The year: 1965.
The prank: After operating hours, Fairfield University students hid in the library, then housed on the first floor of Canisius, in order to empty the legendary “Cage.”
Locked inside were books banned from general circulation by the Catholic Church’s Canon Law of 1399. Included were works of Spinoza, Leibniz, Balzac and Sartre. Access required special written permission.
The students removed 100 books and dispersed them among the library’s regular distribution shelves.
These books, listed on what was called “The Index,” were available to students and faculty for scholarly research only. The penalty for other use of the texts was excommunication from the Church.
Reverend James H. Coughlin, dean of the undergraduate college at the time, claimed that while the books were available for academic purposes, they were not “for the casual reader.”
According to an article that appeared in The New York Times shortly after the prank, the Church considered these books to be “harmful to the faith and morals of the faithful.”
The school’s librarians worked for almost two days to locate the books and return them to The Cage. While Reverend Coughlin called the protest “immaterial,” Vatican II declared that Catholic Higher Education should be granted intellectual freedom just two years later.
“Men should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but motivated by a sense of duty,” read the documents of Vatican II.
This week, the American Booksellers Association, in conjunction with a number of national library and publishers’ foundations, celebrates its twenty-first annual Banned Books Week, which runs from Sept. 20 – 27. Banned Books Week is a reminder that every person has the right to decide what to read, listen to or view.
Books are considered for censorship when their treatment of subjects such as sex, racism, and profanity are controversial. In 2002, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom received 515 book challenges. A formal challenge is a written complaint and request that a book be removed from school curriculum or library shelves.
According to Alan Katz, professor of asian studies at Fairfield,”In my experience, there has never been any pressure on faculty members to use, or more importantly, not to use books in their courses.”
Since the end of The Cage era, Fairfield has not censored its library collection, and students are shocked to learn that it ever did.
“I can’t believe this ever happened at Fairfield,” said Lauren Bosse ’05. “Even though it’s a religious school, they need to separate religion from what they’re teaching.”
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