Book World: Arkansas is sued over criminal ban on providing 'harmful' books to minors
Arkansas booksellers and librarians have filed a lawsuit challenging a new state law that would punish them with up to a year in prison for providing "harmful" books to people under age 18.
The suit challenges two parts of the law, Act 372, which is due to take effect on Aug. 1. One section makes it a criminal offense to knowingly lend, make available or show to a minor any material deemed "harmful" to them. State law defines material as "harmful to minors" if it contains nudity or sexual content and appeals to a "prurient interest in sex," "lacks serious literary, scientific, medical, artistic or political value for minors" and if, by current community standards, it is "inappropriate for minors."
The plaintiffs also contest a section of the law that requires county and municipal libraries to establish written guidelines for the "selection, relocation and retention" of materials, including a process for individuals to challenge their "appropriateness" and request that they be moved to an area inaccessible to children.
By passing Act 372, which also strikes a statute that protected librarians from being prosecuted for circulating material "claimed to be obscene," Arkansas became one of at least seven states that have passed laws criminalizing librarians and school employees who provide books deemed sexually explicit or "harmful" to minors, The Washington Post's Hannah Natanson reported in May. Another dozen states have considered similar bills.
None of the bill's four sponsors in the Arkansas General Assembly responded to a request for comment. In a May op-ed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, state Sen. Dan Sullivan defended Act 372, saying that it simply expands existing prohibitions on "displaying" harmful material and creates a process for parents to "appeal the decisions of unelected librarians to local elected officials."
Kandi West, the primary owner of WordsWorth Books in Little Rock, a plaintiff in the suit, expressed concerns about how to interpret the law's definition of making material "available" to a minor. "While our store is organized with our children's section in its own part of the store, there is nothing that keeps a minor from browsing the entire store," she wrote in an email.
"We pride ourselves on our collection, and on having books that represent all kinds of people that are in our community," said Daniel Jordan, who co-owns Pearl's Books, another plaintiff, with his wife, Leah. Now he worries the law might force them to hide or remove critically acclaimed, popular books for fear that someone might deem them inappropriate for minors.
It would be practically impossible to strictly enforce the law at their family bookstore in Fayetteville, Ark., Jordan said. Housed in a former newspaper building, Pearl's is 1,200 square feet, "long and skinny," with a dedicated children's section in the back; it has a mix of books, for people of all ages, on the display tables up front. Customers often browse with their kids in tow, and the clientele also includes university students, who may not have turned 18 yet.
"We're asking ourselves all kinds of questions, like: Would we need to be checking IDs for certain books? What if we accidentally sold something that someone considers 'harmful'?" Jordan said. "Are we going to have a separate entrance for children and a separate entrance for adults?"
If the law went into effect, he added, "I think we'd need to probably decide if we're an adults-only bookstore, 18-plus, or a children's-only bookstore. That's pretty worrisome for us, because that's cutting our business in pieces."
The law would require libraries to create age-restricted sections where minors aren't allowed, even with adult supervision; some librarians joining the suit argue that this would hinder their ability to serve readers of all ages.
"I will have to either keep that room locked, and people will have to ask for permission for the key for 'the dirty room,' or I'll have to have staff at the door," said Adam Webb, executive director of the Garland County Library. That requirement would make it impossible for the library to continue its student volunteer program or to hire minors in staff positions, he added. "If a 'harmful to minors' book comes in and gets put on a cart for one of the teenagers to shelve, all of a sudden I've committed a crime."
This would pose extreme difficulties for the state's smallest libraries, which lack the space to cordon off an age-restricted area or the staff to ensure compliance, said Nate Coulter, executive director of the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock, the lead plaintiff. "Is your whole library 'adults only'?" Coulter asked. "Somebody was joking that it's like a dispensary for controlled substances, with officers at the door."
Webb also raised concerns about the law's section on challenging a book's "appropriateness." It would change his library's standard reconsideration process, in part, by allowing individuals to bypass the library board and appeal to their local government. "It doesn't say that the person challenging the material has to live in my community or use my library," he said. "It says, 'a person affected by the material' - and that person can be sitting in their basement challenging library books in every library in the state of Arkansas."
Act 372 doesn't make distinctions between what might be "appropriate" reading for an older teenager, as compared with a very young child, forcing librarians into what Webb describes as a difficult "binary": "Either all the material in my library is going to be appropriate for the youngest of minors, or I'm just going to exclude children from using the library." And either choice, Webb said, might run afoul of the Constitution's protections for free speech or prohibitions on age discrimination.
In response to the new law, the Carroll and Madison Library System in Eureka Springs, Ark., is rewriting its policies and plans to block all youth borrowers' accounts in July, at the height of their summer reading programs, unless a parent signs a waiver. The waiver states that the collections include materials whose viewpoints they may not agree with and that caregivers - not librarians - are responsible for their child's safety and behavior, including their choice of reading materials.
"We're hoping is it is an awareness tool" for patrons who hadn't heard about the law, said April Griffith, the system's regional administrator. And for library staff, she added, "we're hoping it adds at least a layer of protection."
The law's vagueness will have a chilling effect, Coulter said. "It's not hard for me to infer that that's the objective here: that the purpose is to scare people, discourage people, intimidate people from collecting these things that are deemed objectionable by certain parts of the community - or, if you have them in your collection, to put them in the smut room or isolate them."
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