FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — According to court documents, on July 29, 2023, U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks ruled to stop the Arkansas new library censorship law from going into effect.
Judge Brooks issued an order for a temporary restraint for the law that would go into effect Aug. 1.
Act 372 is known as the library obscenity bill. Multiple libraries and library patrons, including the Fayetteville Public Library, say the act is unconstitutional. The plaintiffs say the act broadens who can call library material obscene and can punish someone caught giving that content to minors, such as librarians. Basically, the act would ban libraries from distributing materials that are deemed obscene for kids and request those documents to be relocated to another area in the libraries, away from kids.
They also disagree with section five of the act, saying it is unconstitutionally vague and would cause viewpoint discrimination.
Leta Caplinger, Crawford County resident and plaintiff in the case says she feels like today was a step in the right direction.
“I'm happy and relieved. You know, I don't want librarians to be made criminals. And as the judge said that the law is vague. And there's things about it that would just make it difficult to prosecute people," said plaintiff Leta Caplinger.
“There's already, most libraries already have a process if you want to complain about a book. So it's not that there's no such process that doesn't exist right now, but not the process that's laid out in Section Five of Act 372," said Caplinger. "So they won't have to go through that process at this time. They won't have to turn it over to the quorum court, and get them involved in it at this point in time.”
Caplinger says although some may find certain books offensive, it doesn't fall under an obscene category.
“The library, it may present something that you might not want to read, or I might not want to read. But that doesn't mean it's obscene. You know, you might find it offensive. But offensive is not obscene, by the legal definition,” said Caplinger.
“Something that may not be of interest to a minor or might be harmful, is not harmful to an adult, or a more mature minor. So why should our access be limited by what is only good enough for a small child?” said Caplinger.
The defendants, which include the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office, deny the plaintiff’s motion and say this law is meant to protect children from obscene material.
Arkansas Senator Dan Sullivan said the following in reference to the decision.
"Act 372 was overwhelmingly passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor. I'll continue to fight to keep material that is harmful to minors away from our most vulnerable. We will be appealing this decision to the Court of Appeals and investigating other legislation to protect our youngsters."
The law is blocked temporarily so it is not struck down completely by this federal ruling. For now, the law will not go into effect until a final decision is made in regard to if it is constitutional or not.
Watch 5NEWS on YouTube.
Download the 5NEWS app on your smartphone:
Stream 5NEWS 24/7 on the 5+ app: How to watch the 5+ app on your streaming device
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com and detail which story you're referring to.