Federal court allows book ban to return to Iowa schools

(CN) — Reversing an injunction from a lower court, a federal appeals court on Friday greenlit an Iowa law requiring the removal of so-called sexually explicit books from school libraries, including those with LGBTQ+ themes.

The case now goes back to district court in Des Moines, where a judge was directed to reconsider the plaintiffs’ challenges to the law. In the meantime, the lifted injunction means that Iowa public schools are once again required to enforce the law, just in time for students to return to school next week.

In two suits filed in federal court, plaintiffs argued that Senate File 496, signed into law last year by Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, violates the First Amendment rights of students and book publishers.

One suit was filed by Lambda Legal and the ACLU-Iowa. Joining in that case were eight public school students ages nine to 17 who identify as LGBTQ+, along with their parents. Another, filed by publisher Penguin Random House, was joined by a parent, teachers and school librarians.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, a Republican, praised Friday’s decision by the St. Louis-based Eighth Circuit. The decision reversed a preliminary injunction from U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher, a Joe Biden appointee.

“We went to court to defend Iowa’s schoolchildren and parental rights, and we won,” Bird said in a statement released Friday. “This victory ensures age-appropriate books and curriculum in school classrooms and libraries. With this win, parents will no longer have to fear what their kids have access to in schools when they are not around.”

Lambda Legal, the ACLU of Iowa and Jenner & Block — the law firm which represented students and families in challenging the statute — criticized the ruling in a statement of their own.

"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," the groups said.

The appeals court acknowledged their clients have a right to sue, the groups noted. They vowed to once again ask the trial court to block the law.

In its ruling Friday, the appeals court highlighted the role of school libraries in the “pedagogical mission” of public schools.

“We note that the district court concluded that the [provision of Iowa’s law regarding school libraries] is a viewpoint-neutral, content-based, age-appropriate restriction on the content of public school libraries, and we agree," the court said. "The purpose of public school libraries is to advance the school curriculum."

In reaching its decision, the court said that "Iowa is not required to tolerate speech that undermines or is inconsistent with its central mission of educating Iowa children.”

The decision for the three-judge panel of the court of appeals was written by U.S. Circuit Judge Ralph Erickson and joined by circuit judges L. Steven Grasz and James Loken. Erickson and Grasz are Donald Trump appointees, while Loken is a George H.W. Bush appointee.

In returning the case to trial court, the appeals court said the plaintiffs’ argument that the law is unconstitutional on its face would "be hard to win." They quoted the U.S. Supreme Court’s July decision in Moody v. NetChoice, a First Amendment case involving online content moderation.

As early as June, the judges appeared hostile to the plaintiffs’ legal reasoning, in which they challenged Iowa’s law as facially unconstitutional rather than attacking it on a case-by-case basis.

In its decision Friday, the Eighth Circuit panel said the first step in analyzing a facial challenge to a statute is to assess what activities the law prohibits or regulates and then to determine which of the law’s applications violate the First Amendment. “The district court did not perform the necessary inquiry set forth in NetChoice,” the appeals court said. “Nor did the district court address the as-applied challenges that Plaintiffs raised below.”

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