Henry Jay Karp is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa, which he served from 1985 to 2017. He is the co-founder and co-convener of One Human Family QCA, a social justice organization.

As an Iowan, a Jew, and a rabbi who has served the Quad Cities Jewish community for nearly 40 years, I was beside myself when I read Dr. Thomas Lecaque’s guest column in Iowa Starting Line about the school chaplain bill moving through the Iowa legislature. Having made its way through the House and the Senate Education Committee, it is now eligible for floor debate in the Senate.

House File 884 is an offense of the highest degree to every non-Christian faith community in our state. It empowers school districts to hire chaplains “to provide support, services, and programs as assigned by the board of directors of the school district.”

If that sounds innocuous, think again, for the Senate Education Committee has already rejected an amendment that would restrict school chaplains from proselytizing students. So much for religious neutrality in our schools!

From left: Author Laurie Halse Anderson, author Malinda Lo, and Iowa State Education Association President Mike Beranek. Screenshots taken during the November 30 news conference announcing a new legal challenge to Senate File 496.

“The right to speak and the right to read are inextricably intertwined.”

So declare the plaintiffs in the second lawsuit filed challenging Iowa’s new ban on certain library books and classroom materials.

The new federal lawsuit focuses on two provisions of Senate File 496, which Republican lawmakers approved in April and Governor Kim Reynolds signed in May. A separate federal lawsuit filed last week challenges SF 496 in its entirety, focusing on additional provisions targeting LGBTQ students as well as the book bans.