The impact of the book banning provisions in SF 496, which Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law in May, is becoming clearer as the Des Moines Register continues to update its database of books pulled from classrooms and school libraries.
“More than 1,000 books have already been removed from 39 public school districts,” the Register reported on Wednesday. But that just represents the number of books removed in the 12 percent of Iowa’s 326 school districts that have responded to the paper’s open records requests so far.
SF 496 requires public school districts to remove all books with “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act” except for approved science or health class texts. It also prohibits “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion or instruction” referencing sexual identity or gender orientation in primary schools.
During her annual “Harvest” campaign fundraising event earlier this month, Gov. Reynolds boasted about the impact of SF 496, claiming “we got porn out of the classroom and the libraries.” But none of the books now banned from Iowa schools meet any commonly held or reasonable definition of the word “porn.” Nor do any meet the standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1973 decision in Miller v. California, which defines pornography as sexually explicit material lacking “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
It was clear during the debates in the Iowa Legislature that Republican leaders intended their book ban — which passed both the Iowa House and Senate with only Republican votes — to be part of the anti-LGBTQ agenda they have been enacting over the last two years.
“This material is disgusting, and does not belong in our schools,” Senate President Brad Zaun, a Republican from Urbandale, said about Gender Queer, using that award-winning graphic memoir as the sort of book he wants banned during the debate on SF 496.
The 2019 memoir by Maia Kobabe has been widely praised by critics for its story depicting the author coming to terms with their nonbinary identity and coming out to family and friends. According to the American Library Association, it has become the most frequently challenged book in the country.
According to the Register’s database, Gender Queer has been removed by school districts in Urbandale, West Des Moines and Carlisle.
Of course, the broad wording of the new ban means it targets a wide range of books, including literary classics like James Joyce’s Ulysses and The Bluest Eye by Nobel Prize for Literature winner Toni Morrison. Both were among the 68 titles on the list of removed books published by the Iowa City Community School District earlier this month. James Joyce’s complex 1922 novel, considered one of the fundamental works of modern literature, is also now banned in Urbandale schools, while eight school districts in addition to Iowa City have removed The Bluest Eye.
As school book bans have been enacted, or expanded, in Republican-led states around the country this year, most publishers have stood firmly against them. But Scholastic, a billion-dollar corporation focused on children’s literature, introduced a new feature to its school book fair in an attempt to make it easier for school districts to remove books that feature stories about members of the LGBTQ community and people of color.
Those books were lumped together into a collection called “Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice,” making it easier for school districts to exclude books rightwing activists might object to when setting up a Scholastic School Book Fair.
“There is now enacted or pending legislation in more than 30 U.S. states prohibiting certain kinds of books from being in schools — mostly LGBTQIA+ titles and books that engage with the presence of racism in our country,” Scholastic said in a statement explaining its decision posted on the company website on Oct. 13.
Critics said Scholastic had created “a ‘bigot button’ to exclude these books and mollify intolerant pressure groups.”
On Wednesday, Scholastic announced it would change its policy.
“We are working across Scholastic to find a better way,” the company said in a statement. “The Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice collection will not be offered with our next season in January.”
The company added, “It is unsettling that the current divisive landscape in the U.S. is creating an environment that could deny any child access to books, or that teachers could be penalized for creating access to all stories for their students.”
SF 496 is already denying school kids in Iowa access to books, and starting on Jan. 1, teacher and school administrators will face penalties if a state officials decide they have violated the book ban.
