Fayetteville Public Library v. Crawford County

The Arkansas state legislature enacted a book-ban statute that (1) made it a crime to advertise or make a book available to a minor if the book was “harmful to minors” (§ 1) and (2) created a citizen-complaint process that allowed local elected officials to remove books with “inappropriate” content from public libraries (§ 5). Under the state’s caselaw, the term “harmful to minors” was defined broadly to include any book that referenced sex in any form, even nonobscene references. Multiple book providers, including the Fayetteville Public Library (collectively, the librarians) (plaintiffs) filed a lawsuit in federal district court against a group responsible for enforcing the statute (defendants), alleging that the statute violated the First Amendment and seeking to stop its enforcement. The librarians pointed out that to avoid giving minors access to “harmful” books and committing a crime under § 1, the librarians would have to either completely remove all books with any sexual reference from their shelves or else completely ban minors from the buildings. The librarians also argued that § 5 was a vague and impermissible content-based restriction on protected speech because it allowed a few individuals to censor the entire community’s access to speech based on the individuals’ subjective beliefs about a book’s content. The librarians moved for a preliminary injunction preventing the statute’s enforcement during the lawsuit. The court considered the motion.