They even stated boldly that it was part of a Communist plot, one that was gaining such a foothold in the schools that “a lot of people are used and may not even be aware of it” (Sova 3). Parents in a small Washington town asserted that the book had nearly 800 instances of profanity. In the 1970s and 1980s, the book again became the subject of intense censorship. Still, parents were given the right to prevent their children from reading the book. The board ultimately relented, banning the book for everyone but Advanced Placement students, who they ruled could understand and appreciate the novel’s universal message. They also claimed that it was “explicitly pornographic” and, predictably, “immoral” (Sova 2). Soon after, parents in New Jersey complained to their school board about the book’s “filthy and profane” language and its apparent promotion of premarital sex, homosexuality, and perversion. Parents objected, and the school board voted to ban the book. Ten years later, controversy emerged again in Pennsylvania when the book was assigned in a local literature class. Ultimately the bookseller dropped the book from his inventory in order to avoid further scandal. The group went so far as to take vigilante action, parking a “Smutmobile” outside the hearing in the hopes of swaying the decision. In 1976, a legislative hearing in Oklahoma City involved a local censorship group seeking to prevent a bookseller from vending the book. Teachers were fired for assigning the book to students, and numerous boards debated the book’s place in the classroom. Between 19, it was the most frequently banned book in schools. The Catcher in the Rye has long been a lightning rod for controversy over the years, generating many calls for censorship, some of them successful, thus making it a central work in 20th-century and even censorship debates.