Fifth Circuit Panel Allows Texas to Enforce School Library Book Rating Law (for now)

A U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel quietly issued an order on Monday evening that allows Texas, for now, to enforce the controversial school library book rating law (HB900), sometimes simply known as the “book ban law.”

One-Sentence Order
The trio of Fifth Circuit judges issued this one-sentence “unpublished” administrative order that overrides the injunction granted by Trump-appointed federal district court Judge Allen D. Albright that had blocked the state from enforcing the law — known as the READER Act (Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources Act).

The order does not give an opinion on the constitutionality of the law, but only lifts the injunction granted by Judge Albright that prevented Texas from enforcing the law until the panel issues an order on the matter. Albright, in his written opinion, had harshly criticized the law (article).

• Note: The READER Act requires third-party booksellers to determine whether books sold to schools are in “sexually explicit,” “sexually relevant” or “not rated” categories. The TEA would be the ultimate arbiter of whether a book vendor “mis-rated” a book, with no opportunities for appeal by the vendor and with the TEA’s decisions posted on the agency’s website. Booksellers that do not comply with the ratings system, or disagree with the TEA’s ratings determinations, could not sell any books to any Texas public school library. The law contains numerous other provisions.