Following a two-year-long legal battle, a federal judge has shot down a Texas law that would have banned books with mature themes from schools after declaring that it would violate the U.S. Constitution.
House Bill 900 – known as the READER Act – was passed in 2023 to restrict book availability in school libraries and would have required vendors to apply ratings to books with adult content and references. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) would have been given the authority and prerogative to overrule those ratings and remove books from libraries at their discretion in response to noncompliance.
The determination is the third time the law has been deemed unconstitutional in the federal court system. Its release validates and cements decisions made previously by the lower courts and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
While the judge’s decision prevented the law from going into effect, Texas officials may further pursue higher court proceedings to advance their plans. The state may still file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to authorize implementation and enforcement.
According to the judge, HB 900 was deemed unconstitutional on the grounds that it compels speech, entails vague statutes and would censor free speech.
While the bill has been stopped for the time being, the judge denied an injunction for HB 183 which would implement similar restrictions. HB 183 would empower parents to review book material and lodge complaints with the TEA with the afforded authority to act based on parental request.
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