A lawsuit challenging Utah’s law on “sensitive materials” on school library shelves got its first hearing in federal court, with a judge setting ground rules around the identities of student plaintiffs.

“I want to make sure I’m protecting these students but also don’t want to make it more difficult or cumbersome than it needs to be,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Cecilia Romero said, granting a protective order to keep the names of the students involved in the lawsuit from being publicly disclosed.

The Utah Attorney General’s Office and the plaintiffs attorneys made arguments over the lengths they can go to protect the identities of students, so they aren’t subjected to harassment as the litigation goes forward.

“Today’s hearing was preliminary, but important. The Court took the student plaintiffs’ privacy seriously, and the State agreed these children need protection. Now we’re eager to move this case forward because Utah is unconstitutionally stripping books from public school library shelves at an alarming and accelerating rate,” said Ian McLaughlin, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit, filed by a group of students as well as the estates of acclaimed authors Kurt Vonnegut and Maya Angelou, and living authors Elana K. Arnold and Ellen Hopkins, challenges the law as unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment. The law, which centers around what are termed “sensitive materials,” allows a book to be yanked from school shelves over complaints. If three public school districts — or two districts and five charter schools — deem content objectionable in a book? It’s pulled from school library shelves statewide.

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