Judge rules that law banning school libraries and classrooms from carrying books depicting sex acts had been applied unconstitutionallyA lawsuit brought by publishers and authors including John Green and Jodi Picoult has led to a portion of a law banning Iowa school libraries and classrooms from carrying books depicting sex acts being halted.On Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the measure, writing that it had been applied unconstitutionally in many schools and that books of “undeniable political, artistic, literary, and/or scientific value” had been caught up in it, including Ulysses by James Joyce, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Continue reading...
A US federal judge blocked an Iowa law banning books depicting sex acts in school libraries and classrooms, ruling it unconstitutional. The law, Senate File 496, had already been blocked and then reinstated by an appeals court, leading to a second lawsuit from publishers and authors. The judge found that the law led to the removal of books with literary value, violating free speech. The Iowa Attorney General maintains the law protects children and parental rights and plans to continue fighting for it. Similar lawsuits have been filed in Florida and Idaho.
