A coalition of booksellers and publishers filed a lawsuit in Texas on Tuesday seeking to block a recently passed law that would keep books deemed "sexually explicit" out of schools.

The law, which is scheduled to take effect Sept. 1, would require vendors to rate and evaluate books they sell or have previously sold to schools based on their depictions or portrayals of sexual conduct. Insufficient compliance from booksellers would bar them from doing business with public schools and subject them to open censure.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Austin, argues that H.B. 900, now known as the Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources (Reader) Act, is unconstitutional because it forces private companies to conform with the government's views under threat of retaliation. It further states that the government's standards for the ratings are "vague and ambiguous," violating free-speech rights protected under the First Amendment, and notes that the state has the authority to overrule vendors.

The measure was signed into law in June by Gov. Greg Abbott (R). Tuesday's suit adds to a growing clash over moves by GOP-led states to ban or restrict the availability of books, particularly those dealing with issues of race and LGBTQ+ themes. Schools and, more recently, public libraries have come under tremendous pressure to remove such works, including in some instances children's picture books.

Under the law, vendors are required to rate books as "sexually explicit" - content that will be barred or removed from libraries - or "sexually relevant," which is material considered to be directly related to the curriculum. Students will require parental consent to check out books deemed sexually relevant. State education authorities have been mandated to post the listings online.

Plaintiffs in the case include two bookstores from Texas along with the American Booksellers Association and the Association of American Publishers.

The suit was brought against state education officials including Martha Wong, the chair of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, and Keven Ellis, the chair of the Texas State Board of Education.

In their complaint, the plaintiffs said that some legislators had expressed concern during debate on the bill that its sweeping language could restrict access to classic works such as Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," Art Spiegelman's graphic novel about the Holocaust, "Maus," and even the Bible.

"The suit filed today seeks to protect the basic constitutional rights of the plaintiffs and restore the right of Texas parents to determine what is age appropriate and important for their children to access in their schools, without government interference or control," the coalition said in a statement on Tuesday.

Valerie Koehler, the owner of Houston's Blue Willow Bookshop, who is among the petitioners, said the law places an undue burden on small booksellers. "We would be forced to seek legal opinions about every book we will sell and have sold," she said in the statement.

Abbott has aggressively supported and led initiatives to reshape public education geared toward Republican priorities, from the removal of books to restricting how educators can talk about race and America's history of slavery.

While signing H.B. 900 into law, Abbott described it as an effort to keep inappropriate and vulgar material away from students. "I'm signing a law that gets that trash out of our schools," he said at the time.

In 2021, he wrote to the Texas school boards association to ensure children were not exposed to "pornography and other inappropriate content" at public school libraries.

Similar efforts to remove or ban books have also played out in other states. In May, the Education Department concluded that a Georgia school district's withdrawal of books with Black and LGBTQ characters may have potentially violated student civil rights. That same month, the advocacy group PEN America and Penguin Random House sued a school district in Florida over the board's decision to remove some library books.

According to the American Library Association, more than 1,200 attempts were made to ban or restrict books in 2022, the highest in two decades.

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