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The trial of a challenge of Arkansas’ library obscenity law was canceled Tuesday by the federal judge overseeing the case.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks of the Western District of Arkansas is expected to issue a ruling by Thanksgiving, said John Adams, an attorney representing all 18 plaintiffs. Brooks could decide a trial is still necessary instead of siding with the plaintiffs or defendants, Adams said.
Sixteen of the plaintiffs sued the state and Crawford County in June 2023 over Act 372 of 2023, which would create criminal liability for librarians who distribute content that some consider “harmful to minors” and give local elected officials the final say over the availability of challenged materials.
Two residents of Crawford County, where the local library system segregated LGBTQ+ children’s books in response to public outcry, joined the suit in February.
Brooks temporarily blocked the two challenged portions of Act 372 in July 2023, days before the law went into effect, after both sides presented their arguments in a hearing. Adams argued that Act 372 unfairly restricts librarians’ speech and is unclear about how librarians can avoid the criminal charges put forth in the law.
The blocked Section 1 of Act 372 would have put librarians at risk of being charged with a Class D felony for “knowingly” distributing “obscene” material or informing others of how to obtain it. Knowingly possessing obscene material would risk conviction of a Class A misdemeanor.
The other blocked provision, Section 5, would have given city and county elected officials the final say over whether a book challenged on the basis of appropriateness can remain on library shelves or should be relocated to a place minors cannot access.
Brooks wrote in his 49-page ruling that the two sections were too vague and could lead to arbitrary interpretation and “content-based restrictions” that violate the First Amendment.
The case was initially scheduled for a bench trial this month. On Sept. 25, Brooks rescheduled the trial for Dec. 16.
In May, both sides asked Brooks for summary judgment, or a ruling in their favor without a trial. The plaintiffs’ request states that a permanent injunction via summary judgment is appropriate because “there are no factual issues that prevent final resolution of this matter.”
The 18 plaintiffs include libraries, bookstores, advocacy groups and individual library patrons. The defendants are Crawford County, its county judge and the prosecuting attorneys in each of Arkansas’ 28 judicial districts.
County-level library disputes
In their motion for summary judgment, the two Crawford County defendants asked Brooks to dismiss the case against them alone. They filed a similar motion in July 2023, claiming the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue them.
Brooks denied last year’s motion, ruling that the county and County Judge Chris Keith will be responsible for implementing Act 372 if it goes into effect and if appeals of challenged material reach the county government.
The Crawford County Library System created separate “social sections” for LGBTQ+ books between December 2022 and January 2023 after members of the public told the county quorum court that children should not have access to LGBTQ+ content.
In May 2023, three parents sued Keith, the quorum court, the library’s interim director and its governing board. They claimed the social sections were “unlawful censorship of materials” based on “an extreme and malevolent view of the Bible” and against the First Amendment.
On Sept. 30, U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, who had requested summary judgment. Holmes ordered the defendants to return the materials in the social sections to “appropriate sections in general circulation without consideration of … whether the viewpoints expressed in such materials are unpopular or controversial.”
Public libraries vs. quorum courts: an ongoing local conflict throughout Arkansas
As of Wednesday, the defendants have not appealed the ruling. The case was reassigned to Brooks on Oct. 15.
Crawford County is not Arkansas’ only county to have faced conservative backlash against LGBTQ+ content in libraries in the past few years. Saline County officials fired the local library director last year after she refused the quorum court’s recommendation to segregate books in anticipation of Act 372.
In Craighead County, citizens who decried a Pride-themed book display and a transgender author’s visit to the Jonesboro library spearheaded a narrowly successful defunding effort in 2022. Jonesboro voters will be able to decide in November whether to restore most of the library system’s lost funding, which comes from property tax millage.
Jonesboro’s Republican state senator, Dan Sullivan, was the primary sponsor of Act 372 in the Legislature.