News Track: What’s happening with Iowa’s school book ban law? Latest on appeals

Nearly two years after Iowa enacted its school library book restrictions, the law’s future remains unresolved, leaving districts navigating shifting legal ground.

With the state’s appeal now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit and a decision still months away, school leaders say they are operating in a holding pattern. School districts have reshelved previously removed titles, but many remain wary as they await clarity on what the law ultimately will require — and what it will forbid.

Iowa’s law mandating certain book removals remains on hold under a renewed federal injunction that blocks enforcement of the law’s school library provision while the state presses its appeal.

A ruling is expected sometime after oral arguments, which attorneys anticipate will be scheduled within the next four months.

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Background

Senate File 496, signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds in May 2023, requires school libraries to contain only “age-appropriate” materials and defines that term to exclude any book with a description or visual depiction of a “sex act” as defined in Iowa’s criminal code. The law also bars “program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion, or instruction” relating to sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K-6, and requires schools to notify parents when a student requests an “accommodation that is intended to affirm the student’s gender identity.”

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Shortly after the law took effect, the Iowa State Education Association, major publishing houses and bestselling authors — including John Green and Jodi Picoult — sued in federal court, focusing on the statute’s mandate for school libraries. They argue the provision reaches far beyond obscenity rules by banning any book with any description of a sex act without regard to the age of the reader or the value of the work as a whole, and that it overrides local control and professional judgment that traditionally govern school library collections.

In a separate case, nonprofit LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Iowa Safe Schools, teachers and several students and families — represented by Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Iowa and Jenner & Block LLP — challenged the law’s K-6 instruction ban, parental notification rules and library restrictions, arguing the measure censors LGBTQ+ students and content and chills speech in classrooms and extracurricular activities.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher initially blocked large portions of SF 496 in late 2023, but the 8th Circuit vacated that first injunction in August 2024 and sent the case back with instructions to apply an alternative standard for constitutionality established under a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Moody v. NetChoice.

On remand, Locher in March again halted enforcement of the library restriction, finding the law likely “facially unconstitutional” because its unconstitutional applications “far exceed” any constitutional ones, and noting that hundreds of books had already been removed statewide. Two months later, in the Iowa Safe Schools case, Locher sharply limited how SF 496 can be enforced, allowing student-led clubs that create a safe, welcoming space for LGBTQ+ youth and their allies to operate without restriction and prohibiting districts from removing books or materials simply for containing transgender characters or same-sex relationships.

In granting in part the plaintiffs’ request to temporarily block the law, Locher’s ruling states the law’s restrictions narrowly apply only to mandatory classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in grades K-6, and the parental notification rule is enforceable solely when a student asks to use pronouns different from those in school records.

What’s happened since

Because of Locher’s renewed injunction in the publishers’ case, the library section of SF 496 is currently on hold. That means the provision requiring removal of any book with a description or depiction of a sex act is not enforceable while the appeal is pending.

“All of the books that a school district in the state of Iowa may have removed because of the library provisions in Senate File 496, those all had to be returned to shelves of the school library,” said Christy Hickman, general counsel for the Iowa State Education Association, which is a plaintiff in the publishers’ case.

Hickman said many districts scrambled to comply when the law first took effect.

“School districts, in fear of being in violation of the law, many of them went laborious through their library collections and any book that could arguably be considered to have a description or a depiction of a sex act was, in some cases, removed and it resulted in thousands of books being removed from school libraries,” she said. “Now that we are back on the state's appeal in the 8th Circuit, the Court of Appeals is ultimately going to have to determine whether Judge Locher's decision was appropriate and in line with its ruling overturning his initial preliminary injunction.”

In the 8th Circuit appeal, state officials led by Attorney General Brenna Bird argue the law is a permissible exercise of Iowa’s authority to set school standards and contend that decisions about what sits on school library shelves constitute “school-sponsored speech” or government speech. In their reply brief, state lawyers say that if the school-sponsored-speech standard applies, a facial injunction is improper and the law should be upheld. They also argue that the District Court misapplied the Supreme Court’s NetChoice decision by failing to identify a substantial number of unconstitutional applications compared with constitutional ones.

The plaintiffs’ amended appellate brief pushes back, accusing the state of “turn(ing) the school-sponsored speech doctrine upside down” by using it to support “an inflexible, across-the-board prohibition” that strips educators and local boards of their traditional discretion over school library collections. They argue that even under the NetChoice decision, the library restriction cannot stand because it prohibits vast amounts of non-obscene, constitutionally protected literature — from historical classics to contemporary young-adult fiction — without considering context, age or educational value.

“We continue to argue that the library provision in Senate File 496 is vague and overbroad,” Hickman said.

Bird, a Republican, has previously defended SF 496 as a “common sense law” that ensures school library materials are “age-appropriate” and protects parental rights. Her office did not respond to a request for comment from The Gazette for this article.

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Hickman said ISEA has notified superintendents about the injunction and its view that previously removed titles must be returned to shelves. She said some complaints have been filed against teachers and librarians over challenged books, but none can move forward while the law is under injunction. As a result, she said, there have been no active employment or licensure actions against educators during this period.

The Iowa Association of School Boards said its role is limited to helping districts understand and apply the law, and it takes a cautious approach that steers fact-specific or legal questions to district attorneys. The association updated sample policies when SF 496 took effect, but it does not provide legal advice, track how districts use those templates or adopt policies on their behalf. Staff said they haven’t seen a wave of new questions recently, and any that require legal interpretation are referred back to their school district attorney.

Hickman said the on-again, off-again status has been hard on educators who are not trained to parse shifting legal standards.

She added that SF 496 and earlier measures have already changed what some teachers feel safe assigning or discussing.

Parents and educators in Bettendorf told Democratic lawmakers last month that SF 496 has created a chilling effect in classrooms and libraries, with some teachers delaying or avoiding standard lessons because they “don’t know what they can say, and they don’t know what they shouldn’t say,” the Quad-City Times reported. Clinton teacher-librarian Linda Smithson said inconsistent interpretations of the law led districts to pull varying numbers of books, and that even with the injunction in place, “teachers and teacher-librarians are self-censoring.” She warned that fear of violating the law has left students “missing out” on books and lessons educators once considered routine.

“They are acting out of an abundance of caution … taking the safest path (to protect their career and livelihood),” Hickman told The Gazette. “Well, the safest path is in some cases eliminating any possibility of controversy. And these days, eliminating any possibility of controversy can mean the elimination of literature that we have considered to be monumental in the history of our country.”

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com