A new online poll conducted by the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs sheds some light on where Texans stand on a hot-button education issue.
Researchers found that 71% of respondents were in favor of requiring book publishers to develop a content rating system to apply to any materials they sell to Texas public schools.
This majority, when broken down by political affiliation, consisted of 90% of Republicans, 77% of Independents, and 54% of Democrats polled, signifying broad bipartisan support for such legislation.
Broken down by sex, the majority comprised 73% of male and 69% of female respondents.
Additionally, 79% of Texans with a child under the age of 18 who took the survey support the measure.
The poll was conducted between January 9 and January 19, 2023, receiving answers from 1,200 adults, many of whom had the option to take the survey in Spanish.
Two state lawmakers have recently filed legislation that, if enacted, would impose such a requirement on publishers, according to The Dallas Morning News.
State Reps. Jared Patterson (R-Frisco) and Tom Oliverson (R-Cypress) both submitted bills that would prohibit certain books deemed inappropriate for students and require publishers to affix age-appropriate content ratings to books sold to any Texas public school.
While seemingly very popular with voters, the measures could be challenged in federal court, at least according to Aaron Terr, the director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He told The Dallas Express:
“The government would quickly run into First Amendment problems if it required publishers to place content ratings on books they sell to public schools. Media ratings systems, like the MPAA for movies or the ESRB for video games, are generally voluntary and industry-run.”
“They cannot constitutionally be co-opted by the government and turned into speech regulations. It’s already common for publishers to categorize books based on age group, and there are organizations that rate the suitability of books and other media for children, so a government mandate would be both unconstitutional and unnecessary.”
Still, with or without state legislation, the issue is already animating voters in North Texas, where recent school board elections empowered trustees at Frisco ISD, Keller ISD, and Grapevine-Colleyville ISD to implement new screening procedures for library materials.