<
https://lithub.com/a-refuge-from-censorship-why-independent-bookstores-will-save-us/>
"I was six hundred miles into a two-thousand-mile road trip, doing jumping
jacks at a rest stop in Ohio to wake myself up, when my phone buzzed with the
update I’d been dreading. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had
issued its ruling in
Little vs. Llano County. In a 10-7 decision, the court
decided that public libraries, including school libraries, are no longer
protected under First Amendment free speech guarantees.
Americans have historically used First Amendment rights to challenge the
removal of books from library collections, arguing that patrons have a right to
receive information via public libraries. But the Fifth Circuit broke precedent
by declaring that this right doesn’t apply to taxpayer funded libraries. In a
sixty-page majority opinion, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan argued that when public
libraries decide which books to collect or remove, they’re engaging in
government speech—which isn’t subject to free speech rules. Duncan used to
manage the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and successfully argued the
Hobby
Lobby Supreme Court case that limited contraceptive access under the
Affordable Care Act. Guess which president appointed him.
What does it mean to overturn forty-plus years of established anti-censorship
law? For one thing, partisan government bureaucrats—not trained librarians—can
now determine what you find in library collections. Some politician or
unelected official who might not have read a book since high school can now
declare books controversial or un-American and remove them, legally, as long as
he calls it “curation.”"
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
