Iowa House sends ‘parental rights’ bill back to the Senate

The Iowa House approved an amended version of Gov. Kim Reynolds’ “parental rights” bill Tuesday, returning it to the Senate for consideration of changes related to “age-appropriate” schoolbooks and parental notification of students socially transitioning in schools.

The House passed Senate File 496 with a vote of 55-42, with six Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition. There are many changes House Republicans made to the legislation from Reynolds’ original proposal and the Senate’s amended language, adding in proposals the House considered earlier in the session.

Like many other bills this session, the bill contains provisions on LGBTQ students and a prohibition on instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.

The bill also requires parental consent if a child requests gender-related accommodations, such as the use of a different name or pronouns, and stipulates a school district can’t knowingly give “false or misleading information” about a student’s gender identity to parents.

It’s a significant change from the earlier language that required parental notification if any school staff believed a child’s gender identity differed from the one assigned at birth. The House also removed the requirement to contact the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services if the school believes informing a parent about their child’s gender identity would put the student at risk.

Another change was made to the Senate’s definition of “age appropriateness” for schoolbooks. An earlier version of the bill would have prohibited all written and visual depictions of sex acts, while the House’s amendment would ban “graphic” depictions of sex acts.

But the updated language still presents problems, Rep. Sue Cahill, D-Marshalltown said. She asked whether Michelangelo’s statue of David would be considered “graphic,” referencing the Florida school controversy over a sixth-grade class shown a picture of the statue.

“Is that graphic, showing a nude male body?” Cahill said. “If that’s an artwork in our art class, or literature in a book in our school, does that become something we can’t use because it is graphic? It’s a very subjective definition, I agree. And I fully support that parents have the opportunity and the obligation to match their values and their morals to define ‘graphic’ … My definition of graphic may be very, very different from that of my neighbor or from others in the room.”

Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, said the claims that “David” would be banned by the bill is “completely and totally BS.” The bill outlines the specific bans on visual content and written descriptions of sexual intercourse, he said, and the pieces of classic art and literature Democrats cited would not be banned from schools by the bill.

“It’s pretty bad when some of these parents come home with books that are literally pornography and have graphic — literally, what’s in our bill — graphic depictions of sex acts,” Wheeler said. “‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ does not fall under that. The statue of David does not fall under that.”

The bill comes after lawmakers heard from parents and administrators about book challenges in Iowa school districts involving works such as “Gender Queer,” “The Hate U Give” and “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.” The books discussed were focused on the experiences and identities of LGBTQ people and people of color. Rep. Elinor Levin, D-Iowa City said the bill’s provisions will keep children from accessing literature that builds empathy and captures relevant experiences to students.

“Writing queer kids out of existence in the code over and over will not send them back into the closet,” Levin said. “I only hope that it sends them out to organize and to vote, knowing they have the full support of so many in this state and in this country.”

Wheeler said that if the only books that depict LGBTQ experiences are ones that depict sex acts, “we have some serious problems.”

The bill also adds more parents to Iowa’s Board of Educational Examiners (BOEE), the entity tasked with licensing teachers; codifies the “fundamental, constitutionally protected right” of parents to make decisions about the upbringing, education and health care for their child; requires parental consent for students to participate in surveys; and bars any requirement that information on AIDS and the availability of the HPV vaccine be taught in health and human growth and development classes.

Many of these proposals, including the BOEE and HPV education changes, were opposed by Democrats in discussions on other bills. Levin said the bill “disregards the expertise of educators across our state and enshrines the fears of a small group into our code.”

But Wheeler argued the bill will solve many of the problems Iowans see in their school districts.

“One thing I’ve heard consistently from educators, I’ve heard it from members of the minority party in here, is that we have to get parents more involved, parents have to be more involved,” Wheeler said. “That’s exactly what this bill does.”

Reynolds told reporters she supports the “bill that I put forward,” but did not weigh in on the House or Senate amendments to her original language.

“We’ll see if they’re able to get it through both chambers with the same language and then to my desk, and we’ll do a review of the bill at that point and make a decision on how we move forward,” Reynolds said. “But right now, it’s going through the process, as it should, and we’ll see where we end up.”

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