Federal appeals court examines challenge to Iowa school ban on books with sexual content

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Advocates for LGBTQ+ youth, teachers and major publishers asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to uphold a lower court order blocking key parts of an Iowa state law that bans books with sexual depictions from school libraries and classrooms.

The law, which the Republican-led legislature and Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds passed in 2023, also prohibits teachers from addressing topics such as gender identity and sexual orientation with younger students. It led to the removal of hundreds of books from Iowa schools before U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher blocked its enforcement in December, calling it “incredibly sweeping.”

“Iowa students have the right to express and accept diverse views in school. But the state – targeting already vulnerable LGBTQ+ students – is trying to silence them, remove any recognition of the existence of LGBTQ+ people from schools, and force students, librarians and teachers into tacit consent,” the students’ lawyers wrote in a brief ahead of oral arguments Tuesday before a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In addition to removing LGBTQ+-themed books from libraries, schools also shut down extracurricular clubs that focused on those topics and removed Pride flags from classrooms, the students’ lawyers wrote. Students were forced to self-censor about their gender identity and sexual orientation, the lawyers said.

Attorneys for the state of Iowa argued that the law was constitutional and the state had the right to enforce it.

“The government’s interest in ensuring an education appropriate to the age of students and in preventing the exposure of underage students to inappropriate material is legitimate, compelling, and even substantial. And removing books from school libraries that describe or depict ‘sexual acts’ is proportionate to that legitimate interest,” they wrote in their brief.

Iowa passed its law amid a wave of similar legislation across the country. The proposals typically come from Republican lawmakers who say the laws are designed to strengthen parents’ rights and protect children. The laws often seek to ban discussions about gender and sexual orientation, prohibit treatments such as puberty blockers for transgender children, and restrict the use of bathrooms in schools. Many of these laws have led to court challenges.

Iowa Safe Schools and seven students, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and Lambda Legal, filed suit challenging the law in November. Later that week, the Iowa State Education Association, the teachers’ union, publisher Penguin Random House and four authors filed a separate lawsuit. The cases were consolidated for Tuesday’s hearing in federal appeals court.

Iowa Attorney General Eric Wessan argued that the plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge the law because it can only be enforced against school districts and their employees, not students. He said in his brief that when it comes to the management of books in public school libraries, the law regulates government speech, not private speech, and is therefore not subject to First Amendment protections.

“No matter how the court decides, it will either extend the government’s free speech doctrine to public school libraries for the first time, or it will find some kind of First Amendment-protected right for school library books in the 8th Circuit for the first time,” Wessan told the three justices. “Either way, it will break new ground.”

Frederick Sperling, an attorney for Penguin Random House, asked the appeals court to affirm the lower court’s ruling that the law was unconstitutional “on its face” under all circumstances.

Judge James Loken noted that the 8th Circuit has historically frowned upon “superficial challenges” and favored narrower challenges to laws “as applied in specific situations.” He said winning on limited challenges would send a clear message to school districts about what they can do.

“The question before this court is not whether some of the books the defendants reference can be constitutionally removed from school libraries,” Sperling said. “They can, and they were under existing law before (the new law) was passed. The real question before this court is whether this overly broad and vague law is constitutional. And it is not.”

Lawyers for the students called the ban on teaching gender identity and sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through sixth grade a “Don’t Say Gay” law – a nickname that has caught on in other states such as Florida.

However, Wessan argued that the provision only allows enforcement against schools, not students, and that the only student plaintiff young enough to be affected – a fourth-grader – was neither disciplined nor threatened with discipline.

The appeals panel deliberated on the case but did not announce a date for a decision.