Free speech wins as Des Moines pauses LGBTQ+ school book removal

In Des Moines, Iowa, parents and teachers battling the state’s recent ban on LGBTQ+ content in school libraries are celebrating a small victory as their school district narrows a list of banned books while awaiting guidance from the state’s Department of Education.

“We have determined that there is ambiguity regarding the extent to which books that contain topics related to gender identity and sexual orientation need to be removed from libraries,” wrote Superintendent Dr. Rosalie Daca of the Urbandale School District in a letter to parents on Thursday.

Related:

Ron DeSantis administration bans AP Psychology class over LGBTQ+ topics

DeSantis has accused the organization that administers AP testing of “indoctrination.”

“As such, we will pause removing books that reference gender identity and sexual orientation until we receive guidance from the Iowa Department of Education.”  

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Earlier this week, the district published a list of 374 titles for review that it said could run afoul of Iowa’s Senate File 496, passed in May through Iowa’s Republican-dominated state legislature. The new law bans books in public schools that depict sex acts and contain any reference to gender identity or sexual orientation for grades K-6.

Existing Iowa law defines “sex acts” as sexual contact between two or more people, including penetration with a penis or masturbation at the direction of another person.

The revised list cuts the number of banned books down to 64 titles, according to the Des Moines Register, among them several classic novels including The Handmaid’s Tale, Brave New World, The Kite Runner, Beloved, The Color Purple and Native Son. More recent titles challenged by far-right culture warriors remain on the list, as well, including Gender Queer and All Boys Aren’t Blue.

1984, The Catcher in the Rye, and A Farewell to Arms all received a reprieve.

Despite some books being lost to Republican lawmakers’ culture war, free speech supporters are cheering what they call progress.

“This didn’t happen voluntarily or by accident,” Urbandale School Board member Dan Gutmann told LGBTQ Nation. “In Iowa, as is true in most communities behind the Red Wall, our legislators pass laws rooted in bias. They should be held accountable for that.”

A spokesperson for the school district, Dena Claire, said the larger list was assembled to provide guidance to K-12 teachers in the absence of clear direction from the state, echoing language from Superintendent Daca with publication of the longer list on Monday.

“We had to take a fairly broad interpretation of the law knowing that if our interpretation was too finite, our teachers and administrators could be faced with disciplinary actions according to the new law,” the Monday statement said.

On Thursday, Daca told parents, “As someone who is tasked with the livelihood of 450 teachers and administrators, I owe it to every staff member and their family to be careful, mindful, and intentional about the guidance we provide knowing that if our guidance is wrong, we could jeopardize their professional and personal lives,” Daca wrote. “This has weighed heavily on my mind and heart.”

According to school board member Gutmann, Iowa Republican lawmakers “expect that school boards will amplify their bias in district efforts to comply with hateful laws.”

“In Urbandale we demonstrated that the Queer community and our allies can fight back and win,” he said. “The resistance behind the Red Wall does not end when terrible laws are passed. We must continue the good fight at the local level and demand accountability from our school boards.”