It’s NOT Just “Back-in-the-Day”
Sund v. City of Wichita Falls, Texas, 121 F. Supp. 2d 530 (N.D.
Texas, 2000)
City residents who were members of a church sought removal of two books, Heather
Has Two Mommies and Daddy's Roommate, because they
disapproved of the books' depiction of homosexuality. The City of Wichita Falls
City Council voted to restrict access to the books if 300 persons signed a
petition asking for the restriction. A separate group of citizens filed suit
after the books were removed from the children's section and placed on a locked
shelf in the adult area of the library. …. It held that the City's resolution
constituted impermissible content-based and viewpoint based discrimination; was
not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest; provided no
standards or review process; and improperly delegated governmental authority
over the selection and removal of the library's books to any 300 private
citizens who wish to remove a book from the children's area of the Library.
Counts v. Cedarville School District, 295 F.Supp.2d 996 (W.D. Ark.
2003)
The school board of the Cedarville, Arkansas school district voted to restrict
students' access to the Harry Potter books, on the grounds that the books
promoted disobediance and disrespect for authority and dealt with witchcraft
and the occult. As a result of the vote, students in the Cedarville school
district were required to obtain a signed permission slip from their parents or
guardians before they would be allowed to borrow any of the Harry Potter books
from school libraries. The District Court overturned the Board's decision and
ordered the books returned to unrestricted circulation, on the grounds that the
restrictions violated students' First Amendment right to read and receive
information. In so doing, the Court noted that…the Board …was still bound by
the Bill of Rights and could not abridge students' First Amendment right to
read a book on the basis of an undifferentiated fear of disturbance or because
the Board disagreed with the ideas contained in the book.
Don’t Touch That VIDEO GAME!
Interactive Digital Software Association, et al. v. St.
Louis County, Missouri, et al., 329 F.3d 954(8th Cir. 2003)
St. Louis County passed an ordinance banned selling or renting violent video
games to minors, or permitting them to play such games, without parental
consent, and video game dealers sued to overturn the law. The Court of Appeals
found the ordinance unconstitutional, holding that depictions of violence alone
cannot fall within the legal definition of obscenity for either minors or
adults, and that a government cannot silence protected speech for children by
wrapping itself in the cloak of parental authority. The Court ordered the lower
court to enter an injunction barring enforcement of the law, citing the Supreme
Court's recognition in Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 213-14, 45 L.
Ed. 2d 125, 95 S. Ct. 2268 (1975) that "speech that is neither obscene as
to youths nor subject to some other legitimate proscription cannot be suppressed
solely to protect the young from ideas or images that a legislative body thinks
unsuitable for them. In most circumstances, the values protected by the First
Amendment are no less applicable when the government seeks to control the flow
of information to minors."
September 23 - 30, 2006
Unless noted otherwise, all information
taken from www.ala.org
CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN
ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR
ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE
PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF
GRIEVANCES.
The Bill of Rights to the U.S.
Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791