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Judge Smites Harry Potter Restrictions in Arkansas“Regardless of the personal distaste with which these individuals regard 'witchcraft,’ it is not properly within their power and authority as members of defendant’s school board to prevent the students at Cedarville from reading about it,” U.S. District Judge Jimm Hendren explained April 22 in declaring unconstitutional a school-system rule requiring students to have written parental permission to read or check out the Harry Potter series at the school library. Hendren’s order is effective immediately.“The good guys won,” declared plaintiff attorney Brian Meador, who filed suit last July on behalf of clients Billy Ray Counts and Mary Nell Counts and their child, Dakota, a 4th-grader in the school system. Calling the Counts family “courageous,” Meadors added that unless someone steps forward, “these things can’t be remedied.” According to the April 23 Fort Smith Times Record, complainant Angie Haney revealed in court depositions that she became concerned about children’s exposure to author J. K. Rowling’s series after hearing a series of anti-Potter sermons in 2001 by Mark Hodges, pastor of the Uniontown Assembly of God Church and a member of the Cedarville School Board. In his deposition, Hodges admitted to helping Haney obtain a request for reconsideration form, characterizing the Potter series as “not based on fiction.” ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation filed an amicus brief in support of the suit, along with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Children’s Book Council, and 10 other free-speech groups. Posted April 28, 2003. |
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