INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM
In Defense of
America’s Freedoms
An offshoot of ALA celebrates 35 years of “societal good“
by Tom Teepen
Carol Muldawer
R
eporting on his own 1735 trial for seditious
ment is fundamental to the very essence of libraries as the
libel for his disrespect of the Crown, colonial
crucial nexus that offers unimpeded access to society’s
printer and New York Weekly Journal Editor
wisdom, wit, folly, and frolic in all their confounding and
John Peter Zenger wrote that when the jury
sometimes cussed variety.
brought in a verdict of not guilty “there were three huzAn offshoot of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom
zahs in the hall.” Americans who prize their press and
(OIF), the FTRF has been in court more or less conspeech freedoms have been cheering ever since. Zenger’s stantly throughout its 35-year history and currently has
release, after 10 months in jail for publishing articles
more than a dozen active cases. The FTRF concentrates
critical of New York Colonial Governor William Cosby,
on issues that impact librarians and library practices but
was a milestone on the way to the Bill of Rights, with its additionally joins with other First Amendment defendFirst Amendment admonition that “Congress shall make ers in broader free-speech cases. The foundation recogno law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
nizes that any chipping away at the First Amendment
press. . . .”
weakens it.
These 14 words were a second American revolution
The real protectors
in their own right, indeed a revolution in human affairs,
In its first year, the FTRF helped to defend a librarian
though one still sadly incomplete in most of the world.
who had been fired from the Missouri State Library
For all that the principle is embraced in the United Nafor writing a letter to a local newspaper protesting the
tion’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the rights
suppression of an underground newspaper. It helped
to free speech and a free press remain far from universal.
a Maryland man challenge his conviction for selling
Few nations even approach the breadth of protected exan allegedly obscene issue of the
pression that is secured by the U.S.
The Freedom to Read
Washington Free Press; a state appelConstitution’s First Amendment.
Foundation was created late court overturned the convicEven here, our own freedoms to
publish, distribute, and openly deas the First Amendment tion. And the foundation helped
defray the financial hit that the city
bate information and opinion remain
legal arm of ALA.
librarian of Martinsville, Virginia,
under stress. Free speech is perhaps
had taken after coming under fire for challenging the
the purest example of the liberty whose price is “eternal
constitutionality of a religious course taught in the city
vigilance,” abolitionist Wendell Phillips said.
schools.
That vigilance is maintained in large part by a number
ALA’s OIF set up shop in 1967 to chart censorship
of organizations committed to the free speech that too
trends and alert librarians to them, as well as to provide
many Americans––often in positions of political power—
resource materials to local libraries that found items in
would honor in principle while undermining it in practheir collections being challenged. The office could back
tice. Among those defenders, count the American Civil
up local librarians with national reviews of besieged
Liberties Union, the American Booksellers Foundation
books and suggest effective talking points. With ready
for Free Expression, the Association of American Pubaccess to such reinforcement, local librarians were both
lishers, and the Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF).
more willing and better able to defend the content of
Established in 1969 by the American
their shelves. Judith Krug, director of OIF from its beLibrary Association, the FTRF was
ginning, says, “When people began to realize they had
formed in recognition of the fact that
support here, they began to develop backbones.” Before
a robust defense of the First Amendthen, Krug says, local librarians who tried to resist pressure to reject or remove books were “the lone voice in
TOM TEEPEN is a columnist for Cox
the wilderness.”
Newspapers and a former editorial page
Understandably, many shied away from that role. But
editor of the Atlanta Constitution. He is a
as helpful as all that support was, and remains, Krug
trustee of the Freedom to Read Foundation.
Copyrighted material. For website posting only. Reproduction or bulk printing prohibited.
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INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM
and others quickly
realized that libraries
also needed access
to ready, committed, and expert legal
support. As much as
they needed advocacy in the political
and social arenas,
they need a champion in the legal lists,
too.
The FTRF was
created as the First
Amendment legal
arm of ALA, not
formally attached to
the Association, but
connected: Four ALA
officers hold interlocking memberships
on the 15-member
ALA President Arthur Curley (far left) and FTRF President Gordon Conable present the
FTRF board. Ten
FTRF Roll of Honor Award to Judith Krug, one of two 1995 award recipients.
members are elected
ers. Although the Supreme Court ultimately upheld CIPA
by an annual mail ballot of FTRF members, many of
as a legitimate condition of funding, the justices made
whom also belong to ALA. Krug, also a board member,
it clear that adults could not be blocked from accessing
wears a second hat as the foundation’s executive direcconstitutionally protected material on the Internet by emtor, and for years served as its only staff member. There
phasizing that libraries must disable filters at the request
is now one other full-time staffer, and some ALA staff do
of adult users.
double duty working for the foundation.
The foundation has, of course, soldiered through many
An early and key decision by the FTRF board based the
wars over denounced books—from Kurt Vonnegut’s
foundation revenues primarily on membership funding,
Slaughterhouse-Five (Delacorte, 1969) through Eldridge
rather than on contributions from large private or corpoCleaver’s Soul on Ice (McGraw-Hill, 1967) and the
rate donors, helping to insulate the FTRF from the presanonymously penned Go Ask Alice (Prentice-Hall, 1971)
sures major givers sometimes try to apply and keeping it
to Michael Willhoite’s Daddy’s Roommate (Alyson Wonfree of the strings some might want to attach. The memderland, 1990) and Lesléa Newman’s Heather Has Two
bership, drawn mainly from ALA’s ranks, hovers around
Mommies (Alyson Wonderland, 2000) and such classics
1,800. The basic dues are $35 annually.
as Lysistrata by Aristophanes and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The
At first, ALA counsel represented the foundation, but
Miller’s Tale.
as the FTRF caseload increased in both number and
It is through amicus briefs that the foundation most
complexity, it became clear that the FTRF needed its own
often appears in court. These friend-of-the-court filings
attorney. It has been represented for the past 15 years by
broaden and add weight to ongoing First Amendment
the Washington, D.C., office of Jenner and Block, a firm
claims against a variety of legislation and local policies
that specializes in First Amendment law.
that would restrict access to published material.
Key court battles
With the singular “press” of Zenger’s New York Weekly
Sometimes the FTRF files legal challenges directly, esJournal having long since proliferated into the plural “mepecially when the core mission of libraries is at risk.
dia,” First Amendment issues have multiplied and beFor instance, it joined with ALA in 1996 to contest the
come increasingly complex. Recent years have found the
Communications Decency Act, a law that, like many
FTRF particularly busy opposing harmful-to-minors and
before and since, used a declared concern for children
child-protection legislation that sponsors use as a backas a means to attempt much broader suppression of
door method to restrict material, including even scientific
materials some might consider risqué. In 2001, the founreports, that is intended for adults. Consistent victories
dation once again joined ALA in a lawsuit challenging
in federal courts have not stopped Congress from passing
the Children’s Internet Protection Act—a law requiring
virtually the same legislation over and over again, with
libraries receiving federal funds to defray telecommunica- the wording tweaked a little this way or that. And state
tion expenses to install filters on their Internet computlegislatures frequently mimic even those federal statutes
INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM
order and the act’s failure to require
any showing of relevance to a terrorist threat violate the constitutional
right to freely transmit and receive
information. In battling the secrecy
mandated by the statute, the foundation is in a long legal fight with the
Justice Department, filing Freedom of
Information Act requests in an attempt
to find out if the FBI is in fact targeting libraries. The Attorney General’s
office has so far released only limited
documents, and those so slowly and
so severely redacted that they are uninformative.
Freedom to Read Foundation Honor Roll recipients (left to right): John
In still another case, the FTRF is
Horany (2001), Judith Krug (1995), Carolyn Forsman (2001), Candace D.
supporting
an ACLU challenge to the
Morgan (2002), and Gordon Conable (1996).
Patriot Act’s Section 505 provisions
that already have been declared unconstitutional, requirallowing the FBI to issue national security letters without
ing still more litigation.
judicial oversight, arguing that it threatens the rights of
libraries, bookstores, and their patrons as well as Internet
National challenges
communications in general.
While much of the foundation’s legal work involves it in
Andrew Hamilton, John Peter Zenger’s attorney,
cases bearing broad, national implications, the FTRF also
praised the jury that vindicated the printer in 1735, dejumps into community challenges. In 1999, the foundaclaring that the verdict had “baffled the attempt of tyrantion helped the library in Wichita Falls, Texas, prepare a
ny” and had “given us a right to liberty of both exposing
successful legal challenge to a city ordinance requiring it
and opposing arbitrary power . . . by speaking and writto move titles from its children’s area to the adult section if
ing truth.” The FTRF’s filings add to the growing body of
300 people signed a petition requesting it. Library circulaFirst Amendment precedents upholding that tradition.
tions of videotapes and CDs have brought new challenges,
They are often cited in court rulings and are so respected
adding struggles over images to the traditional tug of war
that, at one point, a New York judge held off making a
over words. Internet issues are now so numerous that they
decision until he could consult the foundation’s views.
are becoming a body of case law in their own right. And
“We bring to this area,” Krug said, “a reputation that
globalization is producing new and increasingly worrisome
we do a societal good.” ❖
threats. An FTRF amicus brief supports Yahoo against a French court’s
findings that the Internet provider
is liable for hosting customer pages
on its United States site advertising
Nazi and racist memorabilia that
are illegal in France.
The USA Patriot Act, hastily
drawn and enacted in reaction
to 9/11 terrorism, has created a
bewildering new array of First
Amendment jeopardies. In coordination with other civil liberties
organizations, the FTRF is in the
thick of the legal fights over the
act’s extraordinary reach. The Patriot Act’s infamous Section 215,
for instance, expands the FBI’s authority to demand library records
and requires library workers to
keep such intrusions secret.
Judith Krug and attorney Bruce Ennis during a San Francisco open-air news
The FTRF is arguing in a
conference June 26, 1997, celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling on the
Michigan court that both the gag
Communications Decency Act of 1996.
Reprinted with permission from American Libraries, December 2004, by The Reprint Dept., 1-800-259-0470; Part #9557-1104
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