Texas Gov. Abbott signed HB 900, requiring vendors to rate and pull sexually explicit books from public school libraries

On June 12, 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 900 — the READER Act (Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources Act) — into law at a Texas Capitol bill-signing ceremony he framed as "parent empowerment" legislation. Authored by Rep. Jared Patterson and passed by the 88th Legislature, the law requires book vendors, as a condition of selling to Texas public schools, to review and rate every title they sell — including books already on shelves — as "sexually explicit" or "sexually relevant" under broad "patently offensive" community-standards language. Books rated sexually explicit must be recalled and removed from school libraries; books rated sexually relevant require written parental consent to check out. The Texas Education Agency was given authority to overrule a vendor's rating, and vendors that decline to comply are barred from selling to Texas schools.

During legislative debate, lawmakers, booksellers, and protesters warned that the vague standard was written broadly enough to sweep in books with LGBTQ+ characters and themes — titles such as Being Jazz and Calvin, both about transgender youth, were cited by name — alongside works centering race. An amendment to require the state to track which books were pulled was rejected by the bill's author. A separate section of the law directing the state to adopt statewide school-library collection-development standards was not challenged in court and took effect.

Updates

2023-09-18 — Federal court preliminarily enjoined the rating and removal regime [6]

A coalition of booksellers and publishers, including Austin's BookPeople and the American Booksellers Association, sued before the law's September 1, 2023 effective date. U.S. District Judge Alan Albright orally blocked the rating, recall, and removal provisions on August 31 and issued a written preliminary injunction on September 18, 2023, holding the standard unconstitutionally vague and an impermissible prior restraint on protected speech.

2024-01-17 — Fifth Circuit affirmed the injunction [7]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the preliminary injunction, keeping the book-rating regime blocked after a brief administrative stay had allowed parts of the law to take effect for several months.

2025-10-21 — Court permanently enjoined the book-rating regime [8]

Judge Albright granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs and entered a permanent injunction against the rating, recall, and removal provisions, holding them unconstitutional and making the earlier injunction permanent.

2026-05 — Texas appealed to revive the law [9]

Texas filed a further appeal seeking to reinstate the book-rating provisions, which publishers and booksellers are opposing. The appeal is pending.