“The only war that matters is the war against the imagination.”
– Dianne DiPrima, “Revolutionary War Letter #75 (Rant),” 1967
Banned Books Week, a nationwide initiative launched in 1982 to draw attention to attempts to remove or restrict books in schools, libraries and bookstores, returns Oct. 4-10 with the theme, “Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read.”
Most local library systems and branches in Orange County are commemorating Banned Books Week in some fashion. At some, that may be as simple as displaying books that have been banned or challenged over the years. Others, such as Cal State Fullerton’s Pollak Library, are going further with programs, discussions and educational materials devoted to censorship and the freedom to read.
The Orange County Public Library system, which operates branches throughout much of the county, will feature displays of frequently challenged titles along with educational materials about intellectual freedom.
“The week serves as an opportunity to promote the freedom to read and raise awareness about the importance of ensuring public access to a broad range of viewpoints and ideas,” said Danilo “Dan” Serranilla, marketing and communications manager and public information officer for the OCPL. “Banned Books Week is an important reminder that intellectual freedom is a core library value and that access to diverse perspectives helps create informed and engaged communities.”
In the city of Orange, Public Affairs and Information Manager Charlene Cheng put it more simply:
“Our city libraries are for everyone. Celebrating Banned Books Week is a reminder to our residents that they always have a welcoming space to read, learn and explore.”
BANNED BOOKS WEEK
Banned Books Week Events at Pollack Library in Fullerton
Where: Pollack Library, Cal State Fullerton, 800 State College Blvd., Fullerton
Oct. 5, noon-2 p.m., Pollak Library, Room 130: Movie Monday
Movie Monday will feature a showing of “Banned Together,” a documentary that explores book bans and curriculum censorship in public schools. Free popcorn will be provided.
Oct. 6, noon-1 p.m., Zoom: Banned Books Panel
Kick off the Pollak Library’s first Noon Time Talk of the fall semester with Jason Shepard, dean of the College of Communications, and Joyce Gomez-Najarro, professor of literacy and reading education. They will discuss censorship and its impact. Visit the Pollak Library website for more information.
Oct. 7, noon-2 p.m., Makerspace Commons: Zine Workshop
Create a zine inspired by banned books, censorship and freedom of expression. Materials and snacks will be provided.
Oct. 8, noon-2 p.m., Pollak Library Lobby: Reader’s Advisory
Titans who need their next read can stop by to meet with a librarian for personalized recommendations and find a new book. The event will also feature snacks and a giveaway raffle sponsored by Target and organized by CSUF’s Diversity Initiatives & Resource Centers.
Source: Cal State Fullerton
But while the focus of this week is to raise awareness of the history of banned books, and ongoing contemporary efforts across the country to limit access to them, it’s also an ideal time to reflect on the long history of censorship overall in Orange County. This is a region that has proved time after time, for nearly a 100 years, that banning books, along with just about any other kind of creative expression, is never too far from someone’s – some group’s – wheelhouse.
County Conflicts Over Expression Reach Back Nearly 100 Years
One of the earliest and most literal examples of censorship had nothing to do with books. In 1934, Charles Kassler painted his 1,200-square-foot fresco “Pastoral California” on Plummer Auditorium at Fullerton Union High School.. Five years later, the school board ordered it covered with beige paint.
Why remains somewhat murky, although people familiar with the controversy later recalled objections to its depictions of California’s Mexican heritage and figures including Pío Pico. Whatever the motive, the artwork disappeared for nearly six decades before being restored in 1997. In a historical addendum, and in a decision that some might argue carried the taint of censorship itself, the Plummer name itself was removed from the auditorium in 2020, changing the name of the building to Fullerton Auditorium because of Louis E. Plummer’s ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
During the Cold War and McCarthy era, the censorship focus shifted from images on walls to ideas in classrooms.
In 1961, a bitter recall campaign in the Magnolia School District in west Anaheim targeted trustee Joel Dvorman, who was accused of communist sympathies and attacked for his association with the American Civil Liberties Union. Opponents also emphasized that Dvorman helped decide which textbooks children would read.
The recall shifted control of the board to an ultraconservative majority. Fights followed over textbooks, reading instruction, religion and the teaching of American history. The board instituted an “American heritage” program, while critics accused it of imposing its own political philosophy on classrooms. The conflict grew so bitter that all eight district principals resigned.
That struggle unfolded amid another early-1960s Orange County preoccupation: the United Nations.
The county became fertile territory for anti-U.N. activism, particularly among the John Birch Society and other anti-communist groups. Schools could be scrutinized for mock United Nations programs or material emphasizing international cooperation that critics believed promoted “One World” government.
In 1962, Orange State College professor Lee Kerschner was picketed while appearing at an event sponsored by the Orange County chapter of the American Association for the United Nations. College President William Langsdorf also barred communist speakers from campus, prompting criticism in the student press.
In 1963, Orange State and Santa Ana College imposed restrictions on distribution of Black Muslim literature. Representatives later received authorization to sell “Muhammad Speaks,” the Nation of Islam newspaper, at Fullerton.
Obscenity Battles
In the late 1960s, Orange County’s censorship battles moved into obscenity.
In April 1965, Anaheim police attended a screening of the sexually explicit film “Sexus” at the Garden Theater, arrested the theater owner and an employee and seized the film without a warrant or prior judicial determination that it was obscene. The case reached the California Supreme Court, which ruled in 1967 that the procedure violated constitutional protections against prior restraint.
Two years later, graduate students at Cal State Fullerton staged Michael McClure’s “The Beard,” a provocative play imagining an encounter between Billy the Kid and Jean Harlow.
Its sexual language and simulated sexual activity had already generated police raids and obscenity prosecutions elsewhere. In Fullerton, the production prompted newspaper attacks and eventually a California Senate hearing at Fullerton City Hall over academic freedom, morality and the responsibilities of a public university.
Then Orange County helped write the nation’s obscenity rules.
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Miller v. California, a case that began after Marvin Miller mailed unsolicited advertising for sexually explicit books and films to a Newport Beach restaurant.
His conviction was upheld by the appellate department of Orange County Superior Court before reaching the Supreme Court, which also upheld Miller’s original conviction. More importantly, it established the foundation of current American obscenity law, the Miller test, which asks whether material, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest under contemporary community standards, depicts specifically defined sexual conduct in a patently offensive way and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Around the same time, authorities targeted Laguna Beach’s Fahrenheit 451 bookstore for selling underground comics prosecutors considered obscene, including “Zap Comix.”
Laguna Beach had become an important center of underground comix (comics designed for mature readers, hence the added “X”) including the feminist work of Joyce Farmer and Lyn Chevli, whose Nanny Goat Productions published “Tits & Clits.” Their work addressed abortion, contraception, menstruation, masturbation and women’s sexuality with a frankness rare in mainstream comics. Fearing publishers and artists might be prosecuted next, Farmer and Chevli moved boxes of their work out of Laguna Beach.
School books remained targets as well. In 1978, Anaheim Union High School District removed George Eliot’s “Silas Marner” and Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind” from English classrooms. Both were later reinstated.
Visual Art Not Immune
Beginning in the late 1970s, Chicano artists and neighborhood youths created murals in Fullerton’s Maple neighborhood, including works associated with muralist Emigdio Vasquez. Incorporating Chicano history, working-class imagery and lowriders, the murals later became objects of preservation efforts and controversy, with critics at times associating their imagery with gangs.
By 1990, the national culture war over art had reached Fullerton’s Muckenthaler Cultural Center.
Trustees removed Annie Leibovitz’s famous photograph of a nude John Lennon curled around his fully clothed wife, Yoko Ono, from the exhibition “Heroes, Heroines, Idols and Icons.”
Trustees said the issue was whether the photograph fit the exhibition’s theme rather than nudity. The decision nevertheless became a censorship controversy. After a public backlash, trustees unanimously restored the photograph.
Curator Norman Lloyd resigned anyway, arguing that the board had seized authority belonging to professional curators.
In 2022, the Orange County Museum of Art dropped Ben Sakoguchi’s “Comparative Religions 101” from its California Biennial after officials raised concerns that historically contextualized swastikas in the work could upset or trigger visitors. The museum later invited Sakoguchi back, but he declined. The National Coalition Against Censorship criticized the episode as censorship.
Back to Books
School book disputes accelerated in the 1990s, with novels ranging from Pat Conroy’s “The Great Santini,” Judith Guest’s “Ordinary People,” and Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” either challenged or removed from the curriculum of several districts. The most ironic came in 1993, when students at Venado Middle School in Irvine received copies of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” in which dozens of objectionable words had been blacked out – censoring a novel about censorship.
A year later, parents at Bryant Ranch Elementary School in Yorba Linda objected to fifth-graders reading “My Brother Sam Is Dead,” citing profanity and graphic violence. Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified ultimately removed the book from the school’s classrooms and library.
Orange Unified supplied an unusually modern version of the eraser in 2023.
After complaints about books available through the district’s Sora ebook service, including “The Music of What Happens” and “A Polar Bear in Love,” the district temporarily suspended student access to the digital collection.
Officials said the issue was age-appropriate access, not suppression of LGBTQ material. The service was restored after books were reassigned to appropriate grade levels.
Once, removing a book meant taking it off a shelf. Now an entire library could disappear with a few keystrokes.
The Recent Struggles in Huntington Beach
In 2023, the Huntington Beach city council approved a policy directing library employees to relocate books containing certain sexual material from children’s and young adult sections. A subsequent ordinance proposed a parent-and-guardian review board for new children’s and teen titles.
Beginning in 2024, books were moved to a youth-restricted section of the Central Library. The teen section was eliminated and parental-consent requirements restricted minors’ access to some material.
Supporters framed the policies as matters of parental authority and age-appropriate access. Opponents argued that elected officials were restricting books because of their content.
In June 2025, voters approved Measure A, eliminating the proposed citizen review board before it began operating. But the legal fight continued.
In September 2025, an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled that Huntington Beach had to comply with California’s Freedom to Read Act. The court later ordered the city to return relocated books to their previous locations, re-establish the teen section and eliminate parental-consent requirements governing access to library material. The city council voted to appeal.
In April 2026, the judge ordered Huntington Beach to pay nearly $1 million in legal fees stemming from the litigation.
The Long Battle Over Censorship in the County Continues
More than eight decades after Fullerton officials covered a mural with beige paint, Orange County is still arguing about who should determine what other people – particularly their children – could read, see and learn.
The objects have changed: a mural, a loyalty oath, a textbook, a play, a comic, a photograph, a student magazine, an ebook and a library shelf.
The hand reaching for the eraser has changed repeatedly.
The fight over who gets to wield it has not.
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