A US federal judge Monday blocked the enforcement of a Texas law restricting books in schools.

At issue was House Bill (HB) 900, a bill passed by the Texas Legislature and signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbot that would require the Texas State Library and Archives Commission to create standards for “sexually explicit” materials and would prohibit schools from purchasing or possessing “sexually explicit” materials for a library. The law required every “library material vendor” to review and rate all library material sold to schools and to submit the vendors’ ratings to the Texas Education Agency.

The law mandated a “contextual analysis” of each book and required vendors to “weigh and balance each factor and conclude whether the library material is patently offensive.” The law further prescribed “consider[ation of] the full context in which the description, depiction, or portrayal of sexual conduct appears, recognizing” that these inquiries are “highly fact-specific.” If the vendors did not comply, they were barred from selling any books to public schools. Despite the rating system, the Texas Education Agency was vested with the power to overrule a vendor’s determination.

A coalition of booksellers, publishers, and authors brought the action to enjoin enforcement of HB 900, calling it a violation of the First Amendment. Judge Alan Albright for the Western District of Texas agreed, finding the law a violation of the First Amendment because it contains unconstitutional prior restraint and compelled speech. Albright also found the law “unconstitutionally vague” and wondered “whether the legislature believed any third party could possibly comply” with conducting a content-based balancing test on every book ever sold to each of Texas’s 1,025 school districts.

The Texas State Board of Education and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission appealed the order to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals the same day.