State law defines material as 'harmful to minors' if it contains nudity or sexual content, 'lacks serious literary, scientific, medical, artistic or political value for minors' and if, by community standards, it is 'inappropriate for 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 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.
"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.
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." 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.
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