Roughly 300 books were pulled from at least 12 Missouri school districts after a 2022 state law made it a crime for school staff to provide students with sexually explicit visual material. That law, Section 573.550 of the Missouri Revised Statutes, was struck down as unconstitutional by a Jackson County judge on November 17, 2025, and can no longer be enforced. The books banned in Missouri under the statute do not automatically return to shelves, though; each district decides that for itself.
Which Books Were Removed
Graphic novels took the hardest hit because the law targeted images rather than text. Titles removed across Missouri districts included:
- Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
- Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
- Flamer by Mike Curato
- Maus by Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Holocaust graphic novel
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (removed from every library in the Wentzville district)
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- Looking for Alaska by John Green
- Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
- Forever… by Judy Blume
The removals reached well past what most people picture when they hear “sexually explicit.” Some districts pulled graphic novel adaptations of Shakespeare and Mark Twain, art reference books featuring works by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Batman and X-Men comics, and even a copy of Reader’s Digest. Award-winning literature that had sat on library shelves for decades disappeared in a matter of months.
The Law Behind the Removals
Senate Bill 775 took effect on August 28, 2022, and created a new criminal offense under Section 573.550: “providing explicit sexual material to a student.”1Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 573.550 – Providing Explicit Sexual Material to a Student, Offense of – Penalty – Definitions It applied to public and private elementary and secondary schools and covered virtually anyone affiliated with a school in an official capacity: teachers, librarians, administrators, coaches, substitute teachers, school board members, bus drivers, guest speakers, and guidance counselors. Students themselves were not subject to liability.
The statute defined “explicit sexual material” as any pictorial, three-dimensional, or visual depiction — photographs, films, videos, pictures, computer-generated images — showing masturbation, sexual intercourse, direct physical stimulation of genitals, sadomasochistic abuse, or an emphasis on postpubertal human genitals. Written descriptions on their own fell outside the definition. The law carved out exceptions for works of art with serious artistic significance taken as a whole, works of anthropological significance, and materials used in science courses such as biology, anatomy, physiology, and sex education.1Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 573.550 – Providing Explicit Sexual Material to a Student, Offense of – Penalty – Definitions
Penalties
The offense was a Class A misdemeanor.1Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 573.550 – Providing Explicit Sexual Material to a Student, Offense of – Penalty – Definitions Under Missouri sentencing law, that carries up to one year of imprisonment2Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 558.011 – Sentence of Imprisonment, Terms – Conditional Release and fines of up to $2,000 per violation.3Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 558.002 – Fines for Offenses, Authorized Amounts
Why the Removals Went So Wide
The statute required that a person act “knowingly,” meaning they had to be aware of the material’s content when they provided it. In a library with thousands of titles, that standard proved impossible to apply with confidence. A librarian who had never opened a particular graphic novel could still face scrutiny for shelving it. The artistic-significance exception offered little practical protection, because deciding whether a work qualified was exactly the judgment call a prosecutor might second-guess.
Faced with real criminal exposure, districts erred toward removal. That is how Maus, Michelangelo art books, and Reader’s Digest ended up on the same lists as the titles legislators had in mind when they drafted the bill.
How the Law Was Struck Down
On November 17, 2025, Jackson County Circuit Court Judge J. Dale Youngs declared Section 573.550 unconstitutional and issued a permanent injunction barring its enforcement. The court found the statute unconstitutionally vague and overbroad under the Missouri Constitution’s free speech clause (Article I, Section 8) and its due process protections (Article I, Section 10).
Vagueness was central to the ruling. The law gave school staff no reliable way to know in advance whether a particular work fell within its prohibitions, yet threatened them with jail and fines for guessing wrong. The ACLU of Missouri, which brought the challenge, argued that the statute “used the threat of fines and imprisonment to eliminate the guidance of professional librarians and parents and instead gave control over what students read to politicians in Jefferson City.” The court found that this chilling effect on protected speech was exactly the kind of harm free speech protections exist to prevent.
Whether the state will appeal remains an open question. Unless an appellate court reverses the injunction, Section 573.550 cannot currently be enforced anywhere in Missouri.
Do the Removed Books Come Back?
Not automatically. The injunction blocks enforcement of the statute, but it does not order districts to restock the titles they pulled. School boards retain independent authority to decide what belongs in their collections, and many of the removal decisions made during the law’s three-year life have not been revisited.
Parents who want a specific book returned generally need to work through their district’s formal reconsideration process. Most districts have one, though the steps and timelines vary. Requests typically go to the school library or a district-level committee, which reviews the title and issues a recommendation to the board.
The First Amendment Backdrop
The Missouri ruling rested on the state constitution, but the federal framework matters for what districts do next. The leading U.S. Supreme Court case is Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico (1982), which held that school officials may not remove library books simply because they dislike the ideas the books contain.4Legal Information Institute. Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico
Pico drew a line. Removing books for “educational suitability” — because they are poorly written, factually inaccurate, or genuinely inappropriate for the age group — is permissible. Removing them because the board wants to deny students access to disfavored ideas, when that intent is the decisive factor, violates the First Amendment.4Legal Information Institute. Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico The Court described libraries as places for “voluntary inquiry,” distinct from classrooms where boards have broader curricular authority.
That framework applies to board-level removal decisions. When removals happen because a state legislature has criminalized the alternative, as in Missouri, the constitutional question shifts to the legislature’s own conduct, which is part of why the successful challenge here ran through state constitutional grounds rather than Pico.