Idaho State Capitol building Photo via Wikipedia

In July 2024, when Idaho’s House Bill 710 went into effect, libraries across the state felt its impact in large and small ways, from refining policies to removing contested titles from their shelves. The law, passed by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Brad Little, prohibits libraries and schools from allowing anyone under age 18 to access material containing “sexual content,” regardless of their age—the law makes no distinction between infants and 17-year-olds—or the books’ literary merit.

HB 710 draws its definition of materials “harmful to minors” from Idaho state code, which includes “any act of…homosexuality” under its definition of sexual conduct. A sampling of books considered “harmful” under the law include Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, George RR Martin’s A Game of Thrones, and Forever by Judy Blume.

In February a coalition of publishers, authors, parents, students, and the Donnelly Public Library (DPL) District filed a lawsuit challenging HB 710 on the grounds that it violates the First and 14th Amendment rights of librarians, educators, publishers, authors, parents, and students “by forcing public schools and libraries to undertake drastic measures to restrict minors’ access to books, or face injunction and/or monetary penalty.”

Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House (PRH), Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks were joined by DPL; the Authors Guild; authors Malinda Lo, David Levithan, and Dashka Slater; a teacher; two students; and two parents. The plaintiffs are represented by the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic, with support from affiliated attorney Michael Grygiel, Stanton Fellow Daniela del Rosario Wertheimer, and Deborah Ferguson of Ferguson Durham PLLC.

The coalition grew out of a task force created two years ago by PRH staff under the leadership of Skip Dye, VP of library marketing and digital sales, in a lawsuit filed with PEN America against the Escambia County School District, FL, over book removals. The publishers have also taken part in legal action against Iowa and Florida public officials, challenging the book-banning provisions of Senate File 496 and House Bill 1069, respectively.

PRH’s motivation in taking on these large legal battles was to “create good cases that establish parameters for everyone, but also put some thought into legislators’ brains that if they go down this path, it won’t be without a challenge,” said Dan Novack, VP, associate general counsel at PRH. “We have the financial resources and we have the messaging power to be influential, and we want to get the target off of librarians and authors.”

While a ruling on the case could take another one to three years, the plaintiffs are currently filing a motion for preliminary injunction. “Let’s block the law now…. This statute, the way it’s written, cannot be constitutionally applied,” said Novack. “At any time, if the state wants to see reason and talk to us and figure it out, we’re always open to the conversation.”

DISPROPORTIONATE IMPACT

HB 710 is the end product of years of attempts by the Idaho legislature to control reading matter it considers harmful to children. Under the law, county prosecuting attorneys and the state attorney general may bring claims against any school or public library. Individuals are also incentivized to file complaints through a reward system, offering up to $250 in statutory damages to children or parents if contested material isn’t relocated within 60 days “to a section designated for adults only” after the library receives a request to do so.

Little had originally vetoed the bill’s predecessor, HB 314, in 2023, because of his objections to its ambiguous language that could lead to “unintended consequences” for libraries and patrons. The bill would have also allowed minors, parents, or guardians to sue violators of the bill for $2,500—Little believes that the current amount of $250 is more sustainable, although a number of small libraries have noted that even that amount could constitute a hardship.

After several amendments, the bill was signed into law in March 2024. Since it took effect in July, its impacts on Idaho’s libraries depended mainly on their size and fiscal resources. Larger systems, and those with legal counsel in pace, have been better able to weather the new legislation without major disruptions.

Nick Grove, director of the Meridian Library District, read through HB 170 with the library’s legal counsel and, in collaboration with other area libraries, rewrote Meridian’s collection development policy, including request for reconsideration forms. “It’s now much, much longer, and it is very thorough,” Grove told LJ. “We used definitions throughout Idaho code and made it so that everything we did pointed to something that is existing law.”

The library engaged new counsel after the legislation passed, Grove added. “We sought out someone who would not only be proficient and really good at governance and policy but also had a litigation arm that was prepared and ready to go.”

At Boise Public Library (BPL), both leadership and the board had kept an eye on the “material harmful to minors” bills as they moved through the state legislation in various forms. “We said from the very beginning that the laws that were being proposed were not necessary—we don’t have obscene materials in our libraries,” said Director Jessica Dorr. “We didn’t change our collection development policy at all. We literally spent three years making sure that it was a strong policy, and our board understood how we were bringing in the materials.”

The library did change its request for reconsideration policy in May 2024 to align with the new law, and to ensure that it incorporated library and First Amendment core values. The board also wanted to stress public transparency, so BPL now has a webpage where any request for reconsideration, once it’s been reviewed by the library’s legal team and any personal information has been redacted, is posted. That information is important not only for the public to see what requests the library is receiving, but their impact, such as how much time the library put into addressing them. Finally, Dorr and the board wanted to take as much of the burden as possible off staff. “There were so many misperceptions about what the law could and couldn’t do,” Dorr told LJ. “And my frontline staff are not lawyers. I’m not a lawyer. We really wanted to take that interaction out. We don’t want someone on the desk trying to explain that law. We really wanted them to quickly move into, ‘Hey, let’s just have you talk to someone in the administration who understands this.’”

SMALL LIBRARIES HIT HARDEST

Both Grove and Dorr are aware of their libraries’ advantages in a state where the smallest libraries, serving fewer than 10,000 people—particularly those in rural areas—can’t afford to retain a lawyer or even weather a single lawsuit, and often don’t have the space to keep challenged titles where children can’t access them.

As soon as the law took effect, Eagle Public Library, in Ada County, received 30 complaints—most from a single person. In September, the library’s trustees chose to relocate 23 books to the adult section or behind the front desk.

The one-room, 1,024 square foot Donnelly Library has never gotten a request for reconsideration. But because the building wasn’t large enough to keep “adult” titles out of range of younger patrons, in May 2024 it opted to become adults-only rather than remove those books entirely. Children were not allowed in unless a parent was present with them at all times, signed a waiver allowing their children to attend after-school or summer reading programming, or waived their rights under the new law so that their children could check out materials without an adult present. Removal of material was never a consideration, Director Sherry Scheline told LJ.

“This change is painful and not what we had hoped for at all,” DPL staff posted on the library’s Facebook page. “We desire to comply with state and federal legislation, but because of size we have to protect our staff, our library, and our taxpayer money.”

The decision made the national news and caught the eye of PRH as it assembled its coalition. The library board agreed to join forces with the publishers, and the partnership has been beneficial to both sides.

For the library, without the money to pay for a legal team, having access to PRH’s team has been a major advantage. Small and rural communities are already hurting for lack of access, as was made clear during COVID shutdowns. “Book ban legislations do the same exact thing,” said Scheline. “I think small and rural libraries definitely need to be at the table [opposing] every single book banning legislation across the nation, because it does put them in a far worse position.”

On the other side, Donnelly’s participation offers PRH a library that represents everything Idaho’s small towns need and stand to lose under HB 710’s restrictions. “They have the absolutely most compelling story I think you can tell. If we win on their story, we win on every story,” said Novack. “What does losing look like? My attitude is: the only way to lose is to not challenge at all.”

As the case plays out over the next few years, the library hopes to raise the funds necessary to expand—and could reconsider the adults-only rule. “I do think that there is something to be said about our waiver system, and empowering parents to have that understanding that they do get to choose,” said Scheline. The restrictions are hardest on teens who come in without parents, though—and kids whose parents aren’t involved or inclined to come in to sign a waiver are the ones who need the library most.

The support has been validating for the library, too. “When Penguin Random House came behind us, we felt important, and I think that that’s really a big thing,” Scheline said. “Librarians need to know that people are cheering for them.”