DES MOINES, Iowa (CN) — A recently enacted Iowa law unconstitutionally bars access to support in schools and certain books in classrooms and libraries, an LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group and eight LGBTQ+ students claim in a lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday.
The legislation, Senate File 496, signed into law by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds this past May “has altered the landscape for Iowa schools and students through its unconstitutional and discriminatory don’t say gay or trans, all-ages ban, book ban, and forced outing provisions,” the plaintiffs say in the complaint filed by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the law firm of Jenner & Block.
The plaintiffs claim Iowa’s new law violates the students’ rights of free speech and expression under the First Amendment and equal protection under the 14th Amendment. They seek preliminary and permanent injunctions against enforcement of the statute.
Among other things, the new law requires public school districts to ban books and materials containing descriptions or depictions of “sex acts” from all Iowa school libraries except for certain religious texts, such as the Bible, and forbids mention of sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through the sixth grade, in or outside of the classroom. And, the law requires teachers, counselors, and other school staff to report to parents if a student asks to be referred to by names or pronouns that align with their gender identity.
The plaintiffs include eight public school students ages nine to 17 who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning, and their parents. Named defendants include the governor, state agencies, and Iowa school districts charged with enforcing the new law.
"SF 496 is a clear violation of public school students' First Amendment right to speak, read, and learn freely,” ACLU-Iowa attorney Thomas Story told Iowa reporters at a news conference Tuesday. “The First Amendment does not allow our state or our schools to remove books or issue blanket bans on discussion and materials simply because a group of politicians or parents find them offensive.”
Governor Reynolds, who advocated for enactment of the legislation, defended the new law in a statement released Tuesday.
“Protecting children from pornography and sexually explicit content shouldn’t be controversial,” Reynolds said. “The real controversy is that it exists in elementary schools. Books with graphic depictions of sex acts have absolutely no place in our schools. If these books were movies, they’d be rated R. The media cannot even air or print excerpts from these books because the content is offensive and inappropriate, yet they promote the narrative that they’re good for kids.”
Although the law has already gone into effect, some penalty provisions that subject school administrators and staff to disciplinary action do not kick in until Jan. 1. Still, school districts are scrambling to figure out how to comply. The Des Moines suburb of Urbandale initially identified 374 books for removal before that was pared down to 64. Mason City in northern Iowa used the AI tool ChatGPT to identify targeted books and pulled 19 books from school shelves.
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