A federal judge has permanently blocked key provisions of an Arkansas law that criminalized providing perceived harmful books to minors and established a citizen-driven challenge process for removing books deemed inappropriate from public libraries.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed Act 372 into law in March 2023, prompting a legal challenge by a coalition of groups who argued that the law would have a chilling effect on free speech and limit access to diverse materials.
Supporters of Act 372, including Sanders and Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, have defended the law as a necessary measure to protect children from exposure to inappropriate and damaging content.
Section 1 of the Act sought to impose misdemeanor penalties on librarians, booksellers, and others who make books or other materials deemed “harmful to minors” accessible to anyone under the age of 18. Providing such materials to a minor would constitute a Class A misdemeanor, carrying a penalty of up to one year in jail or a fine of $2,500.
Section 5 established a citizen-driven challenge process that allowed library books to be removed or relocated based on their “appropriateness,” with final decisions on these challenges left to local elected officials, rather than librarians.
Brooks ruled that both sections were unconstitutional, describing them as “vaguely worded and susceptible to multiple meanings.” He said that Section 1 failed to account for differences in age and maturity among minors and could result in banning books that have literary, scientific, or artistic value.
“To avoid criminal penalties under Section 1, librarians and booksellers must impose restrictions on older minors’ and adults’ access to vast amounts of reading material,” he wrote. “Creating segregated ‘18 or older’ spaces in libraries and bookstores will powerfully stigmatize the materials placed therein, thus chilling adult access to this speech.”
The judge also faulted Section 5 for lacking clear definitions and procedural safeguards. This provision of the Act allowed anyone to challenge the “appropriateness” of library materials, with local governing bodies such as city councils or county quorum courts given the final authority to decide whether a book should be relocated to a restricted area or removed entirely. Brooks found this to be an unconstitutional delegation of power that invites arbitrary and content-based censorship.
“Since anyone—whether an Arkansan or an out-of-state interest group—who is ‘affected’ by a book may raise a Section 5 challenge, libraries are likely to face exponentially more challenges than they do currently,” he wrote, adding that Section 5 empowered elected officials with broad discretion to decide whether a book is “appropriate” without any procedural requirements or standards in place to guide their decisions. “They don’t even have to read the books first,” he wrote.
The Arkansas attorney general vowed to appeal the decision. “I respect the court’s ruling and will appeal,” Griffin told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arkansas, which represented some of the plaintiffs, praised the judge’s decision.
The case is part of a national debate over the presence of controversial content in places where it can be readily accessed by children.
Opponents, like the plaintiffs in the Arkansas lawsuit against Act 372, argue that such laws can amount to overreach, and that the subjective nature of terms like “harmful” or “appropriate” can lead to censorship of valuable works that address important themes.
