The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on August 9 vacated a December 2023 injunction blocking parts of Iowa’s controversial book banning law, SF 496. But the move could only be a temporary setback for freedom to read advocates, with court watchers noting that the decision also rejected the state’s core legal argument: that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge SF 496 because the placement and removal of books from public school libraries and classrooms is government speech.
