Federal Judge Blocks Iowa Law Restricting Sexually Explicit School Books
The New York Times
The ruling is a victory for the publishers and free speech advocates who challenged the law, but the judge’s decision is far from final.
A federal judge in Iowa blocked on Tuesday the portion of a Republican-backed law that banned libraries in public schools from stocking books that described sex acts.
The decision represented a victory for the publishers, authors and free speech advocates who challenged the measure on First Amendment grounds. But as conservative legislators across the country restrict books that they consider obscene, the ultimate fate of the Iowa law remains uncertain.
The same judge, Stephen Locher of the Federal District Court in Des Moines, first blocked the measure from taking effect in 2023. But an appeals court lifted his injunction, saying he had applied “a flawed analysis of the law.”
Iowa officials could also appeal Tuesday’s ruling, which granted another preliminary injunction. The case has not yet gone to trial on its merits.
In his ruling, Judge Locher, who was appointed by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said the law “makes no attempt to evaluate a book’s literary, political, artistic or scientific value before requiring the book’s removal.”
“The result is the forced removal of books from school libraries that are not pornographic or obscene,” the judge added.
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