Author: Kris Anne Bonifacio

In 1984, the American Booksellers Association and the other members of Media Coalition, Inc., won the first round in one of the most celebrated censorship cases in many years when they succeeded in overturning an Indianapolis, Indiana, ordinance that would have drastically restricted the sale and rental of books, magazines and films that portrayed “the sexually explicit subordination of women.” In the columns of The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek and The New Republic, on “60 Minutes” and “The Phil Donahue Show,” people across the country debated the desirability of suppressing materials that have been protected by the First Amendment up to now.

The U.S. Supreme court today turned down the City of Indianapolis in its appeal of a ruling in Hudnut v. American Booksellers Assn. that struck down a city ordinance making the sale of sexually explicit materials depicting “subordination of women” a violation of civil rights law.