Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to expand parental rights in education and prohibit federal education funds from being used to advance what the bill characterizes as radical gender ideology. Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ08) voted in support of the measure.
H.R. 2616, the Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act, passed the House by a recorded vote of 217-198 under Roll Call 184 following adoption of an amendment in the nature of a substitute. The legislation has since been received in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
According to a statement from Hamadeh’s congressional office, the Arizona congressman supported the legislation as part of an effort to “defend parental rights, protect America’s children, and ensure that families are empowered to make decisions about their children’s upbringing and education.”
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Congressman Hamadeh Applauds Passage of Bill to Protect Children from Radical Indoctrination
— Office of Congressman Abe Hamadeh (@RepAbeHamadeh) May 26, 2026
The legislation was introduced by Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) and advanced with support from Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI). According to Hamadeh’s office and congressional materials, H.R. 2616 incorporates provisions from previously introduced legislation, including the PROTECT Kids Act and the Say No to Indoctrination Act.
Among its provisions, the bill would require schools receiving federal funds to maintain communication with parents regarding significant decisions involving their children and would prohibit federal funding from being used to promote concepts or instruction characterized in the legislation as “radical gender ideology.” The bill would also codify executive actions issued during President Donald Trump’s administration recognizing two sexes.
Hamadeh said the legislation addresses what he views as increasing ideological influence within public education.
“Indoctrination of any kind does not belong in the classroom; education does and little of it is occurring due to the fact that too many administrators and predatory teachers have turned our classrooms into incubators for radical thought,” Hamadeh said.
Hamadeh said he supported the legislation because of what he described as growing ideological influence in public education. “Our students are supposed to be exposed to the wonders of science and the elegance of math; instead, they are being turned into foot soldiers for the extreme left.”
Kim Miller, founder and president of Arizona Women of Action and America’s Women, showed support for the bill, citing both religious and constitutional arguments for parental authority in education and referencing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Pierce v. Society of Sisters.
“Parents have the fundamental liberty to direct the upbringing and education of their children,” Miller said. “As Proverbs 22:6 reminds us, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.’ The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this principle in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, declaring that ‘the child is not the mere creature of the State.’ Bills like the Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act rightly restore parental authority and ensure classrooms teach truth rather than radical ideology.”
H.R. 2616 now heads to the Senate for further consideration.
For years, Americans were told our schools existed to expand minds, encourage debate, and prepare young people to think independently. Today, too many do the opposite.
Conservative voices are being shouted down, disinvited, or silenced by radical activists and administrators more interested in appeasing the far left than defending free speech. What happened recently in South Carolina is just the latest of numerous incidents across the country.
Lt. Governor Pamela Evette, a successful businesswoman, unapologetic conservative, and strong supporter of President Trump, was pushed out of delivering the commencement address at South Carolina State University after activists objected to her political beliefs. University officials cited “security concerns,” but the real issue was ideological intolerance.
From Ivy League institutions to taxpayer-funded public universities to our K-12 schools, activists increasingly dictate who may speak, which ideas are acceptable, and what students are allowed to hear.
Administrators routinely surrender to pressure from the left while treating conservatives as threats rather than participants in open debate. That should concern every American.
Our education system has drifted far from its mission. Instead of teaching students how to think critically, schools now teach them what to think. Activism has replaced scholarship, and ideological conformity has replaced intellectual diversity. And taxpayers are funding it.
The time for cosmetic reform is over. America needs structural change.
First, tenure at publicly funded colleges and universities must end.
Tenure was intended to protect academic inquiry. Too often now, it protects ideological activists from accountability while classrooms become platforms for political agendas unrelated to education.
After the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year, several professors openly celebrated or excused political violence against someone they opposed politically. That moment exposed how radical parts of academia have become.
Lt. Governor Evette rightfully called for the end of tenure because employment should be based on performance and professionalism, not guaranteed lifetime protection.
Second, our schools must return to education instead of indoctrination.
Parents expect schools to teach reading, writing, math, science, history, and critical thinking. They do not send their children to be immersed in divisive identity politics, anti-American rhetoric, or gender ideology.
Students should graduate understanding the principles that built this country, capable of thinking independently, and able to engage with opposing viewpoints.
Finally, parents must have real authority over their children’s education.
For too long, bureaucracies and special interests trapped families in failing schools. Every parent deserves the freedom to choose the educational setting that best serves their child, whether public, charter, private, technical, or homeschool.
Choice creates accountability. Competition drives improvement. Parents, not government officials, should make these decisions.
This is not just a South Carolina problem. It is happening nationwide.
We need conservative leaders like Lt. Governor Pamela Evette, who are willing to confront these problems directly. She understands what is at stake and has consistently fought for parental rights, accountability, school choice, and classrooms focused on education instead of activism.
If we fail to reclaim our schools and universities now, the consequences will reach far beyond the classroom.
Mick Zais is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and has been a dedicated conservative voice in the fight for education reform. Zais served as Acting Secretary of Education and as Deputy Secretary under the first Trump Administration. He also served as Superintendent of Education in South Carolina from 2011 to 2015 and President of Newberry College from 2000 to 2010. Zais retired from the Army as a brigadier general.
Legislative District 13 candidate Debra Schinke is looking to get into government to reduce its footprint, and ensure it further prioritizes faith, law, and families.
Schinke, a Chandler Citizens Police Review Board member, also wants to apply her 17 years as a fraud prosecutor to cutting down on waste within the presently struggling state budget.
The former president of Chandler Republican Women (2020-2023) told the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce in a candidate interview last month that she experienced the injustice of bureaucratic bloat during her upbringing in a California farming community.
During her youth, Schinke said she helped around her father’s gas station in addition to taking up customer service and accounting for his propane company. The former Grace Community Christian School board member attested to the struggles imposed by copious regulations on her father’s small businesses.
Schinke said freedom can’t exist without freedoms in the marketplace.
“Some of us need to stand up and defend the small businesses in our communities,” said Schinke. “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy.”
Schinke decided to run for public office because of her son, a member of the Air Force stationed in Japan. During her time as a precinct committeewoman, Republican state committeewoman, and Arizona Federation of Republican Women leadership team, she has spent years working campaigns for candidates running for city councils, school boards, the legislature, and Congress.
“It just spoke to my heart again, that if our sons and daughters are over fighting for us and our freedom and liberty, then I need to be here on the frontlines, too,” said Schinke.
Schinke’s platform consists of historically standard perspectives like: encouragement of public faith in God, protection for parental rights, resistance to bureaucratic growth, a strict view of borders, implicit trust for law enforcement, and an open mind for school choice.
While Schinke generally opposes a larger government presence, she has taken exception to the ongoing issue of water. Schinke indicated that the state ought to lead on conservation measures, but without creating additional burdens on residents.
On this and other pressing issues in the Valley, like public transit and housing, Schinke said she needed to conduct more research. In all cases, Schinke said her litmus would be the impact on Arizona families.
Per her latest campaign finance report, Schinke has raised nearly $40,400.
Other candidates in the LD13 race are Democratic candidate Racquel “Rockee” Armstrong and Republican candidates Kevin Hartke, Chandler mayor, and Janet Weninger, wife of State Rep. Jeff Weninger (R-LD13).
Armstrong’s platform encourages increased government spending to deflate costs by expanding affordable housing and public transportation.
Both Weninger and Harktes’ platforms appeared similar to Schinke’s, but with more openness to select government spending to improve social outcomes.
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National Library Week (April 19–25) arrives each year with cheerful slogans about literacy, community and the joy of reading. But behind the celebration stands the American Library Association (ALA), an organization that has shifted dramatically from its original mission. Today, the ALA functions less like a professional association and more like an activist hub advancing a highly ideological agenda — one that increasingly conflicts with the values of American families and the constitutional rights of parents.
This is not speculation. It is openly acknowledged by the ALA’s own leadership. The organization’s recent president has publicly described herself as a “Marxist lesbian,” a label she embraces as part of her political identity and governing philosophy. Her statements are not the issue; her ideology is. When the head of the nation’s most influential library organization proudly aligns herself with Marxist principles — a worldview fundamentally at odds with parental authority, individual liberty and local control — it raises legitimate questions about the direction of the ALA and the policies it promotes.
And those policies increasingly undermine the rights of parents and the legal protections afforded to minors.
For more than a century, the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed that parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education and moral development of their children. Cases such as Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) and Troxel v. Granville (2000) make clear that this authority does not originate with the state. Parental rights are fundamental, inferred by the Constitution in the rights bestowed on us by our Creator as opposed to being specifically enumerated.
Yet the ALA’s policy framework treats parents as intruders rather than primary stakeholders. The organization routinely encourages libraries to adopt policies that give minors unrestricted access to sexually explicit or developmentally inappropriate material, even over parental objections. When parents raise concerns, the ALA does not engage them as partners. It labels them “book banners,” “censors” or “extremists.”
This is not merely dismissive. It is legally backwards. Public institutions do not have the authority to override parental rights simply because an activist organization urges them to.
The left has executed one of the most effective rhetorical maneuvers in recent political memory: redefining any parental objection as a “book ban.” By collapsing all distinctions — between adult and minor, between access and placement, between removal and relocation — they have created a narrative in which even the most reasonable boundaries become authoritarian threats.
But the law draws distinctions for a reason.
Courts have long recognized that the government has a legitimate interest in protecting minors from obscene or sexually explicit material. Public schools and libraries are not required to provide children with unrestricted access to everything ever printed. They never have been.
Parents who object to graphic sexual content in a children’s section are not banning books. They are exercising their constitutional right — and moral duty, ordained to us by God — to protect their children.
The ALA’s “book ban” narrative is not a defense of freedom. It is a political weapon designed to silence parents and shield ideological content from scrutiny.
Public libraries and school libraries are funded by taxpayers and accountable to local communities. They are not private advocacy groups. Yet the ALA encourages libraries to adopt policies that elevate activist priorities over community standards and parental authority.
When a national organization with openly ideological leadership pressures local institutions to disregard parental concerns, it is not promoting intellectual freedom. It is undermining democratic accountability.
National Library Week, in this context, becomes less a celebration of literacy and more a branding exercise — a way to sanctify the ALA’s agenda and portray any criticism as an attack on libraries themselves.
The ALA’s recent president’s self‑description as a “Marxist lesbian” is not relevant because of her identity. It is relevant because Marxism is a political ideology that rejects the primacy of the family, elevates the state over parental authority, and views children as instruments of social transformation.
When the leader of the nation’s most influential library organization embraces that worldview, it is reasonable to ask how it shapes the ALA’s policies — especially its insistence that librarians, not parents, should determine what minors can access.
This is not about personal attacks. It is about transparency, governance and the ideological direction of an organization that wields enormous influence over public institutions.
Conservatives should be clear, confident and unapologetic:
Protecting minors from graphic sexual content is not censorship. It is a legal and moral obligation.
Parents have a constitutional right to guide their children’s education and exposure to sensitive material.
Taxpayer‑funded institutions must respect community standards, not override them.
The ALA’s leadership and policies reflect an ideological agenda, not neutral librarianship.
The “book ban” narrative is a political strategy designed to silence parents, not a reflection of legal reality.
National Library Week could be a unifying celebration of literacy and civic life. Instead, it has become a platform for an organization that seeks to redefine parental rights and reshape public institutions according to its own ideological commitments.
The debate is not about banning books. It is about who has the authority to protect children — and the law is clear: that authority belongs to parents.
Sheri Few is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and the Founder and President of United States Parents Involved in Education (USPIE), whose mission is to end the U.S. Department of Education and all federal education mandates. Few speaks regularly on radio and television across the country and served as Executive Producer for the documentary film titled “Truth & Lies in American Education.” Few is also the host of USPIE’spodcast, “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few,” which educates Americans on the various forms of indoctrination, harmful policies and affronts to parents’ rights occurring in government schools across the country.Listen to “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few” on YouTube, Facebook, Spotify and X.
A Phoenix-area school district instituted a new policy requiring oversight of books in the classroom.
Queen Creek Unified School District (QCUSD) began enforcing the policy in January after its governing board approved it unanimously in December.
The policy required the district to restrict general access to materials containing sexually explicit content within school and classroom libraries; develop procedures for site-level review, inventory, and parental access to the inventory list of all classroom library collections; and establish an accessible opt-out procedure for school or classroom library materials not directly related to content, curriculum, or standards.
Although Arizona law has long prohibited exposing children to sexually explicit materials, Arizona libraries and schools continued to offer books containing sexually explicit materials under the defense of the necessity of educating children on topics of sexuality and identity.
Books with sexually explicit content offered to minors in the past by school libraries throughout the state have included titles popular nationwide: “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, “Tricks” by Ellen Hopkins, “Looking for Alaska” by John Green, “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews, “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins, “Sold” by Patricia McCormick, and “Flamer” by Mike Curato.
QCUSD Board member Kelli Anderson introduced the classroom library oversight policy after recognizing that district policy on oversight extended only to school library books. In a press release, Anderson reported that the primary complaint from parents concerned the books brought into classrooms.
“Before this policy, complaints about classroom books were the number one issue I heard from parents,” said Anderson. “Since it went into effect, I have received zero complaints from parents.”
Anderson said QCUSD’s action should be adopted by all other districts in the state as best practice.
“[A]fter listening to parents and reviewing our policies, it was clear there was a gap that needed to be addressed,” stated Anderson.
Arizona Women of Action (AZWOA), a parental advocacy nonprofit and Arizona chapter of America’s Women, agreed with Anderson’s assessment.
“This policy closes a major loophole and restores trust between schools and families,” stated AZWOA in a press release. “It empowers parents, supports teachers, and ensures students are learning in environments that are transparent and accountable.”
According to AZWOA, at least one parent has already reported seeing a difference in school handling of inappropriate books. That parent allegedly told AZWOA that his elementary-aged child’s school contacted him prior to the policy compliance deadline to recover a classroom library book deemed inappropriate under the new policy.
The parent also reportedly said he wasn’t aware his child had access to such materials in the classroom.
At the beginning of last summer, the Maricopa County Library District piloted a “parental choice” program at the Queen Creek library enabling parents to choose which books, if any, their child may not check out.
Months later, in September, the county removed sex education books from the children’s sections to the adult non-fiction sections at 12 of its 14 libraries.
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