On March 25, 2025, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher placed a block on the portion of the law that blocks depictions of sexual acts from school libraries after major publishers sued over Senate File 496. However, this wasn’t Judge Locher’s first attempt to block the law, as he tried to block the legislation before it would become enforceable.
“I mean you can imagine like the chaos [within the department]. It’s only been blocked again, as far as I understand, the curriculum is still limited by the law. But, yeah, it’s been a little bit of a roller coaster ride,” said Eldridge.
The books that have been the most impacted by the ban are books that tackle LGBTQ+ issues and stories as well as books that cover more serious topics like sexual assault.
“So somebody came in asking, like, ‘Do you have anything on sexual assault?’ and I’m like ‘I’ve got two books that I can give you and then that’s it’,” said Kaylor.
In May of 2023, Iowa state legislature passed Senate File 496, which required any descriptions or visual depiction of sexual acts to be removed from school libraries and classrooms throughout the state and prohibited instruction regarding sexual orientation and gender identity from Kindergarten to Sixth grade. Schools throughout the state scrambled to change curriculum and get certain books off shelves throughout their buildings.
The waves from the government to the school now have started to reach students. Students lost access to approximately 450 books through their schools such as 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Color Purple.
“When the law was passed in Iowa, we had just begun our curriculum review in English and the whole first year of curriculum review was focused on books, which is completely out of order because we normally make the course, standards, coordination, then the content that we’d be working with. So we started with content, which just kind of interrupted and made it a more difficult process to go through,” said English teacher Aaron Eldridge.
The initial ban also affected school libraries throughout the state. With countless amounts of books, Stefanie Kaylor, the school librarian at JHS, spent months making sure that every book does not have any content that could be defined as a sexual act according to Iowa law.
“In most cases, when I review a book, it’s very quick. There’s a couple of sources that I look at and if everything’s like ‘there’s nothing here’, cool, moving on. But occasionally, I come across ones that are trickier and like, there was one day that I literally spent four hours reviewing a book because I had to go through so much of it and I had to skim so much of the book,” said Kaylor.
While the most recent blocking only allows for the return of books to the libraries, the curriculum still remains blocked, creating a variety of feelings and opinions in educators throughout the state.
“And I also think it’s had an impact on the diverse points of view that students are exposed to, and I think that as an educator, I’ve always felt that was an important part of what we do is try to expand students’ perspectives rather than limit them,” said Eldridge.
