Iowa Law Barring Books with "Descriptions or Visual Depictions of a Sex Act" from School Libraries Upheld

When may public libraries, and especially public school libraries, remove books based on their content?

In Pico v. Bd. of Ed. (1982), the Supreme Court split 4-1-4 on the question. All the Justices agreed that books could be removed if they are "pervasively vulgar" or otherwise age-inappropriate. But four liberal Justices (to oversimplify) concluded that viewpoint-based removals are forbidden. Four conservative Justices concluded that they are permissible (because the government gets to choose what's included in either the curriculum or the libraries at government-run schools). And the ninth Justice, the centrist Justice White, concluded that there was no occasion in the case to decide the matter.

Since then, in Little v. Llano County (5th Cir. 2025), a 10-7 Fifth Circuit en banc majority concluded that the government can pick and choose what books can be removed from public or public school libraries, because the contents of libraries are government speech. And just today, a unanimous Eighth Circuit panel held (in Penguin Random House, LLC v. Robbins, written by Judge Ralph Erickson, joined by Judges Lavenski Smith and Jonathan Kobes), that the government likely has broad (though not entirely unlimited) authority to pick and choose what books can be removed at least from public school libraries. An excerpt:

{[Iowa law] requires Iowa school districts to establish a library program, which contains "age-appropriate materials, and supports the student achievement goals of the total school curriculum." "Age-appropriate" is defined as "topics, messages, and teaching methods suitable to particular ages or age groups of children and adolescents, based on developing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral capacity typical for the age or age group." The law expressly precludes the inclusion of "any material with descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act," as defined in Iowa Code § 702.17.}

[T]he standard set forth in Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier (1988)—that is, whether the book restrictions are "reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns"—… applies to school activities that "may fairly be characterized as part of the school curriculum," and a school library is such an activity….

[T]wo distinct interests are at play: (1) a student's right to receive information, and (2) publishers' and authors' right to communicate with their intended audience. As to the first category, the removal of a book from a school library does not prevent a student from "receiving" the information. See Little v. Llano County (5th Cir. 2025) (overruling prior precedent suggesting students may be able to challenge the removal of a book from public school libraries and explaining a library's collection decisions are government speech); Pico (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (noting "the most obvious reason" students are not denied access to a book by its removal from a school library is "the ready availability of the books elsewhere"). The First Amendment does not guarantee students the right to access books of their choosing at taxpayer expense. See Walls v. Sanders (8th Cir. 2025) ("Students do not possess a supercharged right to receive information in public schools[.]").

To the extent Plaintiffs' arguments or the district court's decision finding that students have a right to receive books in a school library rest on Pico's plurality opinion, this Court has held that Pico lacks any holding on First Amendment issues because the narrowest grounds for the judgment was Justice White's opinion, which did not decide any constitutional questions. Other Circuits have similarly held that Pico has no precedential weight as to application of First Amendment principles. Llano County; ACLU of Fla., Inc. v. Miami-Dade Cnty. Sch. Bd. (11th Cir. 2009) (same). Further, we are bound by this Court's decision last year concluding [that an earlier Eighth Circuit], which relied on Pico to find a First Amendment violation, has been abrogated by subsequent Supreme Court decisions. Walls….

[As to t]he publishers' and authors' First Amendment claim[,] … the Supreme Court explained that "expressive activities that students, parents, and members of the public might reasonably perceive to bear the imprimatur of the school" constitute school-sponsored speech, over which a school can exercise editorial control, "so long as [its] actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns." Hazelwood. Activities that may be characterized as part of the school curriculum, whether or not they occur in a traditional classroom setting, are those that "are supervised by faculty members and designed to impart particular knowledge or skills to student participants and audiences."

It is indisputable that the purposes of a school library are to enhance education, supplement classroom learning, and facilitate the development of students' knowledge and skills. A school library is curated by school officials, educators, librarians, or perhaps some combination of these people. It is supervised by educators and librarians. Given these aspects, under Hazelwood, a school library bears the imprimatur of the school and is properly characterized as part of the school's curriculum.

The book restrictions in [the Iowa law] address legitimate pedagogical concerns. The law requires schools to curate a library with "age-appropriate materials" that support the school's curriculum and student achievement goals. The law prohibits school libraries from including any material with "descriptions" or "visual depictions" of a "sex act." Librarians and educators do not have to import their view or understanding of sex act, as this term is expressly defined under Iowa law….

{[And t]he library restrictions are neither amorphous nor unreasonable.} The plain language of the statute prohibits books containing "descriptions" or "visual depictions" of six categories of specified sex acts. The specified sex acts are detailed under Iowa law….

[S]chools have a legitimate pedagogical interest in prohibiting speech involving sexual content. See, e.g., Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser (1986) (noting a high school assembly or classroom is no place for a sexually explicit monologue and the First Amendment does not prevent school officials from imposing disciplinary sanctions); Henerey ex rel. Henerey v. City of St. Charles, Sch. Dist. (8th Cir. 1999) (concluding sophomore student's distribution of condoms as part of his campaign for junior class president carried with it the implied imprimatur of the school and the principal did not violate student's First Amendment rights by disqualifying student for his conduct that ran counter to the school's pedagogical concern and educational mission); Lacks v Ferguson Reorganized Sch. Dist. R-2 (8th Cir. 1998) (holding that, as a matter of law, the school board has a legitimate academic interest in prohibiting profanity by students, even in their creative writing, and school district's discipline of a teacher who failed to enforce the rules and policies did not violate the First Amendment).

In the context of school-sponsored speech, actions "reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns" do not run afoul of the First Amendment. As explained by the Hazelwood Court, federal judges are not tasked with the responsibility of educating the Nation's youth. Only when a decision to censor a school-sponsored "vehicle of student expression has no valid educational purpose that the First Amendment is so directly and sharply implicated as to require judicial intervention[.]" …