Portions of Iowa’s controversial book ban law blocked by a federal judge
(ABC 6 News) – A federal district court temporarily blocked most of the Iowa law that would ban certain books from Iowa schools.
It was passed by the Republican-led legislature and Governor Kim Reynolds.
This would ban books depicting sexual acts and forbid teachers from raising gender identity and sexual orientation issues with students up to sixth grade.
The highly controversial law was set to take place on Jan. 1, 2024, but as of tonight, that’s not happening.
Over the summer school districts were already removing books that were deemed inappropriate by the state in order to comply with the new law.
Now with this block, it gives Iowa school districts a lot to think about.
One former school librarian says the law shouldn’t have even come to this.
“Being in an elementary school, a lot of times I did not have the issues like you might find in a high school library where a lot of times the fiction books may have subjects or dealing a lot with language that may be objectionable,” retired school librarian Sue Berger said.
Berger was a school librarian in Davenport for over 30 years.
She believes students should have access to books at their school without interference from the state government, but only time will tell how the ban will affect how schools will react.
“When teachers are back to school and librarians are back to school next week, I think they’re still going to be very cautious,” Berger said.
The Iowa ACLU played a huge role in combating this law. In a statement the Iowa ACLU share why they believe the law was blocked:
“The court determined that the book ban likely violates the First Amendment. Additionally, the provision banning programs, “promotion,” and instruction concerning sexual orientation and gender identity is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.”
In response to today’s ruling Iowa governor Kim Reynolds issued the following statement:
“I’m extremely disappointed in today’s ruling. Instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation has no place in kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms.”