Alaska State Senator Scott Kawasaki (D-Fairbanks) is working to ensure that public and school librarians are legally protected if they distribute sexually indecent materials to minors while on the job.
His Senate Bill 238 aims to give librarians a defense against charges of “enticement of a minor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and distribution of indecent material to minors.”
Introduced earlier this month, the bill is up for public comment in the Senate Education Committee on Monday, March 2, at 3:30 p.m. At that point, Alaskans will have a chance to weigh in.
Kawasaki’s bill is clearly aimed at countering concerned parents and local citizens who have been working for years to remove highly sexualized, graphic children’s books from area schools and libraries. These include books in Alaska libraries that expose youth to topics such as bondage, anal and oral sex, pederasty, transgenderism and masturbation. If Kawasaki’s legislation passes, it will be much more difficult to challenge or remove these books.
Key aspects of the bill ban the removal or restriction of materials based solely on the author’s or creator’s background, or because of objections to views expressed on race, gender, sexuality, religion, or politics.
For content involving sexual themes, libraries cannot block, relocate, or require parental permission unless the material meets Alaska’s legal definition of obscenity: appealing to prurient interest, depicting patently offensive sexual conduct (as defined in state law), and lacking serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value when viewed as a whole under community standards.
The bill defines “censor” as blocking access based on disagreement with ideas or sexual content without meeting those obscenity criteria. “Block” includes prohibiting acquisition, restricting searchability, or limiting display.
Other provisions prohibit the removal of a book, even if it does contain highly sexualized content, so long as the passages are deemed “isolated.” Additionally, challenged books would have to remain on the shelves until the challenge process was completely resolved.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
The legislation grants immunity from civil and criminal liability for librarians and governing bodies who distribute controversial or legally questionable material. It also prohibits reducing library funding as punishment for compliance and bars government entities from disciplining or terminating employees who refuse to censor materials.
One provision in the bill seems clearly aimed at local school boards or boroughs that require librarians to remove sexualized content. In practice, the bill would give librarians the ability to file lawsuits if they were disciplined for refusing to remove a sexually explicit children’s book. Students or parents in schools could also pursue similar remedies plus seek statutory damages of $451 to $1,451 for every censored book. Authors, publishers or booksellers would be able to sue over censorship of their materials as well.
At its core, the bill amends three existing Alaska criminal statutes to create affirmative defenses for librarians, museum employees or school officials, effectively shielding them from prosecution for enticement of a minor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, or distributing indecent material to minors when providing children with controversial books or encouraging them to check out certain materials.
TAKING ACTION
— Senate Bill 238 is set for a public hearing in the Senate Education Committee on March 2 at 3:30 p.m. Click here for information on how to testify over the phone.
— To contact members of the Senate Education Committee individually, click here for their emails or phone numbers.
— Click here to read the bill.
13 Comments
Alaska law makes it a crime to provide minors with porn. How this bill would work with that existing law is a mystery to me. And this Kawasaki fellow is obviously all in on giving porn to minors, so what is his ulterior motive? I think we know a pervert when we see one.
You got it all wrong from the jump, Librarians don’t GIVE anyone anything. Individuals CHOOSE the books themselves, no one forces the choice. Sometimes those individuals happen to be children. It is a parents responsibility to monitor what their child reads. What one family thinks is appropriate for their child, may not be appropriate for others and that is the parents job to decide, not the librarians.
It amazes me how the freedom of speech crowd only believes it when it applies to them and not everyone. Hypocrisy much! The bill is common sense. You might want to ban your kids from their tablets and phones where they can see more than you can imagine. smh.
That you think giving children access to sexually explicit material is free speech just reveals your level of depravity. I sure hope you do not have unsupervised access to- or are in charge of- children.
How many elementary school kids have phones, particularly in the Mat-Su? I’d say that number is vanishingly small. Your argument is fine for adults, not so much for kids. Porn is porn. It has no place in decent society, but certainly not in a school library.
Arrest him before he gets his hands literally on your kids!
This bill violates two Supreme Court opinions, United States v ALA from 2003, and Mahmoud V Taylor. A Maryland School.district just had to pay out 1.5 million dollars for doing what SB238 is proposing here. Make no mistake SB 238 is a pedophile protection bill.
Name the “sexually explicit” books that librarians are giving to kids. Name them. Read them even and see what you are actually fighting against. Just a reminder that banning materials from libraries is supporting fascism. Librarians are not giving explicit materials to your children. You are just racist and homophobic so the idea of something not agreeing with your viewpoint is considered “explicit”. I don’t want the bible in libraries. I do not agree with the way people hide behind it but I do believe in access to it for everyone. Do any of you even go to the libraries you take issue with? Do you know any of the actual policies or do you just want to be mad?
This bill MIGHT be fine for public libraries. But NO sexually explicit material of any kind should even be on shelves in a school library for any librarian to possibly recommend. For any grade level. If kids and/or their parents want that material, they are free to buy it or obtain it elsewhere. But it has no educational value and so does not belong in any school library. But since this type of literature apparently currently is on the shelves of our local schools, all concerned parents need to have a talk with their respective school boards to stop that practice and get them removed. Then no law necessary to protect school librarians. Remove “school” librarians from the bill and send it through again. Another in a growing list of reasons that public school enrollment continues to plummet, especially in this state.
If bill is passed, I can’t wait to see how long it takes for anyone supplying indecent material to children to argue they are being falsely accused of a crime when others are protected. Will toughs already convicted of crimes be able to challenge their convictions when others can’t be convicted of the same crime,
Sandra Dee : in the locker rooms of your daughter and your self Joe is changing his underwear glaring at you and yours! Don’t resist Sandra or your a hypocrite!
are you okay? are you having a stroke? nothing you said made any sense.
Sandra get real! Do you need illustrations in books made for children in our libraries teaching you what holes are possible to place your kitchen utensils in? Stupid people and stupid subjects make it seem like our society has suffered a massive stroke indeed! Get well soon