A federal judge in Utah ruled Tuesday that authors and students suing over the state's book-banning law can keep their case alive, rejecting arguments that the authors have no legal right to challenge it.
U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby's order doesn't decide whether Utah's "sensitive materials" law violates the First Amendment. It settles a narrower question first: who can be sued and whether the authors have been harmed enough to bring the case at all.
The lawsuit was filed by two Utah high school students along with authors and rights-holders whose books have been pulled from Utah schools. They include Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and works by Elana K. Arnold, Ellen Hopkins and Amy Reed. They argue the law is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment.
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Utah had argued the authors had no standing to sue because there's no constitutional right to force public schools to buy or carry their books. The authors countered that pulling their books from library shelves cuts them off from their intended readers and damages their finances and reputations because their books were labeled pornographic or indecent.
Shelby sided with the authors, at least for now. "The question is not whether the alleged injury rises to the level of a constitutional violation," he wrote.
The judge also dismissed most claims against the dozens of individual school board members and district officials named in the suit, ruling those claims duplicated ones already made against the school districts and other government bodies.
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Utah's "sensitive materials" law, passed in 2022 and expanded since, allows a book to be yanked from a school following a complaint. If three public school districts, or two districts and five charter schools, deem a book objectionable, it can be removed from shelves statewide.
So far, 37 books have been pulled under the law.
