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Publishers, authors, Idaho library district sue state officials over 'harmful' books law

Nicole Blanchard, The Idaho Statesman on

Published in News & Features

BOISE, Idaho — A cadre of book publishing giants joined an Idaho library district, Meridian librarian, authors and students to sue Idaho officials over a 2024 law that allows people to challenge library books deemed “harmful” to minors — and sue if the books aren’t removed.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S District Court for the District of Idaho, was brought in part by a group of book publishers known in the industry as “the Big 5”: Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. Industry experts estimate they control around 80% of the book market in the United States.

Other plaintiffs are the Donnelly Public Library District; Rocky Mountain High School librarian Christie Nichols; authors Malinda Lo, Dashka Slater and David Levithan; an Eagle woman; and two Idaho high school students and their parents.

The lawsuit argues that the law in question, House Bill 710, is vague, confusing and violates the First Amendment right to free speech, as well as promotes discrimination over sexual orientation and gender identity.

The following are named as defendants: Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennetts, Nez Perce County Prosecutor Justin Coleman, Valley County Prosecutor Brian Naugle, the city of Eagle, the Eagle Public Library Board of Trustees, and an anonymous individual who requested the removal of 23 books from Eagle’s library.

Eagle library trustee Brian Almon told the Idaho Statesman via text message that he could not comment on the lawsuit. Coleman also declined to comment and said he had not been served legal documents in the case.

None of the other defendants responded to requests for comment.

Dan Novack, VP and associate general counsel for Penguin Random House, said in a news conference Tuesday that the publishers, authors and libraries have a right to share viewpoints in the marketplace of ideas, and the students have a right to learn. He said governments can publish their own thoughts and “let the best ideas win.”

“Banning a book is the resort of a government that has lost confidence in the power of its own message,” Novack said. “Not only are book bans wrong, they are counterproductive.”

Harmful book law ‘caused a crisis’ for Idaho library district

HB 710, which became law in July 2024, made it illegal for schools and public libraries to make books deemed “harmful” available to minors. Existing law defined harmful materials to include any depiction or description of “intimate sexual acts,” masturbation, nudity or “sexual conduct” — a category that expressly includes homosexuality.

The amended law requires schools and libraries to have a complaint form that allows people to request the review of books or other materials they believe may be harmful. People can then sue the school or library if a “harmful” item isn’t removed or relocated to an adults-only area.

The lawsuit said HB 710 “puts educators and librarians in the untenable position of having to guess whether any member of the public might file an objection to a book whose message they disagree with,” especially because the distinction of a “harmful” book is subjective.

Sherry Scheline, director of the Donnelly Public Library, said during the news conference that the law “caused a crisis in our community.”

Donnelly is a small community of around 250 people that’s between Cascade and McCall. Scheline said it has effectively become an “adults only” library.

“The materials in our collection are displayed on shelves arranged in the library’s single-room open floor plan that, due to its small footprint, are viewable and accessible to all who enter the building,” Scheline said.

The Donnelly Library is housed in a 1,000-square-foot log cabin that Scheline said is about one-tenth the size of the average Idaho library. Because of the policy shift, the library has moved its after-school kids’ program to outdoor tepees to comply with the law. Scheline said budget and staffing issues compound the library’s inability to allow unsupervised children.

 

“Our staff members are spread thin enough already and do not have the bandwidth to review the entire collection, to identify and weed out materials that may fall within HB 710’s sweeping definition of harmful to minors,” she said, “nor do we have the budget to (hire) a vendor or pay staff overtime to accomplish this.”

According to the lawsuit, Christie Nichols, the librarian at Meridian’s Rocky Mountain High School, has been forced to remove numerous books from the library’s shelves and send them to the West Ada School District “even though she believes these books have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for her students.” The removed titles include “I’ll Give You the Sun” by Jandy Nelson, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky and “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut.

The high school student complainants said in the lawsuit that their families’ First Amendment rights have been violated by the law, which has a much broader definition of obscene material than the one defined by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. The Idaho lawsuit said the vague definition of “harmful materials” has created a “chilling effect” and removal of materials that should be protected.

Eagle resident Melissa Cull made similar claims after the Eagle library removed numerous books over an anonymous complaint made last July. Cull said her three daughters could face stigma if they read books deemed “inappropriate” under the law.

The Eagle City Council voted in a closed-door meeting in November to fire two of the library trustees who voted to relocate the 23 books. Almon, who also voted in favor of the relocation, is still a trustee. Eagle officials have declined to say what prompted the firings.

Idaho law unfairly targets LGBTQ+ books, lawsuit says

The book publishers and authors named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit have already challenged similar book restrictions in several other states.

They said the Idaho law’s apparent emphasis on LGBTQ+ content is especially troubling. The lawsuit calls HB 710’s explicit inclusion of homosexuality as harmful material discriminatory and says it violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

“When my books started to be banned, it felt to me like a direct attempt to suppress my freedom of speech,” said Malinda Lo, author of young adult novels that center on LGBTQ+ characters, during the news conference.

Lo said she felt alone growing up as a Chinese immigrant and lesbian because she never saw or read about other people like herself.

“House Bill 710 in Idaho is clearly trying to stigmatize queer identities and queer sexuality,” Lo said. “And I want to make it clear to everyone — but to my readers, especially — that there is nothing shameful about queer sexuality. There is nothing shameful about being queer, period.”

Slater and Levithan, the other authors who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, also touch on LGBTQ+ issues in their writing. Slater said during the news conference that her book “The 57 Bus” is a meticulously reported nonfiction book about an agender teenager who was set on fire by another teen while riding the bus.

“There is no sex in my book,” Slater said. “There is not even kissing. There are just two teenagers whose worlds collide on the 57 bus.

“What people are concerned about, I presume, is that there is a glossary that has definitions of words that explain how people categorize themselves in their romantic inclinations, their gender and their sexuality,” Slater added. “If somebody is offended by the definitions of words, they are going to have a hard time when they learn about dictionaries, which I believe are commonly found in schools.”

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©2025 The Idaho Statesman. Visit idahostatesman.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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