This post was written by NCTE member Cody Miller.
The Freedom to Read Act, a piece of federal legislation that NCTE championed in the last year, will not become law under this current Congress and White House. The law will lack the number of votes to pass. We can and should expect political attacks on intellectual freedom from the federal level in the next two to four years. It’s valuable to review proposed legislation from the last two years, to get a potential roadmap of where the fight for intellectual freedom will go next. Two education bills stand out.
First is referred to as “The Parents Bill of Rights.” This bill would loosen protections for teachers’ intellectual freedom and professional curricular expertise. As noted by NPR, the bill “requires schools to notify parents that they have the right to review the curriculum and school budget, inspect books and other library materials, and receive information about any violent activity in the school.”
Critics say the bill will make banning books and limiting curriculum easier. PEN America has detailed how the language of “parents’ rights” is used in politics that curtail intellectual freedom. Removing or limiting access to books in many districts is already easy enough: 11 people were responsible for 60 percent of removed books across the country in 2021–2022, according to The Washington Post. This bill would take the legislative priorities we’ve seen in multiple states to the federal level.
But the bill did not receive unanimous support from House Republicans in 2023. Five voted against the measure, which indicates potential defeat again this legislative session, given the slim majority Republicans will have in the House. With effective organizing, this bill can be defeated once again.
Second is the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act.” This bill was introduced in fall 2022 by Representative Mike Johnson, who is now Speaker of the House. According to NPR, the bill aims “to prohibit the use of Federal funds to develop, implement, facilitate, or fund any sexually-oriented program, event, or literature for children under the age of 10, and for other purposes.” This bill would essentially restrict access to children’s books featuring LGBTQIA+ characters in schools, libraries, and museums.
The bill received 30 signatures of support from House Republicans when introduced in 2022. It is hard to know how much support this bill could garner in the upcoming legislative session. Bills like this one were electoral albatrosses in the 2022 and 2023 elections, so there is room to apply pressure to the incoming majority.
These are just two bills that stand out from the last two years. There will be others and executive orders that educators and our allies must be diligent in fighting over the next two to four years. Educators must be prepared to support and protect undocumented students, for instance.
Local and state elections will matter more than ever. And there are glimmers of hope on these levels. For instance, voters in red and blue states alike overwhelming defeated bills that would have siphoned off money from public schools. Voters in North Carolina narrowly went for Trump on the same night they defeated a candidate for superintendent of public instruction who wanted to abolish the state’s department of education. Our civic life doesn’t begin and end with the ballot box, and elections that happen in midterm years matter as much as ones that happen in presidential years. Knowing when your next school board race is happening is a first step.
The headlines that shocked and angered English teachers over the last three years emerged from state-level policies. We will now be fighting for the freedom to read at the national level, as well. There will be a lot of work ahead. No one person can do it all, and there’s something each of us can do. We can listen to national organizations, state and local organizers, and activists on the ground to defend the freedom to read. As we do so, we must nurture ourselves and our communities, build new coalitions, and exercise solidarity to protect our schools. Our students, our communities, our fellow educators, and we ourselves deserve nothing less.
Cody Miller is an associate professor of English education at SUNY Brockport. Miller is the editor of English Leadership Quarterly. He was awarded NCTE’s LGBTQIA+ Advocacy & Leadership Award in 2022 and NCTE’s National Intellectual Freedom Award in 2024.
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.