The Nationwide Book Ban Bill Moves to the House: How to Take Action Now

The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce met on March 17, 2026, for markup on House Resolution 7661. HR 7661, also known as the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act,” would modify the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 by prohibiting use of funds under the act “to develop, implement, facilitate, host, or promote any program or activity for, or to provide or promote literature or other materials to, children under the age of 18 that includes sexually oriented material, and for other purposes.” It was introduced by Mary Miller (R-Illinois) in the days following the State of the Union address.

From the bill’s introduction in markup, it was clear how partisan this bill is. Several democratic representatives voiced concerns about the bill’s overreach, and numerous amendments were offered. Those amendments would have allowed for more robust protections on teaching global religions, culturally diverse history, sexual assault, and child trafficking. Those amendments did not pass, and voting was along party lines. You can watch the markup session here; the discussion for HR 766 begins at around 2:00 on the recording, and the vote to pass the bill forward to the House begins at 5:42.

The committee passed HR 7661 forward with recommendation. It now moves on to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

HR 7661 is not only an anti-LGBTQ+ bill, written within the framework of the right’s anti-trans priority, but it’s also a bill angling to push school choice. This would be yet another opportunity to promote and expand a federal voucher scheme that would steal money from public institutions so wealthy people could use taxpayer money for their students’ private or homeschool education. HR 7661 applies only to public institutions, opening the door for legislators to tell people that if they don’t like what’s happening in public schools, they can simply choose something else.

During markup, one representative said if schools don’t want to follow the law, they don’t have to–they’d just lose their federal funding. That summed up everything intellectual freedom and educational freedom advocates have been warning about for five years: all of this adds up to the goal of defunding public schools.

Though this vote and the discussion about the bill were deeply concerning, the fight to end the bill is far from over. There are several action steps anyone can take right now to ensure that HR 7661, which would ban “sexually oriented material,” including materials depicting “gender dysphoria or transgenderism” or “lewd or lascivious dancing” (drag, to be clear), will die on the House floor. While you’re welcome and encouraged to reach out to your Senate representative about this matter, the immediate focus is on the House of Representatives.

The bill is not yet on the House calendar, though the House is in session next week, and the agenda for three of those working days has not yet been released. Representatives will enter district work periods on March 30 through April 13, meaning there may also be no action on HR 7661 for a month or longer. Begin or continue contacting your House representative via phone or email today. If the bill lands on the calendar next week, continue to reach out through those means; if the bill does not land on the calendar next week, take the time to find out where your House Representative will be holding district forums, meetings, town halls, or office hours–then get in front of them personally. Ask them questions about the bill and tell them your concerns. If you don’t know what to say to your representative, 5 Calls has an easy-to-use script available here. Take the time to reach out to your House representative if they are part of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce that marked up the bill yesterday. If your representative voted against the bill, thank them; if your representative offered amendments or feedback–you can see that in the above link–feel free to speak on those. If your representative voted to advance the bill, let them know they have betrayed their communities. Remind them that they work on behalf of constituents, not their party. Below is an image of who voted for the bill’s passage.

In addition to the available script and background above, yesterday’s committee meeting raised several additional points to keep in mind about this bill. You can use any combination of these when you call your representatives, and it might be worthwhile to switch your approach as you reach out.

First: this bill is a tremendous overreach in what powers Congress has to dictate school curriculum. The bill would not allow public schools to access federal funding were they to offer any curriculum or materials related to “sexually oriented materials,” including materials about gender as a concept or transgender people. Because of how vague the bill itself is, it’s clear this will include LGBTQ+ books more broadly. In addition to the materials this bill restricts, it also prescribes appropriate works. Those works are titles included in a 36-year-old Great Books of the World encyclopedia and in two lists from Compass Classroom, a homeschool curriculum. Under a regime actively dismantling the Department of Education because it believes education is a state issue, this bill not only says the opposite but also provides the federal government with the means to prescribe exactly what young people can and cannot learn in the classroom. That is not the duty of Congress. (As a note: Mary Miller, who drafted the bill, homeschooled her children, so she’s given a nice promotion to a curriculum she liked.) Last year, the Supreme Court ruled on Mahmoud v. Taylor. The ruling gives parents the right to opt their children out of the public school curriculum that they do not like. HR 7661, which Miller referred to several times as a bill that would allow parents to control what their children have access to in public schools (“parental rights”), is already operating under the Supreme Court’s decision. But where Mahmoud gives each parent or guardian a choice over their student’s access to information, HR 7661 strips most parents of the right to decide their own student’s access to materials by imposing blanket restrictions on all students. This bill is about removing the rights of parents and students who don’t agree with a particularly harmful and hateful agenda. Speaking of the Supreme Court, in 1973, the court established the federal standard for defining “obscenity” through the three-pronged Miller Test. This has been used to determine whether or not materials are “obscene,” and therefore, illegal. This bill, like so many state-level attempts at restricting books, avoids using “obscene” as its basis. It instead uses the loose, ill-defined “sexually explicit materials” language, which allows for those with power to decide what does or does not rise to the definition. HR 7661 already notes that major religious texts, despite containing material that would fall under “sexually explicit,” would not be subject to the law. But what about a book written for middle schoolers about puberty, a developmental period through which they are actively living? The Miller Test is not mentioned in the bill at all. There is no acknowledgement of the differences between kindergarteners and high school seniors in this bill. It’s an anti-intellectual bill, intended to flatten the developmental and educational needs of young people. Educators and librarians are professionals who understand students’ differing needs, which is why they’re the ones certified to be in those classrooms and buildings. This bill undermines that expertise, turning those professionals into the enemies from whom children must be protected. A proposed amendment to the bill, which would have permitted schools to have and teach age-appropriate materials related to sexual abuse and child trafficking–with pointed references to Epstein and our federal government’s current efforts to protect known and documented pedophiles–was denied, further emphasizing who does and does not deserve to be seen as fully human and worthy of being protected in America. The party that claims to want to “stop the sexualization of children” doesn’t want to do the actual work of protecting children. Several representatives of color noted that this bill would mean that historical atrocities would not be taught in schools. Among them is the whitewashing of the sexual exploitation of Black women throughout American history. Several proposed amendments that would have ensured historical truths would be allowed under the bill were rejected, making it clear that this bill is about denying education that doesn’t fit neatly in the white supremacist mold. Miller and several of her colleagues pushed conspiracy theories during their argument. Among them was the idea that schools are transitioning children without parental permission. This is not happening except in the minds of the far right and their followers–if schools had the means to transition children, they’d be a lot more well-funded than they are. Last but not least, returning to the idea of federal law overriding state rights, this bill would affect state-level anti-censorship bills. The 13 states that have passed right to read/anti-book ban bills would see those bills severely weakened. Though HR 7661 is a federal bill, if you live in one of the states with such a bill (see here, plus Delaware), you may wish to reach out to your state representatives who signed onto those bills and let them know what the federal bill would do. Encourage them to pressure their federal colleagues.

Keep in mind that while this bill has been passed on with favor to the House, it came out of a majority-Republican committee, and there’s still a long way to go from here. Action is vital, but so, too, is understanding that HR 7661 faces numerous hurdles ahead. The lengthy conversations in committee promise similar discussions on the House floor, alongside numerous proposed amendments to the bill. IF the bill were to pass the House and move to the Senate, there’d be even higher hurdles there–in general, the Senate is tougher for any bill, and for one like this that undermines the First Amendment and oversteps Congressional power, the lawyers in the Senate will have a lot to say.

Remember that there are also two freedom to read bills in the House. H.R. 7691, the “Fight Book Bans Act,” would provide federal grants to schools in support of protecting collections and unhindered student access to materials.  H.R. 6440/S. 3365, the “Right to Read Act,” would invest $600 million annually into school libraries, expanding access for students to both better staffed libraries and more diverse materials. When you write your representatives, you can ask why those haven’t been prioritized the same way that HR 7661 has–an especially good question to pose if you’re able to meet with your representative during their district work times.

There’s no crystal ball for predicting what will or will not happen. What’s crucial right now is to get involved and take action–you have all of the tools to do so at your disposal, and as nerve-wracking as it might be, a better, more inclusive future depends upon us.