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FIRE filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Fayetteville Public Library v. Crawford County, a case challenging Arkansas’s broad attempt to regulate libraries and bookstores under Act 372. We urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to uphold a district court ruling striking down Act 372 as unconstitutional. Arkansas’ sweeping law grants anyone the authority to demand that books be removed or locked away in “adults-only” sections, and threatens librarians and booksellers with up to a year in jail simply for providing minors access to constitutionally protected works.

The district court rightly found Act 372 unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. Undefined terms like “appropriate” and “accessible” invite viewpoint-based censorship and force libraries to guess at compliance. Even classics like Romeo and Juliet and Catcher in the Rye could be barred from high school shelves because the law treats all minors the same, from preschoolers to 17-year-olds.

Our brief stresses that the state cannot censor ideas simply by invoking a broad, vague need to “protect children.” Courts have long rejected efforts to restrict access to constitutionally protected works for everyone just to shield minors from certain materials. We also explained why Arkansas’s claim that library curation is “government speech” fails: Libraries exist to provide access to diverse viewpoints, not to broadcast the government’s message.

FIRE is asking the Eighth Circuit to affirm the district court’s ruling and protect libraries’ historic mission as free and open repositories of knowledge. No librarian should face jail time for doing their job, and no state should be able to censor ideas under the guise of child protection.

You can read our full amicus brief here.