The “social section” in Crawford County Library’s Van Buren branch (Screenshot from court documents)
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has appealed a federal judge’s December ruling that portions of a 2023 state law changing how libraries handle controversial materials are unconstitutional.
On Dec. 23, U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks of the Western District of Arkansas agreed with the 18 plaintiffs that two of the five sections of Act 372 of 2023 violate the First Amendment. The law would have created criminal liability for librarians who distribute content that some consider “obscene” or “harmful to minors” and given elected officials the final say over what books are available to the public.
On Wednesday, Griffin filed an appeal of the decision on behalf of most of the defendants, Arkansas’ 28 prosecuting attorneys. The accompanying response to the plaintiffs’ legal complaint asserted that the plaintiffs — libraries, bookstores, advocacy groups and individual library patrons — do not have standing to sue and that the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas does not have jurisdiction over the matter.
Brooks wrote in his 37-page ruling in December that the court does have jurisdiction and the plaintiffs do have standing to challenge the two applicable sections of Act 372.
Federal judge declares sections of Arkansas’ library obscenity law unconstitutional
Section 1 of the law would have made “furnishing a harmful item to a minor” a Class A misdemeanor. Brooks asserted in both his December ruling and his July 2023 temporary injunction that this section was too vague and would create unnecessary “burdens on public access to speech.”
Two other defendants in the case were Crawford County and its county judge, Chris Keith. Their attorney, Samuel McLelland, notified Griffin’s office Tuesday that they do not plan to appeal Brooks’ ruling, according to court documents.
The Crawford County parties had been defending Section 5, which would have required a committee of library staff, selected by head librarians and “representative of diverse viewpoints,” to be the first to review library materials challenged on the basis of “appropriateness.”
If a challenger disagreed with the library committee’s decision, city or county elected officials would have had the final say on where material is placed. Brooks ruled that Section 5 risked allowing “the views of a vocal few [to] dictate what is generally available to the public… without providing any justification.”
The two Crawford County defendants, along with the county quorum court and library director, lost a separate First Amendment lawsuit in September.
The Crawford County Library System moved children’s books with LGBTQ+ topics to segregated “social sections,” accessible only to adults, at all five branches between December 2022 and January 2023 after county residents objected to their availability at multiple quorum court meetings. County officials later cited Act 372, which became law in March 2023, as a reason to keep the books segregated.
In May 2023, three parents of minor library patrons filed a lawsuit claiming the “social sections” violated the First Amendment’s provision that the government must not favor an establishment of religion.
Crawford County librarians returned the segregated books to their original sections in compliance with U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes’ ruling in favor of the plaintiffs. The case was reassigned to Brooks in October, and the defendants have not appealed.
On Wednesday, Griffin filed a motion to intervene in order to defend Section 5.
The case will go to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in St. Louis.
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