An Arkansas state law that would have charged booksellers and librarians with a felony for allowing minors access to materials deemed “harmful” or “obscene” has been temporarily blocked by a district court ruling.
The preliminary injunction was issued Saturday by U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks. The law, signed by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was set to take effect August 1 and would have additionally created a new system for citizens to lobby challenges against library books.
Little Rock’s Central Arkansas Library System is among the plaintiffs challenging the law in court. Arguing that the new law could have a chilling effect on libraries and bookstores by frightening them into not carrying books that may potentially be challenged.
The law seeks to penalize librarians and booksellers who allow the borrowing or purchase of books deemed “obscene” by the state. The penalty would be a class D felony.
It also makes the “knowing” possession of these materials a class A misdemeanor. The same penalty could be levied at anyone who “furnishes” a book decided to be “harmful” to a minor. And it allows any member of the general public to “challenge the appropriateness” of any book.
Both public and school libraries would have to create committees to review and vote on any challenged book and whether it should be relocated to a special area of the library “not accessible to minors.”
“The question we had to ask was — do Arkansans still legally have access to reading materials? Luckily, the judicial system has once again defended our highly valued liberties,” Holly Dickson, the executive director of the ACLU in Arkansas, said in a statement. The ACLU is representing some of the plaintiffs.
The Arkansas law is part of a nationwide push by conservatives to make the banning or restricting of books easier. In the 20 years they’ve been tracking such numbers, the American Library Association said 2022 marked the greatest amount of attempts to ban or restrict access to books.
Such attempts nearly doubled over 2021.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin will be “reviewing the judge's opinion and will continue to vigorously defend the law,” he said in an email to CBS News.
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