On Thursday, August 3rd, 2026, a panel of the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, including Judge Steven Grasz and Judge Ralph Erickson, issued a decision in Fayetteville Public Library v. Crawford County rejecting an overbreadth challenge to Arkansas Act 372. The law criminalizes furnishing to minors any item "harmful to minors," defined broadly to include material depicting nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse that appeals predominantly to minors' prurient interests or is patently offensive by adult community standards.

The court emphasized that the Arkansas Supreme Court has interpreted the law's definition of "harmful to minors" broadly to protect minors from material that may be harmful to some but not all minors, raising significant First Amendment considerations. The panel noted that the district court's speculation about libraries potentially creating adults-only sections containing hundreds of books, including classics like Romeo and Juliet and The Handmaid's Tale, was insufficient to strike down the law as overbroad.

Because the district court had not fully examined all possible applications of the law, the appellate panel held it was premature to declare the statute unconstitutional. Even assuming some applications might violate the First Amendment, the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a substantial number of unconstitutional applications based on the evidentiary record presented.

Arkansas Act 372 aims to "protect children from obscenity" by criminalizing knowingly furnishing harmful items to minors, and it establishes guidelines for the selection, relocation, and retention of physical materials available to the public. The ruling increases accountability for public-library curation decisions and affirms the state's authority to challenge the appropriateness of materials available in county or municipal libraries.

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