees School District v. Pico. In 1977, at age 17, Steven Pico became one of the founders of the freedom to read movement movement when he sued his school district on Long Island, New York, for banning 11 books from its junior and senior high school libraries.

The case, Board of Education v. Pico, became a landmark case in the fight against book censorship, when the Supreme Court sided with the students and ruled in a 5-4 decision that “local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books." Following the Supreme Court’s decision, all 11 books were returned to the Island Trees school libraries.

In addition to the River Readings lecture, Steven Pico will participate in Banned Books events at the Iowa City Public Library, the Bettendorf Public Library, and visit with first-year honors students, senior English majors, and pre-law students at Augustana. His visit is made possible thanks to support from the River Readings series, the Humanities Fund, the Faculty Initiatives Fund, the Honors program, the political science department, and Tredway Library.