In Arkansas, freedom to read advocates have a court victory to celebrate.
Catching up with PW's Andrew Albanese
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On July 29, a federal judge delivered a highly anticipated ruling on two key provisions of a recently passed Arkansas state law.
In a lengthy opinion and order, Judge Timothy L. Brooks determined that specific sections of Act 372 were highly likely to be found unconstitutional, and he issued a preliminary injunction blocking them. The provisions would have exposed librarians and booksellers to criminal liability for making allegedly inappropriate or “harmful” books accessible to minors in the state.
“The ruling means that these two key provisions did not go into effect this week with the rest of the law,” explains Publishers Weekly’s Andrew Albanese.
“Judge Brooks concluded that portions of the law are ‘too vague to be understood and implemented effectively’” Albanese tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “if enacted, the law would ‘permit, if not encourage, library committees and local governmental bodies to make censorship decisions based on content or viewpoint, which would violate the First Amendment.’”
Every Friday, CCC’s “Velocity of Content” features the editors and reporters of Publishers Weekly for an early look at what news publishers, editors, authors, agents, and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.
Thank goodness the US Supreme Court decided decades ago that state action to limit fundamental rights guaranteed in the US Constitution, rights such as publishing, writing, and freedom of speech and the press, were in facts rights which the states could not legally violate. Federal rights obtain in these cases.This case is another breath of air refreshing the sacred nature of 1st Amendment rights. And, remember that most pundits consider the US Supreme Court as full of conservative justices. As has been the history of the court, you, as President, don’t always get what you thought you were getting by appointment of conservatives. The most famous example is the rise to Chief Justice of Earl Warren, a figure once seen as deeply conservative. Perhaps each new justice realizes that supporting the Constitution and the rights guaranteed by it is the most conservative step that can be taken.