Emily Swanson , The Guardian; Texas book ban law causes a school district to remove Bible from libraries
"While the state adopted library standards inclusive of HB900 last December, the fifth circuit has since blocked the part of the law requiring vendors to rate materials. Most of the rest of the law remains intact.
HB900 is being challenged in the US district court for the western district of Texas by bookshops in Houston and Austin, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which have collectively filed suit against Texas school board and library officials.
The complaint says the “overbroad language of the Book Ban could result in the banning or restricting of access to many classic works of literature, such as ‘Twelfth Night,’ ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ … ‘The Canterbury Tales,’ ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,’ and even the Bible.”
The complaint argues that HB900 “harkens back to dark days in our nation’s history when the government served as licensors and dictated the public dissemination of information”."
