Every year, the American Library Association celebrates Banned Books Week, which "celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them."

Banned Books Week is being celebrated this year from Sept. 24 to Oct. 1. Here are some BBW resources:

• The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books, 1990-2000
• The Top 10 Most Challenged Books, 2004
• Pico v. Board of Education, 457 U.S. 853 (1982). In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a school board's removal of books that it characterized as "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Sem[i]tic, and just plain filthy" was unconstitutional. The case was decided 5-4, with Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justices Powell, Rehnquist, and O'Connor dissenting.
• Banned Book and Censorship Resources
• Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971). This is the case that determines what "obscenity" is. Are you aware that "pornography" has no legal definition? There are two kinds of unprotected speech: speech which can "incite" people to violence, and "obscene" speech. Cohen defined "obscenity" and the Court ruled that a jacket that said "F--k the Draft" was not legally obscene.
• "Focus on the Family Exposes the 'Banned' Books Lie." This is what the other side thinks. James Dobson's Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, an evangelical Protestant organization, suggests that the ALA wants hardcore pornography in libraries, alongside classics.

What should you do this week? Go read a banned book! I suggest one of the classics, like Of Mice and Men, which is really short, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (because when Mark Twain uses the n-word, it's because he hates black people). Oh, and don't skip the hardcore pornography, either. I would think that it's in 302, "Social interaction," or in the 700s, the art section.