Overview
- Filed January 6 in U.S. District Court, the suit is brought by the ACLU of Utah on behalf of the Kurt Vonnegut estate, authors Elana K. Arnold, Ellen Hopkins, Amy Reed, and two anonymous high school students.
- Defendants include Utah Attorney General Derek Brown, the Utah State Board of Education and its members, and the Davis, Salt Lake City, and Washington County school districts and their superintendents.
- Plaintiffs say HB29 treats depictions of sexual content as “objective sensitive material” without weighing a book’s overall literary or educational value, violating First Amendment and due process protections.
- The statewide prohibited list reached 22 titles after January 5 additions of Wicked, Nineteen Minutes, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower under HB29’s trigger of three districts or two districts plus five charter schools.
- Supporters of the law, including its sponsors, argue it sets reasonable, locally informed standards to keep pornographic content out of K–12 libraries, while a student plaintiff describes losing access to books that reflected her experiences.