1 year ago
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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Controversy is heating up when it comes to a new law in Arkansas you have likely heard of.
Act 372 will allow library employees to face criminal penalties for distributing books found to be harmful to children.
Executive Director of Central Arkansas Library System, Nate Coulter, said one of the lawyers for the library came to the board Thursday to explain litigation options when it comes to this new law. The board voted to allow the attorney to keep exploring litigation.
“I call it an attack on the freedom to read in the first amendment,” Coulter said in an interview Friday.
Coulter said there are two components so far, his board and library attorneys believe are unconstitutional.
One is the harmful to minors, criminalization provision.
“The idea that vilifying librarians and subjecting them to criminal penalties for something that has already been determined in one instance to be a standard that is flawed, is hard to understand frankly,” Coulter said.
Coulter pointed to a federal case in 2004 where a similar statute ...
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