Supreme Court Declines to Hear Appeal of Net Porn Law

Staff -- Library Journal, 1/15/2001

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal by six Virginia University professors challenging a law that bars public employees from using state computers to access sexually explicit material on the Internet. When the professors first disputed the 1996 state law in federal court, federal Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled it unconstitutional, but a federal appeals court overturned that decision 8-4. According to Reuters, the professors charged that the law violated academic freedom and their free speech rights to pursue legitimate, work-related, intellectual inquiry. Brinkema also found unconstitutional the blanket filtering policy of the Loudoun County Library, Leesburg, VA, and that ruling was never appealed.