Iowa Department of Education is developing new rules for part of Iowa’s parental rights law

DES Moines, Iowa — Iowa Board of Education develops proposed rules About library restrictions specified in the parental rights law.

The law bans sexually explicit books from being in public school libraries and prohibits education about gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through 6th grade.

These are updated guidelines following a legal challenge that initially blocked parts of the law.

The proposed rules state that, effective now, public school libraries must contain only “age-appropriate materials.”

“Graphic or visual depictions of an age-inappropriate sexual act, at any age. However, in addition to graphic or visual depictions of a sexual act, there are also decisions regarding age appropriateness,” said Thomas Mayes, general counsel for the Iowa Department of Health. said the Department of Education. “So I think the library program before this change never had age-appropriate restrictions. It was ‘You have a library program.'”

He also clarified that schools must maintain a list of all available books on their website and that this only pertains to libraries over which schools have control.

Regarding the prohibition of promoting or teaching gender identity and sexual orientation, school personnel may continue to provide impartial statements regarding these issues.

“I think this is a good effort to at least advance public policy where talking about the existence of LGBTQ+ people is not promotion,” Mayes said.

Iowans will have a chance to comment on these new rules at a public hearing on December 11.

The ministry said it had already heard feedback about distinguishing between gender identity and book procurement. Librarians and school staff experienced great confusion about how to implement the law. One of the parts they said was unclear was whether books that mention the LGBTQ+ community should also be removed.

During court hearings, the state said this did not apply to books, but only to the promotion and education of gender identity and sexual orientation.

But as of now, there is nothing in the proposed rules that mentions this distinction.

“Having a library book with an LGBTQ+ theme or character, that is not a promotion or an instruction,” Mayes said. “This is a book, and the department’s subject matter experts were researching it, but we didn’t have time to include it on the schedule to get materials to you.”