By Andrew Richard Albanese, Editor-in-Chief
In a blow to the freedom to read in the United States, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit this week ruled that a controversial 2023 Iowa state law known as S.F. 496 can go into effect, reversing a lower court decision and sending the case back to the lower court for a third hearing.
Signed by Iowa governor Kim Reynolds in May 2023, S.F. 496 bans all books and materials with depictions of sex, written or visual, from school libraries, and makes librarians and educators legally liable for any alleged noncompliance. The law also includes a so-called “Don’t Say Gay” provision, barring educators from addressing gender identity and sexual orientation for grades Kindergarten-6th Grade (ages 5-11), and it requires school officials to notify parents if their children are found to be using a different name or pronouns or asking for any other gender-related accommodations.
In response to the law, Iowa school districts reportedly pulled hundreds of titles from their shelves, including many classic works, when the law was first passed—more than 3,400 according to one study by the Des Moines Register—including a disproportionate number of books that contain LGBTQ characters, historical figures, or themes.
The law prompted two separate legal challenges: in November 2023: Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Iowa filed the first suit to challenge the law, calling it “a clear violation of public school students’ First Amendment right to speak, read, and learn freely.” Days later, Penguin Random House and the Iowa State Education Association, along with a group of bestselling authors, also sued.
On December 29, 2023 federal judge Stephen Locher delivered his first 49-page opinion and order blocking the book banning provisions of the law, which he found to be unconstitutionally vague and “wildly overbroad.”However, in August 2024, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Eighth Circuit vacated Locher’s initial injunction over a legal issue, and sent the case to the court with instructions to more fully assess whether the plaintiffs’ broad challenge to the constitutionality of the law was proper.
In March 2025, Locher delivered a second opinion, once again blocking the book banning provisions of the law, holding that the law had resulted in the “forced removal of books from school libraries” that are not obscene, and, in many cases, have “tremendous pedagogical value.”
But this week, a second appeals court panel reversed Locher again, this time, in a decision that critics say strikes deeply at the heart of the freedom to read.
Citing another controversial May 2025 decision in another case, Little v. Llano County, the Eighth Circuit held that the U.S. Constitution “does not guarantee students the right to access books of their choosing at taxpayer expense,” and ruled that school officials and legislators have wide discretion to order the removal of books so long as the removals are “reasonably related” to “legitimate pedagogical concerns.”
A Long and Winding Legal Road
The decision now sends the case back to the district court, barring a move to have the full Eighth Circuit rehear the case en banc. More importantly, it allows the law’s provisions to take effect, which likely means the widespread removal of books from school library shelves across Iowa.
Federal judge Stephen Locher has twice struck down the book banning provision of Iowa state law S.F. 496, and will now have a third opportunity.
Notably, in his March 2025 decision to block the book banning provisions of S.F. 496, Locher expressly rejected the standard the appeals court ultimately settled on, pointing out that the court’s standard is limited to student speech, while the “speakers” in this case also includes “the authors and publishers” whose books are now subject to removal.
“Books like Nineteen Minutes are not merely being removed from one bookshelf in one school district, but rather from school libraries in dozens of school districts across the state,” Locher wrote in his March 2025 opinion. “It is appropriate in this context not merely to apply First Amendment cases involving students’ rights,” he concluded, “but also First Amendment cases involving authors’ rights.”
In a statement, Dan Novack, Penguin Random House VP and Associate General Counsel also said the legal battle would go on. “While we’re disappointed that the injunction is no longer in place, we are actively evaluating next steps,” he said. “The fight continues, and we stand with authors, educators, librarians, and students to protect access to books and the freedom to read.”
Meanwhile, the decision comes in the midst of a years-long, organized political assault on school and public libraries in the U.S. And after a winning streak in court at the end of 2024 for freedom to read advocates, the Eighth Circuit decision this week is yet another recent setback—with several more important cases involving public and school libraries still in the pipeline.
This week’s Eighth Circuit ruling comes after the Supreme Court’s December 2025 decision not to review the controversial Fifth Circuit decision in Little v. Llano County, which held there is no “right to receive information in public libraries.”
Also in the pipeline, two appeals in the Eleventh Circuit: Parnell v. School Board of Escambia County (in which a district court, leaning heavily on the Fifth Circuit’s Llano decision, agreed there is no First Amendment right to receive information in a school library), and an appeal of judge Carlos E. Mendoza’s August 2025 decision to wipe out two controversial book banning provisions in a Florida state law, HB 1069.
The Eighth Circuit is also reviewing a 2024 decision to strike down Arkansas’s Harmful to Minors law, Act 372.
The Ninth Circuit, meanwhile, recently revived a challenge of Idaho’s recently enacted law HB 710, which requires schools and libraries to remove books vaguely deemed to be “harmful” to minors.
Two more closely watched book banning cases are also proceeding to trial at the district court level. In Colorado, Crookshanks, et al. v. Elizabeth School District is heading to trial after the defendants abruptly abandoned an appeal before the Tenth Circuit in January, just days before oral arguments, leaving in place an injunction that ordered 19 books be returned to a high school library’s shelves.
And in Utah, a coalition of plaintiffs is suing Utah state officials alleging that H.B. 29, the state’s “Sensitive Materials Law,” is overbroad and in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.