H-ton Freshman Hennie England Wins LI History Award

Huntington freshman Hennie England claimed the Mike D’Innocenzo Outstanding Entry on Long Island History Award at last weekend’s National History Day regional finals at Hofstra University.

The teenager’s exhibit titled “Knowledge is Power: The Right to Information in Schools” examined the infamous Island Trees book banning case that reached the US Supreme Court.

“I have always found arguments about censorship to be intriguing and when I realized it would fit this year's topic, I knew I would do my project on censorship,” wrote Ms. England in a process paper that accompanied her exhibit. “I narrowed it down to book bans and eventually I came across the Island Trees Board of Education v. Pico case. The case is about five students who sued their board of education after the board banned 11 books from their school libraries. It eventually reached the US Supreme Court, which decided that the ban was an infringement on the First Amendment [rights of students] and that the board of education could not remove books based on their personal opinions.”

Ms. England spent many weeks researching her topic, sifting through materials, writing, editing and formatting sections, going through photos and selecting ones that help tell the story and assembling the exhibit.

“I found most of my information from websites, but I also found a lot of newspaper articles,” wrote Ms. England in the process paper. “I reached out to my local historical society hoping they would have physical records or articles of the case because it was nearby. Unfortunately, they did not, they did however refer me to the New York State Historic Newspapers website, which had a plethora of articles about the case. These really helped me understand the case because I had very little previous knowledge of legal terms and the newspapers were much easier to understand. The website Justia was also very informative. It has a syllabus of the case and while it seemed like a daunting read, it was extremely helpful when I finally did read it. Another useful resource was the American Library Association. It had an abundance of information about present day book bans and bans throughout history.”

Ms. England worked on her project while maintaining stellar grades in all her classes. The exhibit totals 500 words and the process paper runs another 475 words.

“I wanted the appearance of my board to relate to my topic and what better way to do that than make my board a giant book?,” asked Ms. England in the process paper. “So I decided that’s what I would do. I painted my exhibit so it would look like an open book. The board itself is made up of wood, so I can reuse it for future National History Day projects. After I completed all my research I printed all of it out, glued it onto paper backgrounds and attached it to the board.”

This year’s National History Day contest theme is “Rights & Responsibilities in History.”

“The Island Trees Board of Education v. Pico case perfectly represents the theme of ‘Rights and Responsibilities,’” wrote Ms. England in the process paper. “The students fought for their rights and bravely stood up to those in power who ignored their responsibility to supply children with a diverse, unbiased education. This case is so significant to history because for the first time it officially made book bans based on political opinions illegal, setting a precedent for all other future book bans. Preventing bans such as this are critical because many banned books expose the reader to different lives, experiences, or problems. Restricting exposure to these different stories is harmful for children because they could grow up sheltered and ignorant to the struggles of others. As a result of this landmark case prejudiced book bans are widely recognized and fought out against.”