A federal judge in Iowa has temporarily blocked a state law banning books with sexual content from school libraries, noting that there is no evidence such books caused widespread problems and imposed a “pall of orthodoxy.”
“The law is incredibly broad and has resulted in the removal of hundreds of books from school libraries, including, among others, nonfiction history books, classic works of fiction, Pulitzer Prize winning contemporary novels, books that regularly appear on Advanced Placement exams, and even books designed to help students avoid being victimized by sexual assault,” Judge Stephen Lochner wrote in his decision to approve a preliminary injunction.
“The sweeping restrictions in Senate File 496 are unlikely to satisfy the First Amendment under any standard of scrutiny and thus may not be enforced while the case is pending. Indeed, the Court has been unable to locate a single case upholding the constitutionality of a school library restriction even remotely similar to Senate File 496.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the sweeping law in May. It also includes broad restrictions on teaching LGBTQ topics in schools—some of which Lochner also put on hold for being laughably vague.
“The law forbids programs, promotion, and instruction to students in those grades relating to ‘gender identity’ and ‘sexual orientation,’ but those terms are defined a neutral way that makes no distinction between cisgender or transgender identity or gay or straight relationships,” the judge wrote.
“Meaning: on its face, the law forbids any programs, promotion, or instruction recognizing that anyone is male or female or in a relationship of any sort (gay or straight). The statute is therefore content-neutral but so wildly overbroad that every school district and elementary school teacher in the State has likely been violating it since the day the school year started.”
He said the statute is so vague that it violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution “because the State will have unfettered discretion to decide when to enforce it and against whom, thus making it all but impossible for a reasonable person to know what will and will not lead to punishment.”
He did not stop a provision of the law that requires school districts to notify parents if the child asks for the use of different pronouns, but that was only because the plaintiff students in the suit “are all already ‘out’ to their families and therefore not affected in a concrete way by this requirement.”
Reynolds, a Republican, said she was “extremely disappointed” about the ruling.
“Instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation has no place in kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms. And there should be no question that books containing sexually explicit content—as clearly defined in Iowa law—do not belong in a school library for children.”
The problem is that the law is anything but clearly defined.
Lochner noted that the language is so broad it’s “led school districts and educators to err on the side of removing books out of fear of being penalized for failing to do so.”
More than 500 books were removed from a single school, and “some teachers are hesitant to purchase new books for students that even arguably might contain prohibited material,” he noted. “Many teachers have reduced or eliminated book collections in their classrooms out of fear of retaliation or discipline.”
“There very well may be individual books that the Iowa Legislature (or a local school board) could remove from school libraries without running afoul of the First Amendment due to the book’s level of vulgarity and the potential for access by younger students,” he wrote.
“The problem here, however, is that Senate File 496 makes no attempt to target such books in any reasonable way. Instead, it requires the wholesale removal of every book containing a description or visual depiction of a ‘sex act,’ regardless of context. The underlying message is that there is no redeeming value to any such book even if it is a work of history, self-help guide, award-winning novel, or other piece of serious literature. In effect, the Legislature has imposed a puritanical ‘pall of orthodoxy’ over school libraries.”
He said that the one specific in the law only deepened the problem: “The fact that the Bible and other religious texts are exempted from the law makes the problem even worse, as it communicates that religious books with descriptions of sex acts have value after all, while all others do not.”
While the law has sown confusion and fear in schools, there is no evidence that access to books depicting sex acts was causing issues to the degree that would support the government stepping in and imposing an across-the-board ban.
“Instead, at most, the State Defendants presented evidence that some parents found the content of a small handful of books to be objectionable,” he wrote.
The ban will now be on hold until the case is further litigated.
