Iowa’s School Book Law Targeting LGBTQ Topics Faces Federal Court Test
The outcome could reshape what Iowa students are allowed to read, learn, and say about LGBTQ lives.
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Iowa’s sweeping restrictions on school libraries and classroom discussion about LGBTQ lives are back before a federal appeals court, setting up a high-stakes fight over who gets to decide what students can read and learn.
On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit heard arguments in two challenges to Senate File 496, a 2023 law that bans books with sexual content from school libraries and limits instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through sixth grade. The cases come after a year of conflicting federal rulings that have repeatedly blocked major parts of the law from taking effect.
Arguing for the state, Iowa Solicitor General Eric Wessan urged the court to allow the statute to move forward, framing it as a neutral educational policy rather than censorship.
“This court found that Iowa’s law was a viewpoint-neutral, content-based, age-appropriate restriction. It found that school libraries are intended to advance the curriculum of the school, and it found that Iowa is not required to have speech that undermines or is inconsistent with the goal of advancing the curriculum,” Wessan said.
Wessan also rejected the idea that the law amounts to a book ban.
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“It’s important to note that, despite some strong rhetoric, this is not a book ban. No student can be punished for bringing any book, even a prohibited book, into school,” he said.
The law is being challenged by educators, civil liberties groups, and major publishers, including Penguin Random House, as well as by LGBTQ advocacy organizations representing students and families. Fred Sperling, an attorney for the publishers, told the court that the statute removes professional judgment from local schools and replaces it with a rigid statewide rule.
“It applies the same standard to every grade, erasing the possibility for a librarian to weigh the value of a book as a whole,” Sperling said. “The unconstitutional applications substantially outweigh any constitutional ones.”
He warned that the law’s impact extends far beyond fiction.
“Teachers and educators have been told to err on the side of caution. They risk losing both licensure and their employment itself,” Sperling added. “These books are not just books of fiction. They’re books of anatomy, about biology. They’re books about students, about authors who suffered sexual assault, and how they dealt with that. And these books are off the shelves for 12th graders, as well.”
In a separate but related case brought by the ACLU of Iowa and Lambda Legal on behalf of Iowa Safe Schools and others, attorneys focused on how the law affects LGBTQ students directly. While a federal judge previously allowed some K-6 classroom restrictions to stand, he blocked enforcement of the library ban and struck down parts of the parental notification requirements as unconstitutionally vague.
ACLU of Iowa attorney Thomas Story told the appeals court that the lack of clarity has created fear and confusion in schools.
“It is interfering with their ability to do their job at all because they don’t know what it requires, and it’s causing schools to interfere with the activities of students,” Story said.
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After the hearing, Story said the fight would continue regardless of the outcome.
“I can tell you that we will never stop fighting for the rights of Iowa students and for the rights of Iowa teachers and for the rights of everybody to be subject to laws that have clear standards and not be subject to the arbitrary decision-making of elected officials,” he said, according to Iowa Public Radio.
He also stressed that LGBTQ students are bearing the brunt of that uncertainty.
“They failed to give teachers and students any clear rules, and because they unconstitutionally infringe upon LGBTQ students’ rights to express themselves and to join together in GSAs.”
The judges did not indicate when they will rule. Until then, much of the law remains blocked, leaving Iowa schools caught between state mandates and federal courts, and LGBTQ students waiting to see whether their stories will remain on the shelves.
