A new bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives would withhold federal funds from public classrooms and school libraries alleged to have “sexually oriented material” on their shelves. Illinois Rep. Mary E. Miller introduced HR 7661 on February 24, and the bill has been cosponsored by 17 House Republicans.
Dubbed the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act,” the bill would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 “to prohibit the use of funds” to purchase materials that involve “nude adults, individuals who are stripping, or lewd or lascivious dancing.”
The bill also notes that it should not “be construed to prohibit the use of funds” for teaching “classic works” of art and literature. To define classic literature, it refers legislators to two booklists published on Compass Classroom, a website with content for homeschooling families wishing to “teach a Biblical worldview and critical thinking skills.”
Anti-obscenity statutes at the federal and state levels already protect young readers from harmful content. Because the bill defines “sexually oriented material” as depictions or descriptions of “sexually explicit conduct” or “gender dysphoria or transgenderism,” freedom to read advocates argue that it seeks to disparage and erase LGBTQ+ individuals and identities.
“HR 7661 signals that LGBTQ+ representation has no place in public schools and that LGBTQ+ stories do not belong in school libraries,” PEN America Freedom to Read program manager McKenna Samson said in a statement. Samson noted that the bill “mirrors harmful and vague language used in state legislation to restrict access to books that discuss sex and sexual experiences.”
Sarah Lamdan, executive director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, told PW that HR 7661 takes its cues from book removal battles, censorious state legislation, and White House executive orders. The difference is that HR 7661 “directly threatens people’s access to educational resources and funding” across the U.S., Lamdan said. “Same ingredients, different recipe.”
EveryLibrary executive director John Chrastka agreed that HR 7661 was an effort to “legislate discrimination in the form of book bans” and called the bill “an especially pernicious kind of election year legislation that is designed to engineer social unrest.” He hopes Congress will “see what H.R.7661 is and let it die as introduced. Library, education, and civil rights stakeholders should help make that clear and make their voices heard.”
ALA’s Lamdan added that Congress, “instead of thinking of ways to strip funds, should think of ways to better support education systems,” Lamdan said. “Child literacy is a key indicator of success and happiness, so I don’t understand the angle of taking money away from kids’ education.”
She suggested that school and library supporters show support for the Right to Read Act of 2025, which “creates and preserves funding streams” rather than doing the opposite. “We should focus on funding and supporting teachers and school libraries,” Lamdan said.
The Right to Read Act was introduced in the House by Arizona representative Adelita Grijalva and 22 cosponsors and in the Senate by Rhode Island senator Jack Reed and six cosponsors on Dec. 4, 2025. According to its text, the Right to Read Act would promote “culturally diverse and inclusive materials” and “the freedom to choose reading materials,” and would protect “constitutional rights in school libraries.”
