Federal judge kills Iowa’s LGBTQ+ school library book ban

DES MOINES, Iowa (CN) — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked enforcement of Iowa’s state law that removes books that have LGBTQ themes with references to sexual acts from school libraries.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher, a Joe Biden appointee, took back the case after an Eighth Circuit panel reversed a preliminary injunction he issued in December 2023. The earlier injunction blocked the removal of so-called sexually explicit books from school libraries, including those with LGBTQ+ themes.

This time, in Tuesday’s 40-page decision, Locher ruled that because Iowa’s regulations force the removal of books from school libraries that are not pornographic or obscene, the law is facially unconstitutional. He granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and enjoined the state from enforcing the portions of the law that require the removal of books that contain a “description” of a “sex act” and that impose penalties on educators for failing to adhere to the law.

Locher wrote that Iowa’s law — Senate File 496 enacted in 2023 — “makes no attempt to evaluate a book’s literary, political, artistic, or scientific value before requiring the book’s removal from a school library and thus comes nowhere close to applying the ‘obscenity’ standard that is typically used to determine the constitutionality of statewide book restrictions. The result is the forced removal of books from school libraries that are not pornographic or obscene.”

The judge wrote that the law has been unconstitutionally applied in dozens, if not hundreds, of situations in Iowa schools.

“Plaintiffs have established, at minimum, several dozen unconstitutional applications of Senate File 496 involving books that have undeniable political, artistic, literary, and/or scientific value.” Locher wrote. This, he wrote, includes books like “As I Lay Dying,” “Ulysses,” “Brave New World,” “1984,” “Native Son,” “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” “Song of Solomon,” “Beloved,” “The Bluest Eye,” “The Kite Runner,” “Nineteen Minutes,” “Speak, Shout,” “Looking for Alaska,” “The Fault in Our Stars,” and “Last Night at the Telegraph Club.”

Locher wrote that he is not suggesting that books with sexual content would be appropriate for all ages of students, and prior federal court rulings would, for example, justify restrictions on descriptions of sex acts in books for elementary school students. But he said the evidence shows that Iowa school officials already limited the access of younger readers to unsuitable books before the enactment of Senate File 496.

In returning the case to Locher, the St. Louis-based Eighth Circuit panel said last August it would “be hard to win” for plaintiffs, who claim the law violates the First Amendment rights of students, authors and book publishers. The three-judge panel quoted the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Moody v. NetChoice , a First Amendment case involving online content moderation.

“Under the legal standard applicable to cases involving statewide restrictions on books in bookstores or public libraries,” Locher wrote in Tuesday’s ruling, “the results of the NetChoice  analysis are clear and unequivocal: the book restrictions in Senate File 496 are facially unconstitutional.” If the legal standard applicable to one-off book removal decisions by local school boards, he also concluded Senate File 496 is facially unconstitutional under NetChoice .

The dispute stems from two lawsuits challenging Senate File 496, which Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law in 2023: one filed by book publishers, including Penguin Random House, along with author Jodi Picoult; the other brought by Iowa Safe Schools, a group advocating for LGBTQ+ rights.

Tuesday’s ruling focused on the book restrictions challenged by the book publishers, while Locher said he will address the constitutionality of other aspects of the Iowa law in a separate ruling in the suit brought by Iowa Safe Schools.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird issued a statement following the ruling, saying, “As a mom, I know how important it is to keep schools a safe place for kids to learn and grow. Parents shouldn’t have to worry about what materials their kids have access to when they’re not around. This common sense law makes certain that the books kids have access to in school classrooms and libraries are age-appropriate. I’m going to keep on fighting to uphold our law that protects schoolchildren and parental rights.”

Penguin Random House did not respond to a request for comment.

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