Six professors from several Virginia colleges want a federal appeals court to dump a state law barring state workers from accessing sexually-explicit Internet materials on the job.
Conservative News Service says the educators argue the law blocks their ability to perform legitimate academic research - including on nude portraiture or literary classics in which erotica figures prominently.
The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up the case. "Internet research is not only as essential as library research, but often it is a substitute," says ACLU attorney Marjorie Heins, who represents the educators. She argues the law - which was thrown out earlier by a federal judge, only to have the ruling overturned - is unconstitutional for singling out "a particular category of expression the legislature decided it didn't like."
A senior counsel to state Attorney General Mark Earley tells CNS Virginia has the right to regulate how its equipment is used, adding the law makes an exception for agency-approved research with professors needing only a dean's permission.
The educators appealed to the full federal appeals court Monday, CNS says.
