Hunter
11/29/23
The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and Lambda Legal are suing the state Department of Education, Governor Kim Reynolds, the Board of Education and a handful of school districts including Iowa City, to block a new law restricting schools from teaching LGBTQ topics and banning books that depict sex acts.
The Des Moines Register reports the groups are representing eight Iowa students and their families, along with Iowa Safe Schools, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ students.
They say the law discriminates against LGBTQ students and violates their rights to free speech, free association, equal protection and due process in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First and 14th amendments.
Thomas Story, a staff attorney for ACLU Iowa tells the Register, “The First Amendment does not allow our state or our schools to remove books or issue blanket bans on discussion and materials simply because a group of politicians or parents find them offensive.”
Governor Kim Reynolds issued a statement in response to the suit which said, “Protecting children from pornography and sexually explicit content shouldn’t be controversial. The real controversary 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.”
Puck Carlson is a senior at City High and is one of the plaintiffs in the suit, and says removing books like that tells LGBTQ students that their existence is shameful.
Other school districts involved in the suit include Sioux City, Urbandale, Waterloo and West Des Moines.