Topics: Controversial Works

• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

  Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has faced censorship since its publication in 1885. Alleged racist material has been most often cited for banning...

• American Aurora

  The book American Aurora illustrates the use of newspapers as partisan instruments and the precariousness of First Amendment press freedom in early U.S. history...

• Behind the Green Door

  Behind the Green Door (1972) was the first hard-core pornographic movie widely distributed in the U.S. It led to numerous obscenity prosecutions, particularly...

• Confidential Magazine

  The 1950s Confidential magazine was the founder of tabloid journalism in America. The magazine folded under the weight of legal bills after libel investigations...

• Deep Throat

  Deep Throat (1972), a pornographic film, introduced mainstream society to pornography and was banned as obscene in 23 states. Obscenity is not protected by the...

• Ecstasy
• Ecstasy

  Ecstasy (1933) was the first film blocked by the U.S. Customs Service from entering the U.S. Court battles over the film pitted indecency laws against the First...

• Fanny Hill

  The book Fanny Hill was the focus of one of the earliest obscenity cases in the U.S. In 1966 the Court ruled the book was not obscene in Memoirs v....

• Hair

  Hair, a musical, sparked First Amendment controversy with its obscene content. The original production was a harbinger of the changes taking place in American...

• Hit Man Manual

  Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors" was involved in a First Amendment case in which a circuit court said the First Amendment did not...

• Oh! Calcutta!

  Oh! Calcutta!, the first Broadway show to display full frontal nudity, opened in 1969. The play inflamed some public officials, leading to censorship and First...

• The Birth of a Nation

  Attempts to block the controversial racist film The Birth of a Nation were common, but there were no First Amendment challenges to the censorship attempts...

• The Catcher in the Rye

  The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most controversial novels in recent U.S. history. Schools have banned and restricted the book for its profanity and sexual...

• The Chocolate War

  Censors have repeatedly tried to remove The Chocolate War from library shelves, but have been stymied by First Amendment–based rights of intellectual freedom...

• The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence

  The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence was the first book to be censored by the government prior to publication. The courts said national security concerns...

• The Devil in Miss Jones

  The Devil in Miss Jones was key in the adult film industry’s quest to be protected by the First Amendment rather than as pornography, which can be deemed...

• The Last Temptation of Christ

  While conservative Christian groups denounced the controversial film The Last Temptation of Christ, Universal Studios publicly defended it as a matter of First...

• Ulysses

  The book Ulysses led to an obscenity trial in 1933 in which a district judge, addressing First Amendment freedom of expression, refused to declare the book...