Arkansas county ordered to stop segregating sexually oriented material • Arkansas Advocate

A federal judge on Monday Ordered Crawford County officials to stop placing certain library materials, primarily on LGBTQ+ topics, in a separate section with color labels.

U.S. District Judge PK Holmes III ordered the defendants to move the materials in those sections to “appropriate sections in general circulation without considering whether they endorse or agree with the viewpoints expressed in those materials and without examining whether the The viewpoints expressed in such materials are unpopular or controversial.”

Holmes also directed county officials to “refrain from forcing employees of the Crawford County Library System to act in violation of this injunction.”

CRAWFORD CO. preliminary injunction dated September 30, 2024

Crawford County residents and library patrons Rebecka Virden, Nina Prater, Samantha Rowlett and their minor children Lawsuit filed in May 2023 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas against the District Judge, the Quorum Court, the Library Board and the Interim Library Director. The plaintiffs alleged “unlawful censorship of materials,” particularly children’s books with LGBTQ+ themes. In their lawsuit, they targeted “the stigmatization of certain books by placing a conspicuous color label and moving the books to a separate ‘social area'” in each library.

Crawford County is also a defendant in another federal lawsuit filed last year over Act 372 of 2023, which would change the way libraries decide to withdraw materials from circulation. The bill would also criminalize librarians’ decisions about materials. The case is scheduled to be heard this month.

The plaintiffs are seeking a permanent injunction against the obscenity law blocking libraries in Arkansas

In a 10-page ruling issued Monday evening, Holmes said: “It is undeniable that the establishment and maintenance of the social services department was motivated.” essentially by a desire to make it more difficult for users to access books that contain viewpoints that are unpopular or controversial in Crawford County.”

Such viewpoint discrimination has “profound implications for the First Amendment,” the judge wrote. One of the fundamental principles underlying the free speech provision in the U.S. Constitution “is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or unpleasant,” he added .

Holmes acknowledged that speech discrimination was not the only motivation for creating the social spaces, noting that there was evidence that some officials were concerned that children could find their way to sexually explicit materials intended for adults be.

While public libraries have the right to restrict minors’ access to age-inappropriate material, these restrictions must be content-based and perspective-neutral, Holmes wrote.

“It’s one thing to restrict minors’ access to sexually explicit material, but a “It is quite another to restrict minors’ access to unpopular opinions,” the judge said. “Here the undisputed evidence shows that the social sector was created not only for the former but also for the latter purpose. which violates the First Amendment.”