Report: “LGBTQ+ Advocates Mount Revamped Challenge to Iowa Book Ban”

From Courthouse News Service:

After a setback from an appellate court in August, advocates for the legal rights of LGBTQ+ students on Monday announced renewed efforts to block an Iowa law banning certain books labeled obscene from public school libraries.

Six Iowa students who identify as LGBTQ+, along with two public school teachers and a student association, filed an amended complaint in federal court in Des Moines challenging the constitutionality of Iowa’s law, Senate File 496, signed into law last year by Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds.

Publisher Penguin Random House, representing its publisher and authors, filed a second amended complaint in the First Amendment case.

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SF 496 bans books that depict or describe sex acts from schools, except for religious and health texts. It also prohibits instruction or curriculum about gender identity and sexual orientation through the sixth grade, which some schools have interpreted to include banning books with those themes.

The lawsuits against SF 496 were originally filed last fall, with plaintiffs arguing that the law is unconstitutional.

In a virtual news conference Lambda Legal and American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa held Monday, Nathan Maxwell, a senior attorney for Lambda, said the new filings reflect the appeals court’s ruling and include a legal analysis the court required given the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the recent Moody v. NetChoice case. The organizations are part of the legal team that represent the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that includes Iowa Safe Schools.

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See Also: New Request Filed to Again Block Iowa’s Book Banning/Don’t Say LGBTQ Law (via ACLU Iowa)

Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Libraries, News, Publishing, School Libraries