We have a First Amendment right to choose what we want to read, watch, and listen to. It’s a fundamental part of free speech and expression.

But in recent years, materials in Iowa public schools and libraries have been challenged like never before. In 2023, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed SF 496, a wide-ranging law with vague, problematic language that requires public schools K-12 to remove all books that have "descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.” (It excludes religious texts such as the Bible.) 

The Des Moines Register found that districts removed nearly 3,400 books and two DVDs to comply with the law. Fortunately, more than half of Iowa's 325 districts didn't remove books, with some saying they were confused by the law. 

Then, with Lambda Legal and the law firm Jenner & Block LLP, we filed a lawsuit and won a temporary block of the law. After that temporary block on the law was issued, several schools returned banned books to shelves—but many others didn’t. 

Half of Iowans believe the new book ban law goes too far. Many of the books in question are award winners, and all have been vetted by librarians and teachers for appropriate content. Certainly, parents of schoolchildren have control over what their child reads, and they can work with their student's teacher and school to limit their access to certain books. But schools should not remove access to these books for all children in a classroom or school.

The law also includes a provision that forbids "any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion, or instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation," grades K-6 which is being interpreted by some schools to prohibit books with LGBTQ themes or characters. Removing them is an attempt to erase the LGBTQ community.

Here is a list of the 10 most banned books in Iowa schools compiled by The Des Moines Register:

  1. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
  2. Looking for Alaska by John Green
  3. Sold by Patricia McCormick
  4. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
  5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
  6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
  7. Crank by Ellen Hopkins
  8. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
  9. Identical by Ellen Hopkins
  10. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

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