Three months ago, Judge Alan D. Albright struck down the enforcement of HB 900 (better known as the READER ACT), which would require any vendor who wishes to sell books to the Texas Public School System to provide ratings as to the level of Sexual explicitness. Recently, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked the Texas Education Agency from enforcing the Reader Act, dealing another blow to supporters of the bill and the Texas GOP.
The Appellate Court, one of the most conservative courts in the nation, sided with the booksellers who sued the state after claiming that HB 900 had violated their First Amendment Rights. The court affirmed the lower court’s decision to prevent TEA Commissioner Mike Morath from enforcing the 2023 law.
It was the most surprising situation to be in. But in a newly-released 36-page decision, it was a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit court that easily dispatched with the state’s legal arguments (the plaintiffs lacked standing, the case wasn’t ripe, and the plaintiffs’ claims were barred by sovereign immunity) and made it only to the first of the plaintiffs’ multiple constitutional claims that the mandatory book ratings at the heart of the law represent compelled speech.
“We start and end with the compelled-speech claim because we conclude that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of that claim. Accordingly, we need not address whether they are also likely to succeed on their claims that [HB 900] is a prior restraint or unconstitutionally vague.”
Addressing the surprise ruling was the Fifth Circuit’s Judge Don Willet, remarking that a different panel of this court had granted the state’s appeal to block that ruling. The plaintiffs- which included bookshops in Austin, and Houston, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, and the Authors Guild argued that it was logistically impossible and cost-prohibitive to comply with the law.
RELATED: Federal Judge Strikes Down Texas READER Act, Ruling it Unconstitutional
The law requires vendors to rate all of their books and materials for appropriateness, based on the presence of sex depictions or references, before selling them to the school’s libraries. The problem with the law other than its definitions of sexual conduct that lean on state criminal statutes is how vague and open to interpretation to outline what might be considered sexually explicit or sexually relevant content. As the court mentioned in its ruling, the ratings that HB 900 requires are neither factual nor uncontroversial.
The law also required booksellers to submit ratings of materials for TEA to review, which the state could correct and then publicly post online. The Appellate Court agreed with the vendors’ argument that the rating system violated their free speech protections and amounted to compelled that forced vendors to support a certain view. Another thing that the court agreed on was that complying with that law would be an undue economic burden on the vendors.
I would also like to point out that while Wednesday’s decision did not completely block the law, there is a component of HB 900 that requires the Texas State Library and Archives Commission to create new library collection standards. The new rules must prohibit school libraries from acquiring or keeping sexually explicit materials.
The plaintiffs originally sued Keven Ellis, chair of the Texas Board of Education, Martha Wong, chair of the Texas State Library, and Mike Morath, the TEA Commissioner. The Fifth Circuit dismissed the charges against Ellis and Wong because those officials didn’t have purview over the book ratings that the court found to be unconstitutional.
RELATED: Red-State Libraries Pull Out Of The American Library Association
Supporters of the bill have made the argument that the law restores parents’ right to protect children from certain themes rather than expose them to potentially inappropriate material in publicly funded books. Keep in mind, however, that most of the ones who have claimed to feel this way are people (Mostly Politicians and certain Billionaires) who have an ulterior motive, that weaponizes fear, to control marginalized families and marginalized communities. They feel threatened by anything that offers DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) but don’t have a problem purposely misinforming and putting out disinformation whether it be on Social Media or Television to push their agenda. Because of that harmful rhetoric, it has brought forth more book bans in the US, and in Texas, which has had a rise in bills that are targeted at LGBTQIA+ and a DEI ban in Texas’ Public universities, and finally, also includes the bill mentioned in this article, thanks to a narrow-minded view of what they believe is Normal.
A report from the American Library Association also documented 1,269 challenges to more than 2,500 books in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since the association began tracking such efforts in 2001. It was a 75% Jump from 2021, which held the previous record. Do you know what were the most targeted themes? LGBTQIA+ titles, sending a message to the LGBTQIA+ community that they weren’t welcome to participate in community institutions.
Opponents of the bill, which included librarians, literacy advocates, and other parents have expressed their concern about HB 900 and laws like it target books and materials that explore sexuality and race, topics that, while uncomfortable to some, they say are important for youth who may not typically see their lived experiences reflected in literature. According to the Dallas Observer, Rep. Jared Patterson, the Frisco Republican who authored the law, further called on the state’s attorney general to appeal. He wants to take it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Source: Texas Tribune, Dallas Observer, Publishers Weekly
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