accessing sexually explicit material on the library's Internet
terminals.


In general, First Amendment jurisprudence is reluctant to
recognize a legitimate state interest in protecting the unwilling
viewer from speech that is constitutionally protected. "Where
the designed benefit of a content-based speech restriction is to
shield the sensibilities of listeners, the general rule is that
the right of expression prevails, even where no less restrictive
alternative exists. We are expected to protect our own
sensibilities simply by averting our eyes." Playboy, 529 U.S. at
813 (2000) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see
also Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 209 (1975)
("[W]hen the government, acting as censor, undertakes selectively
to shield the public from some kinds of speech on the ground that
they are more offensive than others, the First Amendment strictly
limits its power.").
For example, in Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), the
Supreme Court reversed defendant's conviction for wearing, in a
municipal courthouse, a jacket bearing the inscription "Fuck the
Draft." The Court noted that "much has been made of the claim
that Cohen's distasteful mode of expression was thrust upon
unwilling or unsuspecting viewers, and that the State might
therefore legitimately act as it did in order to protect the
sensitive from otherwise unavoidable exposure to appellant's
crude form of protest." Id. at 21. This justification for
suppressing speech failed, however, because it "would effectively
empower a majority to silence dissidents simply as a matter of
personal predilections." Id. The Court concluded that "[t]hose