DES MOINES, Iowa – Governor Reynolds is pushing back against schools that say they’re unsure how to implement Iowa’s new law restricting some materials from school libraries and have pulled some classics from the shelves as a result.
The law requires books to be removed from schools if they contain sexually explicit material.
But Governor Reynolds said the law was clear, even reading the Iowa Code during a press conference.
She argued that schools were complicating things for the sake of politics, and said parents could simply buy the banned books if they wanted their children to read them.
Reynolds said schools that have made a big deal out of it just don’t like the law and are blowing it out of proportion.
The Iowa Department of Education hasn’t issued any guidance to schools on the new law, saying questions will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
The Urbandale school district flagged 385 books as potentially violating Iowa’s new law, then later reduced that number to 65.
Mason City Community Schools decided to use Chat GPT and the language of the law to assess whether books actually violated the law. Chat GPT found 19 books that it believed violated the law, including the 1990 classic Friday Night Lights.
Meanwhile, some school districts in the Des Moines area posted disclaimers on Little Free Libraries to avoid running afoul of the new law.