Book vendors are voicing their frustration with the passage of a new Texas law set to come into effect in September that would require them to assign ratings to books containing sexual content in order to sell to Texas public schools.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Gov. Greg Abbott signed HB 900 into law in June. The law states that vendors intending to sell books to schools must rate books with sexual content as either containing “sexually explicit material” or “sexually relevant material,” with the former proscribed entirely from sale to schools.
Vendors must also make an accounting of all the books they have already sold to Texas public schools and “issue a recall for all copies of library material sold to a district or school that is … rated sexually explicit material; and … in active use by the district or school.”
Some vendors claim the law is unduly burdensome and could entirely push some businesses out of the public school market.
“It’s very vague at best as to what we’re supposed to be doing,” said Valerie Koehler, a bookstore owner in Houston who sells to public schools, CNN reported. “Certainly, we can’t read everything.”
Stakeholders further allege that the law does not provide any consistency regarding a rating system.
“What might be sexually relevant to one vendor could be sexually explicit to another, and yet another vendor may not feel like the book needs to be rated in either of those categories,” said Shirley Robinson, executive director of the Texas Library Association, per CNN.
“Sexually relevant material” is defined as depictions of sexual conduct that are not “patently offensive” or “obscene” and are germane to the educational value of the material.
Robinson also pointed out that some vendors may not have the capacity to comply with the new law.
“This bill is going to put a tremendous burden on those vendors,” Robinson claimed, according to CNN. “Some may make the decision to no longer sell to Texas schools, which is not good for business.”
In a statement to The Dallas Express, Texas House Rep. Jared Patterson (R-Frisco), HB 900’s author, said he believes the “free market system will provide an incentive for the book vendors to figure out the issue.”
HB 900 was just one of a slew of reform initiatives enacted at the state and local level to restrict students’ access to library materials considered by some parents around the state to be inappropriate based on sexually explicit content or politically-charged themes.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, books like Jack of Hearts (and other parts) by Lev A.C. Rosen and Freakboy by Kristin Elizabeth Clark had been mainstays at multiple campus libraries in Dallas ISD, prompting outrage from concerned parents and community members over the allegedly obscene material available to students.
“If it had been a movie, it would be rated X. It’s offensive and completely inappropriate for our children,” Tami Brown Rodriguez told The Dallas Express in February, commenting on Jack of Hearts (and other parts). Dallas ISD seemingly pulled the title from shelves after its board of trustees received repeated criticism from parents at school board meetings.
Despite the pushback from some book vendors and stakeholders, Patterson previously suggested that vendors had some responsibility in the matter if they were going to profit off of taxpayer money.
“This law includes exceptions for required curriculum important to the development of children,” Patterson said in the statement, The Eagle reported. “[HB 900] will ensure that the content within libraries is age-appropriate … as opposed to filling our school libraries with taxpayer-funded explicit trash.”
He told the news outlet that he had found “graphic depictions of sex” in library materials at his home school district, which motivated him to find some kind of legislative solution.
More recently, Patterson said to CNN:
“If you can’t determine if what you’re selling is going to be harmful to children or not, then maybe you shouldn’t be selling into Texas school districts.”
