Publishers, authors, library sue Idaho officials over materials law

National book publishers, authors, the Donnelly Public Library and a handful of Idaho parents and students sued Idaho officials Tuesday to block the state’s library materials law.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, challenges Idaho’s law adopted in 2024 that requires libraries move materials deemed “harmful to minors” or face lawsuits.

The lawsuit alleges Idaho’s law violates the constitutional rights of publishers, authors, parents, librarians, educators 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.”

The lawsuit alleges Idaho’s law, passed by the Idaho Legislature and signed by Gov. Brad Little through House Bill 710, is “vague and sweeping.” The lawsuit requests the court enjoin the law’s enforcement and declare the law unconstitutional and void for violating First and 14th Amendment rights in the U.S. Constitution.

“House Bill 710 in Idaho is clearly trying to stigmatize queer identities and queer sexuality,” Malinda Lo, author of “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” that the lawsuit says has been restricted in two Idaho libraries, said in a news conference Tuesday.

“And I want to make it clear to everyone, but to my readers especially, that there is nothing shameful about queer sexuality,” she said. “There is nothing shameful about being queer — period.”

In response to the new law, the Donnelly Public Library — a tiny rural Idaho library in Valley County — adopted an adults-only policy, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.

The law, through its private cause of action provision, lets individuals sue schools or libraries. It “deputize(s) private individuals with the power to bring a private right of action against schools or libraries,” the lawsuit says.

“The act thus 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 by simply claiming that the book falls within HB 710’s vague and overbroad definition of materials ‘harmful to minors,’” the lawsuit alleges.

Lawsuit alleges Idaho’s library material law is unconstitutional in several ways

The lawsuit alleges Idaho’s law is unconstitutional in several ways: By creating a chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech through vague language, by targeting homosexual acts specifically, by not distinguishing between older and younger minors, and by not fully adhering to an established legal test to regulate obscene speech.

The law relies on Idaho’s existing definition of materials harmful to minors, which includes “any act of … homosexuality” under its definition of sexual conduct.

But the law doesn’t include “any act of heterosexuality,” or further define an act of homosexuality, the lawsuit notes.

Including that line, the lawsuit says, “demonstrates that HB 710 is intended to specifically restrict access to, and stigmatize, books that portray anything having to do with LGBTQ+ characters.”

Idaho’s law applies to all minors under the age of 18. By effectively lumping together all minors, the law is without regard to the “constitutional reality that material appropriate for the youngest of minors may be appropriate and of significant value to older minors.”

The lawsuit also says Idaho law only clearly incorporates the first two prongs of a legal test, established by the U.S. Supreme Court, used to evaluate obscenity restriction laws.

Established by the Supreme Court in 1973, the Miller Test evaluates if a material appeals to “prurient” or excessive sexual interests, if it is patently offensive, and if the work lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

But the lawsuit alleges Idaho’s law doesn’t clearly incorporate the Miller test’s third prong, which addresses serious value.

“While the third Miller prong receives passing mention in HB 710, its application is limited only to works that represent or describe ‘(m)asturbation, excretory functions or lewd exhibition of the genitals or genital area,’” the lawsuit says.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jaron Crane, R-Nampa, told the Sun the bill was constitutional in an email Tuesday, but he said he would not comment further on pending litigation.

Blaine Conzatti, president of the Idaho Family Policy Center, a Christian lobbying group that lobbied for years for similar Idaho library materials restrictions laws, defended Idaho’s legal test as clear.

“The Children’s School and Library Protection Act utilizes the modified Miller test to determine which materials should be restricted for minors. This test — which was promulgated by the US Supreme Court and has been used in obscenity law for more than 50 years — is both clear and understandable,” he told the Sun in an email.

The law “doesn’t ban any books,” Conzatti said. “Instead, it simply requires that libraries and public schools take reasonable steps to restrict children’s access to materials that meet the legal standard of obscene for minors.”

The Idaho Attorney General’s Office and the Idaho governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

‘I’m writing … the books I needed as a teen,’ author of book restricted in two Idaho libraries says

The lawsuit’s plaintiffs include several major national and international book publishers, such as Penguin Random House LLC, Hachette Book Group, Inc., HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Macmillan Publishing Group, Simon & Schuster LLC, Sourcebooks LLC, along with The Authors Guild, a national nonprofit association of over 14,000 professional writers.

Many publishers and authors involved in the lawsuit say their books have been removed from libraries, or relocated to adults-only areas, under Idaho’s law.

Lo’s book “Last Night at the Telegraph Club,” which deals with many LGBTQ themes, “can no longer be found in the Rocky Mountain library and has been relocated to the adult section of the Eagle Public Library,” the lawsuit says.

“Over the years, I’ve received countless messages from my readers, many of them queer teen girls, who tell me that reading my books has comforted them. Has made them feel seen. Has shown them that it’s OK to be who they are,” Lo said in a news conference Tuesday.

Since she published it, she said many queer Asian Americans reached out to tell her how much the book meant to them.

“Because our lives are so often invisible in our culture. Seeing yourself in a book can be a transformative and empowering experience; one that I rarely had when I was growing up,” Lo said. “This is why I write about queer and Asian American characters. I’m writing the books that I want to read; the books I needed as a teen.”

Many of her readers are young adults who “lack the resources or ability to access my books outside of public and school libraries,” Lo said. “Removing my books from these spaces in Idaho makes it functionally impossible for me to reach my intended readers.”

After Donnelley went adults-only, material check-outs dropped

The lawsuit alleges Idaho’s law forces school librarians and libraries “to choose between restricting access to materials which they believe have serious value for minors and risking onerous book challenge reviews, litigation, and liability.”

The Donnelley Public Library, which operates out of a 1,204-square foot log cabin and a handful of teepees in Valley County, is a tenth the size of Idaho’s average library, the lawsuit states.

The library’s decision to go adults-only barring parents signing waivers has already appeared to reduce community members’ access, the lawsuit says.

The number of materials patrons checked out from the library dropped to 999 from July 1, 2024, to Aug. 15, 2024, compared to 1,748 material check outs in that same period in 2024, the lawsuit says.

“Although the library has never made available any material that is ‘obscene’ or ‘harmful to minors’ … it does carry books that some Idahoans may find offensive despite their obvious literary merit,” the lawsuit says.

Those books include “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee and “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas.

“By including those literary works in its collection, the risk of liability and statutory damages flowing from HB 710’s vague and ambiguous prohibitions represent too high a risk for the library to carry, particularly given its already strained financial situation,” the lawsuit says.

In a news conference, Donnelly Public Library Director Sherry Scheline said she was “unable to make heads or tails of (the Idaho law’s) vague, over-broad and far-reaching language.”

Conzatti, president of the Idaho Family Policy Center, called the lawsuit’s claim that “‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’ ‘Slaughterhouse-Five,’ and other literary classics fall under the definition of material harmful to minors as defined by the Supreme Court is absurd.”

Conzatti said most Idaho libraries have followed the law’s requirements. But he criticized Donnelley’s adults-only policy.

“The Donnelly Public Library, on the other hand, seems intent on using children as pawns in its political games,” he said. “There’s simply no rational reason why they would need to restrict children’s access to the entire library.”

Restrictions in Eagle, Meridian schools worry students, parents, lawsuit claims

In Meridian, Rocky Mountain High School Librarian Christie Nichols is quoted in the lawsuit as being instructed to remove nearly 40 titles from the school’s library — due to a school district policy meant to reduce litigation risk; the school is part of the West Ada School District.

Those books, according to the lawsuit, include “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, and “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut.

Olivia Lanzara, an 18-year-old senior at the school, expected to easily check out many of the books on the restricted list, “without fear of stigmatization,” the lawsuit says.

“For Olivia, books initiate challenging conversations in safe environments and empower her to navigate unsafe or difficult situations,” the lawsuit states. But “given the fear and ambiguity surrounding HB 710, Olivia can no longer access these books directly via her school library,” the lawsuit says.

In the lawsuit, several publishers and authors claim their books have been relocated or removed from Idaho libraries following the law.

The lawsuit is against Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, several Idaho county prosecuting attorneys and the Eagle Public Library Board of Trustees. In October, the Eagle library board relocated 23 books after a closed-door deliberation, Idaho Education News reported.

“As publishers, we are competitors in the marketplace of ideas. The success of our books and our authors rises and falls based on the interest they earn from readers. But we can’t compete when the government walls off young people from ideas,” Penguin Random House’s Associate General Counsel Dan Novack said in a news conference Tuesday.

In Eagle, one of three books relocated to behind the library’s circulation desk is “What Girls Are Made Of,” a 2017 finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the lawsuit says.

The book focuses on a 16-year old girl working in an animal shelter who “is aching after the boyfriend she would do anything for dumped her,” the lawsuit states.

“Reviewers have described it as a powerful and unforgettable look at the things that define teenage girls, and as a meditation on the idea of unconditional love and whether such love is dangerous or appealing,” the lawsuit says. “… The book does not shy away from challenging topics teenage girls confront in real life.”

Eagle resident Melissa Cull, who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and a mother of three school-aged children who are avid readers, “believes it is an important and impactful story for young people — especially teen girls, like her daughters,” the lawsuit says.

But under Idaho’s law, Cull worries Eagle’s youth will “lose out on building lifelong skills in empathy and understanding” and “will be less prepared to face life’s harder struggles,” the lawsuit says.

Since the Eagle library board voted to remove and reshelve nearly two dozen titles, Cull “fears that her children and others will face stigma for seeking out allegedly ‘inappropriate’ books, or that they will avoid otherwise valuable literature altogether,” the lawsuit states.

Kyle Pfannenstiel is a reporter for the Idaho Capital Sun, covering health care and state politics.