Penguin Random House LLC v. Robbins

Iowa’s Senate File 496, passed in May 2023, banned public schools from carrying any books that depict a “sex act,” defined broadly.

Two different lawsuits challenged the law: one filed by Iowa Safe Schools, educators, and students, and another by Penguin Random House, the Iowa State Education Association, a student, and several other publishers, authors, and educators. In a combined order, the federal district court halted enforcement of SF496, concluding the law “is incredibly broad,” “has resulted in the removal of hundreds of books from school libraries, including . . . classic works of fiction,” and is “unlikely to satisfy the First Amendment under any standard.” After Iowa appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, �鶹��ýIOS filed an amicus curiae brief arguing the district court was correct. The Eighth Circuit reversed the preliminary injunction, but held that the government’s curation of public-school libraries is not government speech.

On remand, the district court again held that the law violated the First Amendment and blocked its enforcement for a second time. As before, the State appealed. �鶹��ýIOS submitted a second amicus curiae brief in the Eighth Circuit, urging the court to affirm the district court’s preliminary judgment. �鶹��ýIOS argues that Iowa’s law ignores centuries of hard-won lessons about the value of free expression and the dangers of government censorship. We explain that public-school libraries are not instruments of government speech, but unique institutions that serve as repositories of knowledge and forums for intellectual exploration. While states have an interest in ensuring public-school library materials are age-appropriate, SF496’s across-the-board ban on a broad category of content does not serve that interest because it requires schools to apply the same standards for a high school senior and an elementary school student. Attempts to impose such top-down, politically motivated control over their collections violate students’ First Amendment right to access information.