Vega fears that instilling that love of books for some students could get trickier thanks to a new Texas law set to take effect on Sept. 1.
House Bill 900 by state Rep. Jared Patterson, a Frisco Republican, requires book vendors to issue ratings to titles they sell or have sold to school districts in the past. The evaluation is focused on two classifications of material: “sexually explicit” and “sexually relevant.” Under the law, the former will be barred from shelves and the latter will be restricted.
But critics argue that such requirements may serve as pretexts to remove titles that conservative lawmakers don’t like, such as those dealing with issues of sexuality and race.
“I think that this law is a slippery slope,” Vega said. “I think it is an entryway to censorship and to further marginalize communities of color and people in the LGBTQ+ community.”
Booksellers in Dallas and other Texas cities are blasting the law as unconstitutional and wholly “anti-business.” Interabang Books, for instance, has a page on its website encouraging people to contact their legislators with concerns.
“HB900 continues a worrying trend in our state to curtail free speech in schools, and to encumber hard-working teachers and booksellers who provide valuable resources to Texas students and children,” the Dallas store's website states. “If enacted, this law will disrupt independent bookstores like ours, and threaten our commercial viability at a time when indies are most vulnerable.”
A coalition of booksellers, publishers and authors filed a lawsuit in July asking a federal court in Austin to block the law. The plaintiffs are arguing that the so-called READER Act forces sellers to comply with vague, arbitrary and subjective government standards.
The suit further states that Katy ISD near Houston has already halted library book purchases because of the law.
And while HB 900 could stop some harmful and obscene material from reaching school shelves, it “also prohibits a wide swath of constitutionally protected material,” the lawsuit contends.
Vega is waiting to learn more about what the rating process will look like.
“It's going to be really challenging and impossible for some stores, based on their size and their capacity, to keep up with the requirements that House Bill 900 is laying out,” she said. “Which is unfortunate, because it's going to hurt small businesses.”
On top of that, there could be inconsistencies in how the books are rated from seller to seller, she said. The onus now falls on vendors to determine what content is inappropriate for kids when they often don’t have the proper training or educational background to do so.
Many booksellers are frustrated because they won’t have the capacity to meet HB 900’s demands, Vega said.
“Coupled with the current climate of educational censorship already in Texas [and] nationwide, this type of law is just a tool for constraining access to books and information.” – Kasey Meehan, PEN America
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But Patterson defended the law in an email to the Observer.
“I don’t care if you’re a small business or a big business; if you’re selling something that’s going to be in the hands of children, you should know whether or not it’s safe for that child to consume,” Patterson said. “The book vendor is the one with the financial relationship with the school district and, so they’re the ones that can most easily be held accountable for this.”
Last year, Missouri lawmakers approved a similar measure that led to the removals of art history and sex education books, graphic novels, titles featuring photography and books about the Holocaust, the free expression advocacy group PEN America noted in a press release. More than half of the books banned under that law were reportedly either written by or about people of color or LGBTQ+ people.
PEN America expects that HB 900 could usher in a “similar chilling effect.”
Kasey Meehan, the Freedom to Read program director at PEN America, told the Observer that the Texas law amounts to government overreach. She also expects it to lead to increased censorship in the state; the burden for implementation is too high, she said.
Lawmakers’ use of vague terms like “sexually explicit” is likely intentional, Meehan said. She expects it’ll lead to “confusion and an overly cautious response.
“When it comes to books, time and time again, we also see the way in which terms like ‘sexually explicit,’ ‘sexually relevant’ are being conflated and inappropriately used to target books that have LGBTQ+ characters, identities or themes represented,” Meehan said, “or books that have any — in the broadest sense — sexual content.”
The lawsuit raises concerns that HB 900 could lead to the removal of classic literature like Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men and “even the Bible.”
In a tweet earlier this week, Patterson took aim at the READER Act’s naysayers, writing: “HB 9oo hAs A cHiLiNg eFfEcT bEcAuSE wE cAnT seLl pOrN tO kIdS nO MoRe.”
HB 9oo hAs A cHiLiNg eFfEcT bEcAuSE wE cAnT seLl pOrN tO kIdS nO MoRe https://t.co/8hnFl6kAP8
— Rep. Jared Patterson (@JaredLPatterson) August 7, 2023
Many conservatives have echoed the idea that pornography is making its way onto school library shelves. But Meehan slammed such rhetoric as “complete misinformation,” adding that no school books would fit under any colloquial or legal definitions of pornography.
Meehan said publishers already assign age-relevant categories to books. The vast repercussions of HB 900 are “hard to wrap one’s head around,” she added.
“Coupled with the current climate of educational censorship already in Texas [and] nationwide, this type of law is just a tool for constraining access to books and information,” Meehan said. “We see that effort in HB 900 and similar efforts across the country as deeply undemocratic.”
