Overview

• Federal appeals court blocks Texas law requiring book vendors to rate sexual content in books sold to schools, upholding a lower court's injunction.
• The law, known as the READER Act, was challenged by bookstores and national publishing groups who argued it violated their First Amendment rights.
• The law required vendors to rate all library material as 'sexually explicit', 'sexually relevant', or 'no rating', with 'sexually explicit' books being removed from school shelves.
• The court ruled that the ratings were neither factual nor uncontroversial, and required vendors to undertake a contextual analysis of material, which goes beyond a mere disclosure of factual information.
• The court also found that the law would cause irreparable economic harm to the plaintiffs, including the possibility of some bookstores going out of business.