All of the “Big 5” publishing houses are now suing Iowa to overturn the state’s school book ban signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds in May 2023. Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, MacMillan Publishing Group and Simon & Schuster have joined Penguin Random House as plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging the book ban.
The lawsuit was originally filed at the end of November 2023 by Penguin Random House, four authors whose books were removed from schools seeking to comply with the book ban — Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, Malinda Lo and Jodi Picoult — as well as an Iowa high school student, three Iowa educators and the state’s largest teachers union, the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA).
The book ban was included in SF 496, a wide-ranging education bill that was pushed through the Iowa Legislature with only Republican votes during the 2023 legislative session. It mandates that all public school districts remove any book with “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act” except for approved science or health class texts. The bill also exempts the Bible and other religious texts with references to sex from its ban.
It was obvious during discussions of SF 496 in the Iowa House and Senate that the bill was aimed at LGBTQ books, but the ban needed to be broader to make it more likely to survive a legal challenge.
SF 496 also prohibits “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion or instruction” that references sexual orientation or gender identity in K-6 classes, and forbids all teachers and other school personnel from using a student’s preferred name or pronouns without written permission from parents if they are “different than the name or pronoun assigned to the student in the school district’s registration forms or records.”
On Nov. 28, the ACLU of Iowa and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Iowa Safe Schools and seven students from around the state.
“The suit argues that SF 496 as a whole, and in its ‘Don’t say gay or trans,’ book banning and forced outing provisions, violates Iowa’s students rights under the First Amendment, the 14th Amendment and the Equal Access Act,” ACLU of Iowa staff attorney Thomas Story said at the time.
Two days later, attorneys for Penguin Random House, the ISEA and their fellow plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in federal court, challenging SF 496’s book banning provision.
Federal District Court Judge Stephen Locher decided to combine the two challenges and held a hearing on them on Dec. 22. Five days later, he issued a preliminary injunction stopping enforcement of the book ban and the prohibition on any instruction or materials related to sexual identity or gender orientation. The judge did allow the provision requiring written permission from parents before using a student’s preferred name or pronouns, if they do not match school records, to go into effect.
In his ruling, Locher found the book ban was so “incredibly broad” it likely violates the First Amendment.
“Indeed, the court has been unable to locate a single case upholding the constitutionality of a school library restriction even remotely similar to Senate File 496,” he wrote about the book ban.
Locher also found that the prohibition on any instruction or materials mentioning sexual identity or gender orientation was “wildly overbroad,” and likely to be struck down as unconstitutional.
The state appealed the ruling, and on Aug. 9, a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the temporary injunction and sent the cases back to the district court.
In its order, the appeals panel instructed the district court to use the four-part test on the constitutionality of speech restrictions created by the U.S. Supreme Court in Moody v. NetChoice as the standard in the cases. Of course, Locher could not have relied on Moody v. NetChoice, because the Supreme Court announced its decision six months after he issued the injunction.
Following the 8th Circuit’s decision, Gov. Reynolds issued a two-sentence written statement.
“Today, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit confirmed what we already knew — it should be parents who decide when and if sexually-explicit books are appropriate for their children. Here in Iowa, we will continue to focus on excellence in education and partnerships with parents and educators.”.
In addition to the four other large publishing houses that joined Penguin Random House in the book-ban lawsuit, the amended complaint filed on Monday also added the Authors Guild as a plaintiff. The guild is the country’s largest and oldest professional organization for writers.
“We must continue to stand together — alongside educators, librarians, students, authors, and readers — to protect the freedom to read and fight against the unconstitutional censorship measures being imposed by the state of Iowa,” the five publishers and the Authors Guild said in a joint statement. “We will do everything we can to strike down SF 496’s remaining book ban provision and defend the fundamental rights of Iowans to read, think, and learn freely.”
