Arkansas State Library Board rejects proposals to withhold funds based on content, litigation

Shari Bales (center), a member of the Arkansas State Library Board, addresses her fellow board members, including Lupe Peña de Martinez (left) and Jo Ann Campbell (right), at the board's quarterly meeting on Friday, May 10, 2024. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)

The Arkansas State Library Board on Friday voted down two motions to withhold state funding from public libraries that board member Jason Rapert put forth in his ongoing opposition to the presence of certain books on library shelves.

The former Republican state senator from Conway reintroduced a motion he proposed at February’s board meeting to suspend funding for libraries suing the state until the litigation is concluded. The proposal died for lack of a second in February. On Friday, the other six members of the board voted against the motion while Rapert was the only one to vote for it.

Rapert also moved to withhold funds for “any library that allows unrestricted access to books or materials that contain sexually explicit, obscene or pornographic materials to minors,” based on the results of a survey he requested in February. The motion failed with the same results.

State Library Director Jennifer Chilcoat circulated Rapert’s request to find out whether a list of books he considers inappropriate for minors are available on library shelves statewide, and Rapert said the survey revealed the presence of 352 “objectionable” books. He did not say how many of the state’s dozens of library systems responded or did not respond to the survey.

The board does not “have any way to determine which libraries might be knowingly making obscene materials available for children,” board Chairwoman Deborah Knox of Mountain Home said.

“I’m having a hard time believing that any of our public libraries are doing that, and I would hate to approve a motion inhibiting distribution of funds to those libraries when we have no way of knowing if those libraries even exist,” Knox said.

Rapert said the survey results prove otherwise.

“You can claim all this stuff, going around and around in circles, acting like you don’t know that there’s explicit material teaching kids how to give oral sex to each other,” he said, raising his voice. “I hope every community in the state watches this [meeting]. I am appalled that any adult would try to stop us from taking a stand against this junk on library shelves.”

Both of Rapert’s motions would have applied to distributions of funding at future board meetings, since they were introduced after the board voted to give public libraries their allotted share of state money for the final quarter of fiscal year 2024. Rapert was the only member to vote against the disbursement.

Shari Bales of Hot Springs, who was confirmed to the board by the state Senate along with Rapert in December, asked who is responsible for determining whether a book’s content is sexually explicit or pornographic. Rapert responded by amending his motion to specify “sexually explicit, obscene or pornographic materials… as described in Act 372.”

The 2023 law in question would alter Arkansas libraries’ processes for reconsidering material and create criminal liability for librarians who distribute content that some consider “obscene” or “harmful to minors.” The law mentions the word “obscene” several times but does not define it, and it does not include “sexually explicit” or “pornographic” in the text at all.

The law’s first section does include the phrase “furnishing a harmful item to a minor,” defining “item” as “a material or performance that depicts or describes nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse.”

A federal judge temporarily blocked two portions of Act 372, including the first section, in July before it went into effect. U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks wrote in his preliminary injunction order that the two sections could lead to arbitrary interpretation and “content-based restrictions” that violate the First Amendment. The case is scheduled for trial in October.

The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS), the Fayetteville Public Library and the Eureka Springs Carnegie Public Library are among the 19 plaintiffs challenging the law.

Rapert’s amended motion died for lack of a second before the original motion failed.

Over the last few years, hard-right conservatives in Arkansas have tried to tie library funding to whether certain books are available on shelves. In November 2022, a narrowly-approved ballot measure cut Craighead County libraries’ funding in half after protests over an LGBTQ+ book display and a transgender author’s visit to the library.

Republican state Sen. Dan Sullivan of Jonesboro, the seat of Craighead County, was the primary sponsor of Act 372 in the Legislature. In October, he said the state should withhold funding from the Arkansas Library Association (ArLA), a nonprofit trade association that does not receive state funding.

Many local Arkansas libraries are ArLA members, and the organization is among the plaintiffs challenging Act 372.

Board discussion

Bales said she thought Rapert’s motion about explicit content “sounds a lot like legislation” and was outside the board’s purview. She emphasized that her opposition to the motion did not mean she wanted her children to read “dirty books.”

“I think we should err on the side of staying in our lane and wearing the hats that have been assigned to us,” she said. “…It may be a really good idea, but sometimes really good ideas are not always really good policies.”

Bales also repeated her concerns from February about Rapert’s proposal to withhold funding for libraries suing the state. Rapert argued again that a state entity should not provide money to plaintiffs that could use it to pay their attorneys. Bales said the plaintiffs might be using private funds for this purpose, which would make withholding public funds “a moot point” and possibly “coercion.”

Rapert said it was an “exaggeration” that his proposal might be coercive to the entities that the board funds. He also said the state Legislature can dissolve state boards that do not “do their jobs.”

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“We’re the ones that decide how the money is disbursed, and if you don’t understand that… maybe you need to revisit what you’re on the board for,” he said.

Rapert asked Chilcoat to place an item on the agenda for the board’s next meeting in August to “assess and handle” the presence of “pornographic” books in libraries. He did not name any of the books in question, which he did in February, but he mentioned a book with an incest scene that “shocked” him.

Board member Lupe Peña de Martinez of Mabelvale said she recently read six of the books Rapert opposes, including the one with the scene he mentioned. She said her 13-year-old child is not currently allowed to read the books but will someday be mature enough to read them.

Books that depict sexual abuse of children by adults, including incest, are intended as resources for children who have experienced this, Peña de Martinez said, and making these books unavailable to minors across the board “is exercising the privilege of a much more comfortable life.”

“I am repulsed by what’s in those books, but not because I’m upset with the authors,” she said. “I’m repulsed at what children are victim to… If we read the books cover to cover, it’s not about exposing children to lewd content. It’s about saying, ‘This is not right, and there are adults who love you and want to protect you.’”

Peña de Martinez’s comments received applause from the librarians in the audience.

Rapert acknowledged that these issues are real but said some books “are actually grooming children, and that is another problem.”

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