Largest US publisher, bestselling authors sue over Iowa law banning K-12 books with sex acts

Iowa's largest teachers union, the largest publisher in America and four bestselling authors are suing the state over its new education law that bans books that depict sex acts from schools.

The Iowa State Education Association, Penguin Random House and four authors — Laurie Halse Anderson; John Green; Malinda Lo; and Jodi Picoult — filed the lawsuit Thursday in federal court in the Southern District of Iowa.

The plaintiffs also include Scott Bonz, the parent of a senior at Urbandale High School; and educators Mari Butler Abry, Alyson Browder and Daniel Gutmann, who say they have been forced to remove books from their libraries and classrooms in response to the law.

They're seeking to block the law's ban on all books in K-12 schools that contain depictions or descriptions of sex acts and to have that portion of the law declared unconstitutional for violating the First and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

More: 'I did not write it to titillate a reader': Authors of books banned in Iowa speak out

“Our mission of connecting authors and their stories to readers around the world contributes to the free flow of ideas and perspectives that is a hallmark of American democracy — and we will always stand by it,” Penguin Random House CEO Nihar Malaviya said in a statement. “We know that not every book we publish will be for every reader, but we must protect the right for all Americans, including students, parents, caregivers, teachers and librarians, to have equitable access to books and to continue to decide what they read.”

It's the second lawsuit filed this week over Senate File 496, a wide-ranging education law signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds earlier this year. The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal filed suit on Tuesday on behalf of eight Iowa students and their families, as well as Iowa Safe Schools, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ students.

More: ACLU of Iowa, Lambda Legal sue to block Iowa law that bans LGBTQ teaching, explicit books

In addition to banning all books that depict sex acts from K-12 schools, the law also prevents teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through sixth grade and requires school districts to inform parents if a student asks to use different pronouns at school.

Reynolds has said the law gives parents more control over their children's education and removes "pornographic" books from schools.

“Protecting children from pornography and sexually explicit content shouldn’t be controversial," Reynolds said in a statement Tuesday in response to the ACLU lawsuit. "The real controversy is that it exists in elementary schools. Books with graphic depictions of sex acts have absolutely no place in our schools. If these books were movies, they’d be rated R. The media cannot even air or print excerpts from these books because the content is offensive and inappropriate, yet they promote the narrative that they’re good for kids."

The new lawsuit names as defendants the president of the Iowa Board of Education, John Robbins; the director of the Iowa Department of Education, McKenzie Snow; the chair of the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners, Chad Janzen; and the Urbandale and Norwalk school boards and superintendents.

The new lawsuit argues that the state's rationale of protecting children from pornography is an unconstitutional pretext and fails to meet the U.S. Supreme Court's definition of obscenity.

"By so broadly regulating the display and availability of books that are constitutionally protected as to at least a significant number of students, this standard violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments because it is an impermissible content-based restriction, restricts access to constitutionally protected books, and is unconstitutionally vague," the lawsuit says.

"The right to speak and the right to read are inextricably intertwined," the lawsuit says. "Just as authors have the right to communicate their ideas to students without undue interference from the government, students have a corresponding right to receive those ideas. Publishers and educators connect authors to students. If the government dislikes an author’s idea, it can offer a competing message. It cannot shut down the marketplace of ideas."

Which books by John Green, Jodi Picoult have been removed from Iowa schools?

Schools around Iowa have removed hundreds of books from their shelves this year in response to the law. Those include many books published by Penguin Random House and by the plaintiff authors.

Green is a bestselling author of young adult fiction whose books have been removed from several Iowa school districts in response to Senate File 496. "Looking for Alaska" has been removed at least 18 times from school districts' libraries across the state, according to a Des Moines Register database that so far has the list of books removed from 113 out of 325 districts in Iowa. Green's "The Fault in Our Stars" has been removed seven times and "Paper Towns" has been removed once.

More: Which banned books have been removed from Iowa schools? Our updated database lists them

Anderson's book, "Speak," has been removed from schools 14 times, and another book, "Shout," has been removed twice. "Speak" is a book of young adult fiction based on Anderson's personal experience of being sexually assaulted as a teenager and dealing with the trauma that resulted, according to the lawsuit.

Lo's book, "Last Night at the Telegraph Club," has been removed seven times and "A Scatter of Light" has been removed once. "Last Night at the Telegraph Club," which won the National Book Award, is a historical coming of age novel about a Chinese American girl who discovers her identity as a lesbian, according to the lawsuit.

Picoult's "Nineteen Minutes," which deals with a school shooting and characters who are physically and sexually abused, has been removed from schools 24 times, while "The Tenth Circle" and "My Sister's Keeper" have each been removed from one school.

Picoult has previously been critical of Iowa's law and spoke out on social media earlier this year.

"God, I'm sick of having my books banned," she wrote on Facebook in July in reference to Urbandale's list. "This time: My Sister's Keeper, Mercy and 19 Minutes in a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa."

This story will be updated.

Des Moines Register reporter Samantha Hernandez contributed to this report.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Penguin Random House, teachers union, authors sue Iowa over book ban