Judge blocks Iowa’s ban on school library books containing sex acts

A federal judge in Iowa temporarily blocked enforcement on Friday of a Republican-backed law that banned books describing sex acts from public school libraries.

In granting the preliminary injunction, Judge Stephen Locher said the law “makes no attempt to target such books in a reasonable manner.”

“Instead, it requires the wholesale removal of any book containing a description or visual depiction of a ‘sexual act,’ regardless of context,” the judge wrote. “The underlying message is that such a book has no redeeming value, even if it is a historical work, a self-help guide, an award-winning novel or another piece of serious literature. In effect, the Legislature has imposed a Puritan ‘pall of orthodoxy’ on school libraries.”

Publisher Penguin Random House and best-selling authors John Green and Jodi Picoult were among the plaintiffs who challenged the measure on freedom of speech grounds.

Judge Locher, who was appointed by President Biden to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, also blocked a portion of the law that placed restrictions on sexual orientation and gender identity instruction before seventh grade. The judge left in place a rule requiring schools to notify parents when a student asks to be called by a new pronoun.

The fight over Iowa’s law is part of a broader national debate over how sexuality should be discussed in schools. Like conservatives elsewhere, Republicans in Iowa have dismissed concerns about free speech, saying the restrictions protect students from harmful material.

“Protecting children from pornography and sexually explicit content should not be controversial,” Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a statement this fall. She added that “books with graphic depictions of sexual acts have absolutely no place in our schools.”

Since the Republican governor signed the bill in May, Iowa school districts have had to assess which selections in their libraries could violate the new rule, which allows references to sex but bans anything that describes or depicts a sexual act.

Republicans nationally have emphasized their objections to a handful of titles, including some about LGBTQ people, that contain graphic descriptions of sex. But many other books, including highly regarded books that are not primarily about sex, were swept up in the Iowa crackdown.

The school system in Nevada, Iowa, has pulled dozens of well-known titles from its shelves, including George Orwell’s “1984,” Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple,” Mr. Green and ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley.

“You have people snatching books because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their jobs,” Frederick Sperling, an attorney for the publisher and authors, said in oral arguments last week at the federal courthouse in Des Moines.

In court, Daniel Johnston, an attorney with the attorney general’s office, said it appeared some school districts had removed books that were not actually banned by law. But he declined to delve into compliance with specific titles.

When asked by Judge Locher whether certain award-winning literature or non-fiction books describing sexual violence would be banned by law, Mr Johnston said this would depend on whether there was a description of a sexual act. In another example, the judge asked about hypothetical history books detailing allegations of sexual misconduct against a president or presidential candidate. It would depend on how specific that description was, Mr Johnston said.

Judge Locher said in court that the legislation was “one of the most bizarre laws I have ever read.” But he pressed plaintiffs’ lawyers about when the government might have an interest in regulating textbooks, and why they believed the judiciary should override lawmakers’ wishes.

While the lawsuit filed by the publisher and authors focused on the part of the law that restricts books, another case on behalf of LGBTQ students, their parents and lawyers asked the judge to block enforcement of the entire measure.

The passage of the law, known as Senate File 496, further demonstrated the rightward shift of Iowa politics. Iowa was once a swing state known for its relatively moderate politics: Barack Obama carried the state twice. But Republicans have dominated the ballot box over the past decade and now have a large legislative majority.

In 2023 alone, Ms. Reynolds signed laws to restrict abortion, ban transitional medical care for children, and limit powers of the state auditor, the only elected Democrat still holding a statewide office.