A federal appeals court on Friday reinstated an Iowa law that bans books depicting sex acts from school libraries and bars instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation through 6th grade.
The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, based in St. Louis, was not an outright ruling on the merits of the Iowa law. It vacated a preliminary injunction issued late last year by a federal district judge, saying the judge had conducted a flawed legal analysis.
Still, the panel may have provided some hints about the merits of the law known as Senate File 496, which was signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican.
The restriction on sex depictions in books “is a viewpoint-neutral, content-based, age-appropriate restriction on the content of public school libraries,” the court said.
“Iowa is not required to tolerate speech that undermines or is inconsistent with its central mission of educating Iowa children,” wrote Judge Ralph R. Erickson, an appointee of President Donald Trump. He was joined by Judge L. Steven Grasz, another Trump appointee, and Judge James B. Loken, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush.
The panel also said the challengers in two consolidated cases, which include LGBTQ+ students as well as major book publishers, may pursue their “as-applied” challenge, claims that deal with how a law affects specific individuals or situations.
The lawsuits say the Iowa book provision has led public schools to remove such works as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Richard Wright’s Native Son, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved and The Bluest Eye. Iowa school districts have had sharply divergent reactions as to which books should be removed and have tended to err on the side of removal, the plaintiffs have said.
The plaintiffs have said the provision on discussing gender identity and sexual orientation in grades preK-6 amounts to a “don’t say trans” or “don’t say gay” law, though the district judge who blocked it noted that because of its neutral language, the provision would seem to bar discussing the gender of any historical figure and might even prohibit separate 6th grade boys and girls basketball teams.
That judge, Stephen H. Locher, an appointee of President Joe Biden, issued a preliminary injunction against the books and classroom discussion provisions. He declined to block a third provision dealing with parental rights. That section requires Iowa schools to inform parents if a student seeks to use pronouns or names that don’t match their registration records. The judge said no plaintiff had standing to challenge that provision.
Ruling rejects argument by state that book decisions are a form of government speech
The state of Iowa appealed the preliminary injunction, and the 8th Circuit court, in its Aug. 9 decision in GLBT Youth in Iowa Schools Task Force v. Reynolds, vacated the injunction and ordered further proceedings in the district court.
The appeals panel rejected a key argument made by the state of Iowa, that the placement and removal of books in a public school library is a form of government speech, which would give the state greater leeway to make content-based decisions without running afoul of the First Amendment.
“It is doubtful that the public would view the placement and removal of books in public school libraries as the government speaking,” Erickson wrote.
Consider examples of historic tomes on political science, he said. “A well-appointed school library could include copies of Plato’s The Republic, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels’ Das Kapital, Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. As plaintiffs noted, if placing these books on the shelf of public school libraries constitutes government speech, the state ‘is babbling prodigiously and incoherently.’”
Erickson said because the state of Iowa has not historically exerted extensive control over the removal of books from school libraries, that supports the standing of the plaintiffs to challenge the new statewide restriction on such books.
Meanwhile, one individual plaintiff had standing to challenge the classroom instruction provision, a student who has identified as transgender since a young age and was in 6th grade or below. Thus, the lawsuit over that provision could proceed, the court said.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, a Republican, celebrated the ruling, saying on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that “this victory ensures age-appropriate books & curriculum in school classrooms & libraries. With this win, parents will no longer have to fear what their kids have access to in schools when they’re not around.”
Lambda Legal, the LGBTQ+ rights group that helps represent the individual plaintiffs, said it was unfortunate the appeals court was reinstating the law right before the start of a new school year. However, the group was encouraged that the panel agreed with some of the plaintiffs’ arguments.
“Iowa families, and especially LGBTQ+ students who will again face bullying, intimidation, and censorship as they return for a new school year, are deeply frustrated and disappointed by this delay,” Lambda Legal said in a statement. “The appeals court acknowledged that our student clients have been harmed by the law and have the right to bring suit. The court also rejected the state’s claim that banning books in libraries is a form of protected government speech. We will ask the district court to block the law again at the earliest opportunity.”
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