A coalition of booksellers has sued to stop a recently passed Texas law that would prevent books deemed sexually explicit from being sold to school libraries.
Signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, House Bill 900 directs the Texas State Library and Archives Commission to develop and adopt standards for materials allowable in school libraries and requires booksellers to rate books based on their sexual content.
Vendors who continue to provide schools with books deemed to have inappropriate sexual material will face penalties, such as being banned from selling any books at all to taxpayer-funded school libraries.
However, the booksellers claim in their lawsuit that the law constitutes a “Book Ban,” which violates First Amendment free speech protections and forces the sellers to express government views.
Plaintiffs include Austin-based Blue Willow Bookshop, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
A statement from the plaintiffs explains they are “challenging a new Texas law that would require independent bookstores, national chain bookstores, large online book retailers, book publishers and other vendors to review and rate millions of books and other library materials according to sexual content if those books are sold to school libraries, and to do so according to vague labels dictated by the state without any process for judicial review.”
“The Texas law replaces the long-established rights of local communities to set and implement standards for school materials within constitutional boundaries, and forces private businesses to act as instruments of state censorship on controversial topics under threat of retaliation,” the booksellers claimed.
“Companies that insufficiently comply will be subject to censure through a public listing and Texas schools will be prohibited from purchasing any books from them in the future,” the statement continued.
Rep. Jared Patterson (R-Frisco), the author of the legislation, reacted to the lawsuit, saying, “Bring it.”
“Having fought against sexually explicit content in schools for the past 18 months, I fully recognize the far left will do anything to maintain their ability to sexualize our children,” Patterson said in a written statement on social media.
“We anticipated a suit such as this from the beginning and crafted The READER Act based on longstanding Supreme Court precedent across multiple cases,” he explained. “To Texas parents and taxpayers who have fought along our side, I say we are neither surprised nor unprepared.”
“To those standing against Texas schoolchildren I simply say, bring it with everything you have because I don’t want to hear any excuses when we put the final nail in the coffin of your woke agenda,” Patterson concluded.
The recent session of the Texas Legislature has produced a number of high-profile lawsuits as activists attempt to prevent legislation from going into effect.
For example, the ACLU and other advocates for the LGBTQ community have sued Texas for its recently passed ban on child sex alteration surgeries and transgender hormone administration, as reported by The Dallas Express.