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Note:

Charles F. Eick, Constitutional Law—First Amendment—Right to Receive Information—Board of Education’s Removal of Selected Books from Public High School Library Violates Students’ First Amendment Right to Receive Information.  Minarcini v. Strongsville City School District, 541 F.2d 577 (6^th Cir. 1976), 55 TEXAS L. REV. 511 (1976).

This note examines the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Minarcini, in which the court held that although nothing in the first amendment compels school boards to provide students with a library, once a board creates this privilege, it cannot, consistent with the students’ right to receive information, remove books from the library merely because it considers them objectionable in content.  Mr. Eick explains that this case stands at the crossroads of two relatively recent developments in constitutional law: the extension of first amendment rights to schoolchildren, and the emergence of a distinct constitutional right to receive information.  His conclusion is that, by refusing to base its decision upon a traditional ground of faculty freedom of expression, the Minarcini court helped to define the still uncertain nature of the right to receive information, in addition to extending this right to the context of secondary school education.