The River Readings at Augustana

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.

Augustana is honored to welcome Steven Pico back to campus this fall. 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.

This 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.

About Steven Pico

A lifelong advocate of the freedom to read, Steven has been recognized by the American Library Association, the Writers Guild of America, East, and honored by The New Press with their 2023 Social Justice award (past honorees have included Alice Walker, Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, and Toni Morrison). In recognition of Steven’s honor, U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin (Md.-08) issued the following statement underscoring the connections between Steven’s defense of intellectual freedom and fighting inequality:

"Censorship is the hallmark of authoritarianism. It’s no wonder, then, that some of the most commonly banned books are those that serve as cautionary tales about authoritarian states like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. And of course, as the Court wrote in Board of Education v. Pico, the case arising from our very own Steven Pico, the First Amendment protects not just the right to speak but ‘the right to receive information and ideas.’ Yet many books are now targets for censorship because they address racism or white supremacy as historical realities or because they render LGBTQ+ individuals as full human beings or because they introduce ideas about diversity and discrimination. The very act of reading invites empathy, which is why fighting book bans is not simply a defense of the First Amendment but is also a defense of the principles of solidarity and truth.” —U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin (Md.-08)