Iowa’s Book Ban Bill Blocked Again by Federal Judge
A federal judge has one again blocked Implementation of Iowa’s Senate File 496 (SF 496). This is the third decision made in courts over the bill that has left schools scrambling and thousands of public school students in the state without access to books in their classrooms and libraries.
SF 496, a sweeping piece of educational legislation, requires that all public school materials be “age appropriate” with no “descriptions or depictions of sex acts.” Any titles not fitting those requirement must be removed from shelves.
The law was pushed through the 2023 legislative session by Republican Governor Kim Reynolds and championed by groups like Moms For Liberty’s Iowa chapters, including those who purposefully lied about their “parental rights” being infringed in local districts.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher ruled this week that this part of the bill cannot be enforced. It is the second time Locher has blocked enforcement of the book ban portion of the bill. The first came in December 2023, when he called for an injunction. This injunction was overturned in Federal Appeals Court in August 2024, allowing the bill to take effect for the first half of the new school year. Now, it must once again be halted.
While there have been three decisions in the case so far, the lawsuit has yet to actually be brought to trial. It is possible that this ruling may once again be challenged by the state.
Judge Locher noted in his ruling that Iowa’s SF 496 “makes no attempt to evaluate a book’s literary, political, artistic or scientific value before requiring the book’s removal.” Because of how overly broad the law is–and that it does not take prevailing obscenity standards into account–schools across the state have taken great liberties in removing titles.
“[E]ven if one interprets the language of Senate File 496 as narrowly as reasonably possible and focuses only on a representative sample of school districts—the law has been unconstitutionally applied in dozens (if not hundreds) of situations and constitutionally applied in one,” he added.
This is precisely what happened in districts like Mason City. Unsure of what the terminology of the bill included–an intentionally confusing element in this style of legislation nationwide–Mason City leaders turned to Artificial Intelligence to pull books from district shelves.
The Des Moines Register tracked the removal of nearly 3400 books from schools in June 2024 as a result of the law. Not every school district in Iowa complied with the legislation, but a significant number did. Des Moines Public Schools were among those declining to pull titles.
Lochler’s 40-page decision emphasized the extent of damage that the bill has already done throughout Iowa public schools. “Plaintiffs have established, at minimum, several dozen unconstitutional applications of Senate File 496 involving books that undeniable political, artistic, literary, and/or scientific value.” Among the titles he references were Ulysses, Brave New World, Beloved, The Fault in Our Stars, Nineteen Minutes, I Know Why The Caged Bird Songs, 1984, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, and more.
He also emphasized that while courts would not argue that there are standards of appropriateness when it comes to the ages when young people read certain books, SF 496 tries to overreach in hypothetical ways. Such overreach would allow legislatures more and more opportunities to overstep their authority and encroach on the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights granted in the Constitution.
Locher writes:
To be clear, the Court is not suggesting that books with sexual content would be appropriate for all ages of students. The Ginsberg standard would, for example, justify restrictions on descriptions of sex acts in books for elementary school students. The problem for the State Defendants, however, is that there is nothing in the record to suggest such books were ever made available to elementary school students in the first place; instead, unrebutted evidence shows that school officials already limited the access of younger readers to unsuitable books before the enactment of Senate File 496. (ECF 104-1, ¶ 19.) This comports with common sense: it is highly doubtful that elementary school students would have the capacity to read or comprehend books like 1984 or As I Lay Dying anyway.
Upon passage of SF 496, two lawsuits were filed. The first came from several publishers, the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, Lambda Legal, and four authors. That case is the one here addressing access to books. A second case, filed by Iowa Safe Schools and numerous young people, focuses on the law’s prohibition of teaching sexual orientation and gender in public kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms.
Iowa’s libraries have been under attack for several years. This legislative session alone has seen two bills that would criminalize any librarian statewide in possession of so-called “obscene” materials. Another bill aims to defund any library that has affiliation with either the American Library Association or the Iowa Library Association, two leading professional organizations for library workers.
Iowa was second in the nation for most book bans in the 2023-2024 school year, falling only behind Florida. Where the state will rank in the 2024-2025 year, is a big question, especially as SF 496 has been law for more than half of the school year.
While there is no trial date set for the case over book banning in SF 496, the outcome of the case will be a crucial one for dozens of similar book banning bills that have been passed or are in discussion at states across the country. SF 496 and cousin bills have been used to justify mass purging of books, including and especially books by or about LGBTQ+ people.
