Texas Judges Give Book Ban Law The Green Light
A trio of judges on Monday gave the go-ahead for Texas to proceed with a book-ban law, which a Trump-appointed judge had halted earlier this month on constitutional grounds.
Texas’s “Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources” (READER) Act requires booksellers to rate sexual content in all books sold to schools. Critics have decried the law as overbroad, unconstitutional, and designed to restrict access to books about gender and LGBTQ issues. Earlier this month, a federal judge sided with publishers who sued to stop the law. The judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the legislation, arguing that the law “likely violates the First Amendment by containing an unconstitutional prior restraint, compelled speech, and unconstitutional vagueness.”
Less than a week later, a three-judge panel from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overrode that injunction, with a one-sentence administrative order that will allow the READER Act to go into effect.