Legislation Proposed that Can Make Librarians Felons

The obscenity police are on the prowl again. This time, it's school librarians and teachers they have in their sights. A bill has been introduced to the Ohio legislature to turn pornography promoting school librarians into felons. Apparently, this must be a problem with school librarians in Ohio, although the state does not have a reputation as a hotbed for such strange practices. Why else would a state legislator see a need to introduce a bill titled “To amend sections 2907.32 and 2907.35 of the Revised Code to create criminal liability for certain teachers and librarians for the offense of pandering obscenity.”

The author of this apparently needed piece of legislation to control the obscenity-promoting school librarians and teachers of Ohio is Rep. Adam Mathews. Naturally, “obscenity” is hard to define. Mathews indicated this is not a problem because Ohio law already defines “obscenity,” but that definition is typically vague. It defines material as obscene if it appeals to “prurient interests,” is patently offensive, and as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. Of course, that is all subjective so it is hard for a librarian to make that determination. However, they better not make a wrong call or they could end up being a felon.

Rep. Mathews said that the legislation set a high bar to books being classified as obscene, reassuring that Shakespeare and The Scarlet Letter would not be banned. However, nothing in the legislation prevents those books, or any others, from being banned if some authority decides they appeal to “prurient interests.” Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro was less sanguine about the effects of this bill. According to NBC4 Columbus, he said he was “appalled” by the bill, questioning whether teachers would want to stay in the profession with the potential for criminal prosecution “with a fuzzy definition of what would constitute a crime.” In a hopeful sign to those opposed to censorship, Gov. Mike DeWine indicated that book bans are generally dealt with by parents at a local level, rather than state legislation.

Is this really a problem? Are Ohio school librarians really filling their shelves with pornography, with the approval of local officials? This looks like a fake issue, a politician using what sounds like a motherhood and apple pie cause to burnish his reputation, with little concern as to what impact it might have on their constituents' basic freedoms to read, speak, teach and learn. Legislators should not be messing with First Amendment freedoms without a compelling reason, and creating fake issues to embellish your image is not a compelling reason. I'd rather see librarians writing legislation than politicians choosing books for libraries. I trust their motivation and ethics more.