{"id":19046,"date":"2025-10-24T09:49:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/19046\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T09:49:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:49:17","slug":"federal-judge-orders-permanent-injunction-against-texas-book-ratings-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/19046\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Judge Orders Permanent Injunction Against Texas Book Ratings Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

After two years of litigation over Texas House Bill 900, a federal judge has granted summary judgment and ordered a permanent injunction<\/a> to block the mandatory book ratings law. In his October 21 decision, Judge Alan D. Albright of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin division, wrote that HB 900 \u201ccompels speech, is void for vagueness, and is an unconstitutional prior restraint\u201d and that \u201cPlaintiffs\u2019 First and Fourteenth Amendment claims are all successful.\u201d <\/p>\n

Book industry plaintiffs celebrated the right to read victory in a joint press announcement. \u201cToday\u2019s decision affirms the constitutional rights of authors, booksellers, publishers, and readers, and protects bookstores from the imposition of an unreasonable law that would have threatened their viability, making it a huge win for Texas businesses,\u201d they wrote. \u201cWe thank Judge Albright for a critically important ruling that is clear, concise, and extremely well-reasoned.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement represents Valerie Koehler, owner of Houston\u2019s Blue Willow Bookshop; Gregory Day, interim general manager of Austin\u2019s BookPeople; American Booksellers Association CEO Allison Hill; Association of American Publishers president and CEO Maria Pallante; Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger; and Comic Book Legal Defense Fund interim director Jeff Trexler. They were supported during litigation with amicus briefs filed by the American Association of School Librarians, the Association of University Presses, Barnes & Noble the Educational Book and Media Association, Freedom to Learn Advocates, and the Freedom to Read Foundation.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs filed their complaint in July 2023, after HB 900 was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Titled the Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources Act, or READER, HB 900 was designed to regulate access to \u201csexually explicit\u201d or \u201csexually relevant\u201d materials in public school libraries. Under HB 900, the Texas State Library and Archives, chaired by original defendant Martha Wong, would establish content standards; the Texas Education Agency would oversee the standards; and school vendors including bookstores would be required to comply with the rating system by categorizing all their materials.<\/p>\n

Judge Albright\u2019s ruling followed his preliminary injunction<\/a> of August 31, 2023, which blocked the state\u2019s enforcement of HB 900 one day before it was to go into effect. In January 2024, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the preliminary injunction<\/a> and remanded the case back to the Western District. <\/p>\n

According to the October 21 ruling, \u201cREADER can and does violate the First Amendment in several ways\u2014the ways READER manages to violate the First Amendment are not mutually exclusive.\u201d For instance, Judge Albright concluded, HB 900 would unconstitutionally compel speech. To do business with Texas public schools, vendors would need to surrender their First Amendment rights and assign ratings to books, regardless of their own beliefs, and books could be \u201cre-rated\u201d by the Texas Education Agency. Under such conditions, \u201cPlaintiffs have no choice but to accept the government\u2019s speech,\u201d the judge wrote. <\/p>\n

Book fair providers and public school librarians will note in particular a passage on collection development. \u201cThe government has the power to restrict what books its schools purchase, within the confines of the Constitution, and there is meaningful interest in curating content for children,\u201d Judge Albright wrote. \u201cBut those powers should be exercised by the state directly\u2014not by compelling third parties\u201d to do so, under threat of losing a commercial opportunity.<\/p>\n

The judge deemed the law \u201cvoid for vagueness\u201d as well, writing that HB 900 requires bookstores \u201cto assign subjective, confusing, and unworkable Rating Requirements,\u201d using a 16-step process, and \u201cencourages ad hoc judgments which can vary from bookseller to bookseller.\u201d <\/p>\n

The court also found that bookstores would face irreparable harm if forced to comply with HB 900. \u201cWhile the parties dispute how much financial strain READER will cause the Plaintiffs, the Court finds that the constitutional and reputational harms alone warrant injunctive relief here,\u201d the judge wrote. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, the court enjoined defendant Texas Commissioner of Education Mike Morath and those \u201cin active concert with him\u201d from \u201capplying, enforcing, or attempting to enforce\u201d provisions 35.001, 35.002, 35.003, and the amended education code<\/a> of HB 900. Though the case is still filed as Book People Inc. v. Wong, Morath is the lone remaining defendant. Former defendants Martha Wong, chair of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, and Kevin Ellis, chair of the Texas State Board of Education, were dismissed from the case after the appeals process. <\/p>\n

Free speech and the bookstore<\/p>\n

Former BookPeople CEO Charley Rejsek, who was among the original plaintiffs<\/a> and now directs<\/a> the literacy organization Put It in a Book, referred PW to interim GM Day. \u201cWe are relieved by this news and proud of the work our colleagues in the book industry have done,\u201d Day told PW, \u201cand we will continue to be proponents of our constitutional rights as a bookstore.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are thrilled at the shop to learn about the judge\u2019s decision,\u201d agreed Blue Willow\u2019s Koehler. \u201cWe will continue to help readers find great books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger described the order as a necessary defense of intellectual freedom. “The government tried to force booksellers and publishers to become agents of state censorship, rating books according to unconstitutionally vague standards and then forcing them to adopt the state’s own ratings as their speech,\u201d Rasenberger wrote to PW. \u201cThe law would have taken many books off shelves, with no meaningful appeal and no consideration of a work’s educational value. The court recognized what we’ve argued all along: while there are constitutional ways to give parents input into their children’s education, READER’s forced ratings, government overrides, and prior censorship wasn’t one of them.\u201d <\/p>\n

At EveryLibrary, executive director John Chrastka said that “the injury to the businesses is a material component that shouldn’t go underdiscussed” in the book industry. “Government overreach into that sector could have been ruinous.” <\/p>\n

The ABA likewise cheered the decision<\/a> as \u201cgood news for Texas readers, schools, and bookstores,\u201d while noting that \u201cthe Judge did not take up Plaintiffs\u2019 request to consider the constitutional implications of the READER Act\u2019s definitions, which have since been echoed in library legislation in Texas (HB 183).\u201d HB 183, introduced last November<\/a>, would permit parents to request review of library material, and it too targets “sexually explicit” material. Judge Albright expressed that HB 183 may be subject to future legal challenges, but because it does not compel vendors\u2019 speech, it \u201cdoes not function in the same unconstitutional manner that READER would.” <\/p>\n

CBLDF\u2019s Trexler acknowledged that other censorship battles are simmering and that the Texas Commissioner of Education may file a second appeal to the Fifth Circuit. But, he said, \u201cI\u2019ll take the victories where we can get them. This case gets at the heart of what people in comics have been concerned about, because HB 900 is essentially a 21st-century Comics Code<\/a>. Having to describe books as \u2018sexually explicit\u2019 affects the distribution and perception of those books.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cGraphic novels are a critical part of literacy today,\u201d Trexler continued. \u201cIf this law were to be enforced, we\u2019d see graphic novels and manga get swept up in the legislation.\u201d He cited attempts to ban Jerry Craft\u2019s New Kid and its sequels, along with widespread censorship of graphic narrative adaptations such as Ari Folman and David Polonsky\u2019s Anne Frank\u2019s Diary and Margaret Atwood and Renee Nault\u2019s The Handmaid\u2019s Tale.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs and defendant express a common wish to protect young people, albeit through radically different means. Judge Albright called this goal \u201ca good and noble one,\u201d but said the state was pursuing it in an unconstitutional manner. \u201cThe Court agrees with Defendant\u2019s premise that Texas has an interest in safeguarding children against sexually explicit material\u2014especially materials purchased with public funds for public schools,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cBut the Court cannot agree with Defendant\u2019s assertion that Plaintiffs\u2019 First Amendment rights are not violated by READER.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After two years of litigation over Texas House Bill 900, a federal judge has granted summary judgment and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14602,14601,14593,13062,14598,14596,14600,14605,14603,14599,14595,14604,14607,14606,7395,27,2810,29,28,14597,14594],"class_list":["post-19046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-aap","tag-aba","tag-alan-d-albright","tag-allison-hill","tag-blue-willow","tag-book-rating","tag-bookpeople","tag-cbldf","tag-charley-rejsek","tag-gregory-day","tag-hb-900","tag-jeff-trexler","tag-kevin-ellis","tag-martha-wong","tag-mike-morath","tag-texas","tag-texas-education-agency","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-valerie-koehler","tag-western-district-of-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}