Across the country, legislators are introducing bills that would force book vendors, publishers, and libraries to rate books for sexual content, a practice that is both unconstitutional and unwise. These so-called “book rating” laws, modeled on Texas’s HB 900 (the READER Act) and similar proposals in states like Maine (LD 1008), seek to impose government-mandated content labels on literature for young people.
In our new policy brief, "Book Rating Laws Are Unconstitutional and Unworkable" (December 2023), the EveryLibrary Institute explains why these laws cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny, why they pose an impossible burden on the book industry, and how they threaten to chill free expression for readers of all ages.
The brief details how they would create impossible administrative burdens for vendors and publishers:
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Requiring every book wholesaler and seller to review, rate, and label tens of thousands of titles, most of which they did not author or edit, is logistically and financially unfeasible.
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The law’s retrospective “recall” provisions, such as those in Texas HB 900, could force businesses to track and retrieve every book previously sold to a school, a costly and unrealistic expectation.
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Unlike the voluntary film and television rating systems, book rating mandates are government-enforced censorship, not consumer guidance.
As the brief concludes, “Book ratings laws ignore First Amendment protections for third parties meant to prevent chilling effects and promote the marketplace of ideas. The law unconstitutionally compels speech in the form of ratings, and it ignores the procedural safeguards the Constitution requires when trying to ban literature.”
States that continue to pursue rating schemes risk not only violating constitutional rights but also wasting taxpayer resources defending laws that cannot survive judicial review.
Download your free copy of the December 2023 brief Book Rating Laws Are Unconstitutional and Unworkable here (opens PDF).