KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee lawmakers are debating a bill that would restrict access to some materials for minors in libraries.
According to HB 1661, the bill would allow people to sign a petition that could restrict books, video games, pamphlets, magazines and more in public libraries if it is believed they are harmful to minors.
Rep. John Ragan (R - Oak Ridge) filed the bill. He said an adult would still be able to walk into a library and check out whatever they want if it passes.
"I've received a number of complaints from constituents in my district, as well as from across the state, that have seen materials present in our libraries, in fact, I have been forwarded photographs of some of these materials and it's not an exaggeration to say that it is truly obscene," Ragan said. "That is an adult can walk into an, a, library and check out whatever they want to. But a child, a minor is restricted from accessing these things."
One email from a constituent, according to his office, selected images from graphic novels like Blankets and The Handmaid's Tale, as well as books like Choke and Tricks. Those books are not in the children's section of the Knox County Public Library.
Blankets, by Craig Thompson, is a coming-of-age story that has won awards. The Handmaid's Tale is a sci-fi dystopia novel that explores themes surrounding women's rights and autonomy and tells a story in which women are enslaved and forced to bear children for a theocracy. The story has since been adapted as a TV show.
Akram Faizer has taught First Amendment and constitutional law at Lincoln Memorial University for more than a decade. He has multiple accolades in his time at the school and said this bill carries a severe risk.
He said the bill may suppress access to information that adults are constitutionally entitled to have access to. The bill would require any material "harmful to minors" to be restricted. Ambiguities in that definition could lead to materials that have artistic merit being restricted, he said.
"By the definition of, for example, restriction of access to minors for obscene library materials covers more than just obscene material. It covers material that they've defined as harmful to minors that could depict nudity. It's definitively the case that obscenity is not First Amendment protected. But nudity is," Faizer said. "Let's take, for example, the Ukraine-Russia war. A depiction of the violence in that war could be excessive violence within the meaning of this statute ... the concern could be if we were under the guise of protecting minors, we're removing potentially important and significant political speech that may depict things like violence, under the claim that it's within the ambit of the statute."
Ragan said federal law requires public libraries to restrict access to pornography, and said he wanted to create a similar restriction system.
Mary Pom Claiborne, a spokesperson for the Knox County Public Library, said around 30,000 children have library cards, out of the total 140,000 active library card holders. Many of them are parents. Claiborne verified that the library has controls and restrictions online as well.
"If a parent chooses total parental control, absolutely," Claiborne said. "Now the parents, you know, allow their kids to have their juvenile card, and, they trust their kids. So it's up to the parent."
The Knox County Public Library said they work closely with schools, with parents, with the community and have about 40 storytimes a week for the preschoolers. At a festival for reading, around 10,000 kids and their families come out to support literacy.
With this bill, libraries would be able to still carry any materials they want.
"I think he's trying to do something benevolently for the children. I don't dispute that" Faizer said. "And we haven't seen, as applied, how it works because he has a detailed process, potentially an administrative process, whereby once a petition is effectuated, or completed, that the petition will be reviewed. And then there'll be an administrative process to potentially protect against, you know, removing books about war from the shelves, right? So let's be let's be fair by him, and let's not go overboard in attacking the bill. But the bill has some infirmities. The first one is what we just talked about, right? It could be overinclusive and ensnare more speech, more video, more information, then is merely obscene."
For a material to be restricted, the bill would require district residents to circulate a petition for signatures. It would need to be signed by at least 2% of the total number of qualified voters in the district, who voted in the previous gubernatorial election. It would also need to be filed with the county election commission, which would then notify libraries if it succeeds.
Ragan said he aims to have community standards determined by this petition, Ragan said, and there'll be several people signing.
"They don't have to be voters," Ragan said. "In the bill that I created, I doubled that. I said 2% of the number of voters in a gubernatorial election, but the actual people that sign it, by the law that I've created ... is that they just have to be adult citizens of the district in which their petition is being gathered."
The Secretary of State would also need to promulgate rules about how a petition can be conducted, and what it needs to collect, according to the bill.
"What's potentially at risk is a constitutional right. I think it's precarious to have that be adjudicated merely by a petition system," said Faizer. "You could plausibly get 2,000 to 12,000 signatures to take away, work with me, a religious book from a disfavored religion — right? That doesn't mean the majority of people support that. All we're doing here is getting a petition with 2% of the qualified voters. That means, very plausibly, 98% of people could be opposed to removing a book. But if 2% of people are organized in favor of removing it, it would be the library upon receipt of the petition where the signatures have been verified, would be required to remove it. And so the concern would be the fact that that this is not removed based on a professional process."