This post was written by NCTE member Cody Miller.
The freedom to read, access to books, and teacher’s curricular autonomy will all be impacted by the 2024 election. NCTE noted that federal bills seeking to shore up the freedom to read are “split along party lines, and all four bills are only supported by Democrats or Independents.” Every state that has passed anti-book bans policies is governed by a Democratic majority. Similarly, book banning policies are the domain of Republican-controlled states and school boards. Stating these facts may sound like a partisan statement, but that is only because one party has embraced book banning legislation and other policies that curtail intellectual freedom. Nowhere are the stakes of intellectual freedom and affirming schools more apparent than in the policy proposals outlined in Project 2025.
What Is Project 2025?
Project 2025 has entered public discourse over the past month. Both Taraji P. Henson’s urge to look up the organization at the 2024 BET Awards and John Oliver’s segment from his titular HBO show has resulted in increased Google searches for Project 2025. In their own words, Project 2025 is a “movement-wide effort guided by the conservative cause to address and reform the failings of big government and an undemocratic administrative state.” The “movement-wide effort” in question is one that continues and expands on book banning efforts we’ve seen proliferate over the past four years. The website touts the notorious book banning organization Moms for Liberty as a member of their advisory board, for instance.
Project 2025 is an explicitly partisan organization with roots in the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation has spent the last four years spreading election lies and propping up book banning efforts. Project 2025 is preparing the groundwork for enacting book banning policies proliferating in states like Texas and Florida on the national level if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election. Recently, Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but ties to the group and his administration are deep, varied, and well documented. In fact, the Project 2025 website notes that the two of the major leaders in Project 2025 served as high-ranking officials in the Trump administration. In many ways, Project 2025 is an extension of recent bills congressional Republicans have introduced, such as a federal version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and a policy that would make book banning much easier across the country.
Educating the Public
Our field must be diligent in fighting for intellectual freedom and the right for all students to have affirming schools. Fortunately, most voters favor the freedom to read. Book banning politicians, including many backed by Moms for Liberty, lost significant races in both the 2022 and 2023 elections. Many voters remain unaware of Project 2025. However, voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the plan when voters learn about the project’s policy scope and aims. Therefore, our greatest asset as teachers in this moment is to teach the public about the threats of Project 2025. I believe we should educate our peers and communities about Project 2025’s attack on intellectual freedom, their plans to curtail civil rights for students, and policies that would eliminate critical funding and resources for schools. We as English teachers must be informed about Project 2025 because its stated policies pose a real danger to the field of English language arts.
Before continuing, I want to note that I will be using direct and summarized quotes from Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership document. I will provide the page number for each quote for readers to research on their own. However, I will not include full quotes that include homo- and transphobic language and talking points. The document echoes multiple homo- and transphobic terms, language, and lies. Readers can read those comments in full in the document, but I will not be amplifying such language in this post.
Policies on Books Bans and Intellectual Freedom
The first point to address is the goal of further book banning and limiting intellectual freedom. Like book banning policies we’ve seen in the past four years, Project 2025 cloaks its attack on intellectual freedom with the language of “parents’ rights” and moral panic over “critical race theory.” Efforts to diversify school curriculum, update reading lists, and include LGBTQIA+ narratives are decried as attempts to “indoctrinate schoolchildren, alter beloved books, abridge free speech, undermine the colorblind idea” on page 19. The second paragraph on the first page of the over 900-page document spews homo- and transphobic talking points and claims that LGBTQIA+ literature is “invading [their] school libraries.” Journalists and academics have already noted how Project 2025’s positioning of LGBTQIA+ books as graphic is a tactic to ban all LGBTQIA+ materials in schools.
Project 2025’s advocated policies would make diversifying school curriculum even more difficult for states and districts, as page 5 calls for the “tenets of ‘critical race theory’ and ‘gender ideology’” to be “excised from curricula in every public school in the country.” Tellingly, bills that ban critical race theory have resulted in states censoring Black authors and teaching distorted and dishonest history while “gender ideology” is a phrase coined to curtail LGBTQIA+ progress and pass anti-LGBTQIA+ policies. Project 2025 believes that “States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, principals, and teachers who disagree” with their stance on school curriculum “should be immediately cut off from federal funds.”
Policies on Students’ Civil Rights
The second point that should be addressed is Project 2025’s multifaceted plan to radically curtail civil rights for students. On page 285, the Department of Education is described in inflammatory language as a “one-stop shop for the woke education cartel.” “Woke” is a phrase originally coined by Black activists that has been adopted by politicians who wish to fight any diversity, equity, and inclusion effort since 2020. The word “woke” appears in some form over 20 times in the document.
Project 2025 calls for the complete elimination of the Department of Education and accuses the federal agency of injecting “racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms” on page 8. Four pages earlier, the document calls for “deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’), diversity, equity, and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive” from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” All current Department of Education and Department of Justice policies to fight LGBTQIA+ and race-based discrimination in schools would be repealed.
Policies on School Funding and Essential Resources
The third point that educators should be aware of relates to school funding and access to crucial resources. Policy proposals outlined in Project 2025 would deny students crucial material and funding now provided by public schools. Project 2025 calls for a radical limiting of the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program on pages 302–303. The document calls federal school meals an “entitlement program” and an example of the “ever-expanding federal footprint in local school operations” before explicitly calling to “reject efforts to create universal free school meals.” This policy echoes current Republican-controlled states’ decisions to deny free school lunches over the summer to students and their families. Needless to say, feeding students should be a priority of schools because it is much harder to learn when you are hungry.
Project 2025 also calls for nationalizing “education saving accounts,” which would reroute public money for schools into the private sphere, on page 347. The document notes the passing of such a program in states like Florida, Arizona, and West Virginia. Pro Publica recently detailed how Arizona’s education saving plan has drained funding for a “wide swatch of critical state programs and projects.” The Texas legislature tried to pass a similar bill but failed due to massive public backlash. English teacher and education journalist Peter Greene notes that education saving accounts often drain funds for public schools and have no accountability and oversight mechanisms. Taken together, these two policies would radically reduce the current funding public schools receive to provide holistic care to all students.
Advocating against Project 2025
There are other elements of Project 2025’s plan that would harm schools and communities ranging from environmental policies to healthcare access. Project 2025’s entire plan is available as a PDF online for readers who wish to know more. Dr. Erica Buchanan-Rivera has provided an informative overview of additional education policies in the Project 2025 plan. Reading the proposal for schools and curriculum illustrates the threat Project 2025 poses to intellectual freedom, the freedom to read, and the ability of educators to create affirming schools for all students. I urge readers to inform their friends, colleagues, and communities about these plans and then act by contacting your local, state, and federal elected officials. Then, stay up to date on topics of intellectual freedom through NCTE’s Intellectual Freedom Center, especially the federal legislation spotlight. Advocates for the freedom to read have won before. I believe we can win again.
Cody Miller is an associate professor of English education at SUNY Brockport. During his seven years as a high school English teacher and in his current role, he has positioned texts as vehicles to discuss broader sociopolitical issues in students’ lives and worlds. Miller is the editor of English Leadership Quarterly. He was awarded NCTE’s LGBTQIA+ Advocacy & Leadership Award in 2022. He can be reached via email.
It is the policy of NCTE in all publications, including the Literacy & NCTE blog, to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, the staff, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.