Des Moines Register Editorial: “Tweaking Iowa’s Harmful Book Ban Law Isn’t Enough: Repeal It”

From the Des Moines Register:

The reprieve is over for Iowa educators and schoolchildren. A federal court has ordered that restrictions on some instruction and on school library books dealing with sex must go into effect.

[Clip]

For the time being, though, we are all stuck with it, thanks to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ Aug. 9 ruling, which strongly suggested that no challenge to the law as a whole, as opposed to its application in individual cases, will succeed.

[Clip]

Let’s also dispel the semantic debate about the “book ban” law, since any book taken out of a school library is readily available in public libraries and at booksellers. Schools are supposed to have essential resources on site for students. And visiting the public library is certainly no substitute when a valuable book is removed from the curriculum.

The benefit of this law reining in some supposed excesses is far outweighed by the harm of putting valuable works off-limits and pretending that parents will unfailingly provide children with any information they need about sex.

Lawmakers have said they might need to examine this law for tweaks. They should be thinking “repeal” instead.

Learn More, Read the Complete Editorial (1130 words)

Filed under: Libraries, News, Public Libraries, School Libraries