Fifth Circuit Pauses Block on Texas Book Sex-Content Ratings Law

A Texas law that requires book sellers to assign sex-content ratings to all books they sell and have sold to public schools can be enforced after the Fifth Circuit temporarily suspended a trial court ruling that blocked it.

Last week, Judge Alan D. Albright said Book People Inc.—the state’s largest independent bookstore—and groups of publishers and authors are likely to succeed on their claims that the law would violate their First Amendment rights.

The law would have forced the private book sellers to create ratings with which they disagreed, Albright, of the US District Court for the Western District of ...