1. United States
2. Utah
3. Letter

Oppose H.R. 7661. This bill passed the House Committee on Education and Workforce on March 17 and would strip ESEA funding from any school that provides materials deemed "sexually oriented" — language so vague that educators and librarians would be forced to gut their collections just to keep funding they've depended on for over sixty years. We're talking about fine art, history lessons, court cases, and even Virginia's state flag. This isn't about protecting kids. H.R. 7661 treats seventeen-year-olds the same as kindergartners and hands Washington politicians the power to decide what children read — power that belongs to parents, local communities, and trained educators. Courts across the country have affirmed that students don't shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate, and this bill invites exactly the kind of expensive First Amendment lawsuits that distract schools from actual literacy education. Representatives from both parties raised concerns about the bill's overbroad language in committee. Those concerns are valid. Vote no on H.R. 7661 and co-sponsor the Right to Read Act (H.R. 6440 / S. 3365), which would actually support school libraries instead of threatening to defund them.