Bruce J. Ennis, 60, the attorney who led the American Library Association’s successful battle to overturn an act that would have made it a crime to provide “indecent” material to minors over the Internet, died of leukemia July 29 at a Boston hospital, the Washington Post reported August 1.
In its landmark 7–2 decision issued on June 26, 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. The majority opinion in the case, Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union et al., found specifically that the 1996 act’s “indecent transmission” and “patently offensive display” provisions abridged the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.
“Bruce was one of the best First Amendment attorneys in the country,” said Judith Krug, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “He was a brilliant legal scholar, and kind and generous not only with his time but also with his efforts on behalf of the Constitution.”
Ennis had served as General Counsel for ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation since 1985. He was the ACLU’s national legal director from 1977 to 1981, and was one of only a handful of lawyers to argue cases regularly before the Supreme Court.
Posted August 8, 2000.