Publishers, student group argue for blocking Iowa ban on LGBTQ+ books

DES MOINES, Iowa (CN) — Book publishers and advocates for the rights of LGBTQ+ students in Iowa Thursday urged a federal judge to resurrect an injunction blocking enforcement of Iowa’s state law that removes books with references to sexual acts from school libraries and curbs instruction with LGBTQ+ themes.

The St. Louis-based Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals this past August reversed the preliminary injunction issued in December 2023 by U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher, a Joe Biden appointee. The injunction blocked Iowa’s law that requires the removal of so-called sexually explicit books from school libraries, including those with LGBTQ+ themes.

In returning the case to the district court in Des Moines, the appeals court said the plaintiffs’ argument that the law is unconstitutional on its face would “be hard to win.” The Eighth Circuit’s three-judge panel quoted the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Moody v. NetChoice , a First Amendment case involving online content moderation.

Two suits were filed in federal court challenging Iowa’s law, arguing that Senate File 496, signed into law in 2023 by Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, violates the First Amendment rights of students, authors and book publishers. One suit was filed by book publishers, including Penguin Random House, and author Jodi Picoult; the other suit was filed by Iowa Safe Schools, a group of LGBTQ+ rights advocates.

Frederick Sperling, an attorney from Chicago’s ArentFox Schiff representing authors and publishers who sued to block the law, told Judge Locher at Thursday’s hearing that applying the Supreme Court’s NetChoice decision would result in even more unconstitutional applications of Iowa’s law because the law applies to all grades from kindergarten through high school.

The statute’s “very broad” restrictions on books that contain “any sex act,” without respect to the intended age group, prevents school librarians from making decisions about what books to keep or exclude, as they have always done.

Sperling said school librarians can’t remove a book suitable for a high school senior because it is unsuitable for a kindergartener. “The problem with the statute is it is ‘one size fits all,’” Sperling said.

“A single sentence mentions sex, and the book goes off the shelves,” Sperling said. Iowa’s statute is “too blunt an instrument,” he said, which is why the publishers and authors argue the law is unconstitutional, not just as applied with regard to particular books removed.

In response, William Admussen, Iowa’s assistant solicitor general, argued in defense of the statute that the focus should be on as-applied cases if the district court follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s NetChoice decision. The court should look at a factual record that supports the plaintiffs’ request for facial injunctive relief. Instead, Admussen said, they have just provided “a list of books” that have been removed by Iowa schools without more detailed information about whether those removals were, in fact, unconstitutional.

Judge Locher said at the conclusion of Thursday’s hearing he would issue a ruling as soon as possible.

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