In Texas, state leadership has taken a particularly aggressive stance: in late 2021, a lawmaker’s list of 850 books (mostly related to race or LGBTQ themes) that might cause “discomfort” was sent to school districts for review, leading many districts to preemptively pull those titles off shelves. Texas then passed House Bill 900 (2023), which requires book vendors to assign ratings to all books sold to schools (like movies: no “sexually explicit” content allowed at all, and “sexually relevant” content requires parental permission). This burdensome law even mandates vendors to recall previously sold books deemed too explicit. It led to chaos as districts prepared to cull books and vendors faced confusion. A coalition of Texas bookstores and publishers sued, and a federal judge blocked HB900 in September 2023 as unconstitutionally vague and violating free speech rights iowapublicradio.org cbsnews.com . (The state is appealing.) Iowa similarly passed SF 496 in 2023, banning any K–12 school book that depicts sex acts; that too was enjoined by a judge due to its sweeping nature that encompassed books like The Handmaid’s Tale and even some depictions in the Bible iowapublicradio.org cbsnews.com . However, an appeals court reinstated Iowa’s ban later, pending further litigation edweek.org . These legal seesaws underscore the tension between new censorship laws and the First Amendment – many are being challenged in court by civil liberties groups, with mixed outcomes so far.
For students and teachers on the ground, these policies have been tumultuous. Teachers fear inadvertently running afoul of the new rules, to the point where some have removed personal classroom libraries of even innocuous books. In Manatee County, Florida, media specialists reviewed and temporarily pulled over 90 books in early 2023, including modern classics like The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and The Kite Runner, after objections were raised. A high school teacher there told the Washington Post she felt “paralyzed” by the uncertainty – “The rules are so vague, it’s safer to remove everything and only bring back what’s explicitly allowed”, she said (preferring anonymity for fear of reprisal). Some educators have resigned in protest or been pushed out. In one case in Escambia County, FL, a veteran English teacher was fired after criticizing the sweeping book bans at a school board meeting, illustrating how even speaking up can be risky.
Librarians have been on the front lines and often the targets of harassment. In Llano County, Texas, library staff who opposed politically motivated book removals were punished. County officials there, urged on by a local far-right faction, removed 17 books from public libraries – titles about puberty, picture books about poop (toilet humor), and books on LGBTQ topics or racial history. When librarians objected, one was fired and others resigned under pressure texastribune.org texastribune.org . In April 2022, seven local patrons sued the county for violating the First Amendment by pulling books due to disagreement with their viewpoints texastribune.org texastribune.org . A federal judge ordered the books returned to shelves pending the lawsuit’s outcome texastribune.org . Rather than comply, county commissioners considered a radical step: closing the library system entirely. In an April 2023 meeting, Llano County’s commissioners discussed shutting down all three public library branches – literally depriving the entire community of a library – just to avoid restoring the banned books texastribune.orgtexastribune.org . The news sparked an uproar. At the public meeting, citizens packed the courthouse to plead for their libraries. “It’s not the county’s job to burn the library down,” one resident admonished officials, noting the grotesque overreaction texastribune.org . Facing backlash, the commissioners backed off and kept the libraries open (for now) texastribune.org . But the removed books remained in legal limbo. In June 2024, the Fifth Circuit appeals court issued a split decision: it agreed that at least 8 of the books must be put back because there was strong evidence they were removed simply for their content (for example, a children’s book on the history of the KKK, which officials likely found objectionable) texastribune.org texastribune.org .