Iowa LGBTQ students file lawsuit over new state law

DES MOINES — Seven Iowa students are named as plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday that challenges a new, sweeping state law that places restrictions on LGBTQ students and school materials.

The ACLU of Iowa joined two law firms in filing a lawsuit challenging Iowa Senate File 496, which prohibits the instruction of gender identity and sexual orientation through sixth grade, prohibits books with descriptions of sex acts and requires parental notification when a K-12 student wants to be referred to by a different pronoun or name in school.

The law was passed by Republican state lawmakers and signed into law in May by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The lawsuit asks the court for an immediate halt to enforcement of the law during the legal challenge. Attorneys said the lawsuit argues the state law violates the First Amendment right to free speech of Iowa’s LGBTQ students, and asks the court to find the entire law unconstitutional.

The students are identified in the lawsuit only by initials, but some chose to speak Tuesday at a news conference hosted by the ACLU of Iowa.

“Like it or not, sex and sexuality are parts of the teenage experience. Refusing to provide adolescents with information about it means they’ll seek out their own information from the internet or from others in ways that are significantly less safe than books reviewed by teachers and librarians,” Puck Carlson, a senior from Iowa City who is one of the seven student plaintiffs, said Tuesday in a statement read during an online news conference. “Removing books that discuss queer topics of people from schools tells our creative students that they do not belong there, that they are shameful. I am not shameful.”

The federal lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of Iowa. The ACLU of Iowa, Lambda Legal and the law firm Jenner & Block are representing the seven students and Iowa Safe Schools, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ students in Iowa.

“(The state law) is a clear violation of public school students’ First Amendment rights to speak, read and learn freely,” ACLU of Iowa lawyer Thomas Story said during the news conference. “The First Amendment does not allow our state or our schools to remove books or issue blanket bans on discussion and material simply because a group of politicians or parents find them offensive.”

A similar law in Florida was unsuccessfully challenged in federal court there. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs in Iowa said they believe the outcome will be different here. They pointed to other cases in other states where courts did intervene, but the cases they noted involved higher education or public libraries, not K-12 schools.

“We are committed to continuing to challenge any restrictions on students’ speech wherever they appear. These latest attacks are just another chapter,” said Nathan Maxwell, a senior attorney with Lambda Legal, which is helping to represent the plaintiffs. “We think that the (Iowa) law is so clearly unconstitutional as it’s written and as it’s applied, and we’re very confident in our case. We expect the court will agree with us.”

Iowa Statehouse Republican leaders issued statements Tuesday defending the new state law that they passed, with some of them arguing that “pornography” should not be in Iowa’s schools.

The new law does not actually ban pornography; it bans books or curriculum that describe sexual acts.

That has led some schools to remove from their libraries some books that contain depictions of sexual acts, including classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “1984,” plus books with LGBTQ themes or by LGBTQ authors that contain passages describing sexual acts.

The law exempts religious texts, including the Bible.

“Protecting children from pornography and sexually explicit content shouldn’t be controversial. The real controversy is that it exists in elementary schools,” Reynolds said in a statement. “Books with graphic depictions of sex acts have absolutely no place in our schools. If these books were movies, they’d be rated R.”

Said Republican Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver in a statement, “The State of Iowa has a legitimate interest in protecting elementary school children from being provided pornography in taxpayer-funded schools. Senate File 496 put parents first in the education of their children and Senate Republicans will continue to advance policies to empower parents so Iowa students receive the best education in the country.”

Added Republican Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley in a statement, “House Republicans stand behind the law that overwhelmingly passed our chamber. The sexualization of children in schools does not have a place in Iowa. This is a responsible and reasonable law that I believe all Iowans could get behind if the far left and the media would stop playing politics and accurately represent what is actually in the law.”

Reynolds joined Grassley in criticizing media outlets for their coverage of the topic.

The new law went into effect this summer, and enforcement is scheduled to begin Jan. 1.

The Iowa Board of Education recently advanced new state rules for implementation of the law. Education groups criticized the proposed rules — in the same way they did the law itself — as being too vague.

LGBTQ Lawsuit Nov. 28, 2023 by The Gazette on Scribd

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