Friday, November 6, 2026

Repeal the NJ Freedom to Read Act: State Funds Treatment for Problematic Behavior in 11-Year-Olds While Shielding the Explicit Material Linked to That Harm

NJ Freedom to Read Act should be repealed. Here's one reason why: Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia [pictured at right] raised the contradiction directly this week:

🚨 REMEMBER WHEN THEY CALLED US “BOOK BANNERS”?

‼️WATCH THIS.

When parents and legislators questioned s[*]xually explicit material in school libraries, we were mocked, labeled bigots, & accused of censorship. Too many in the mainstream media were useful idiots, helping sell that garbage.

Lo and behold, last week the Assembly passed A2232 to permanently establish New Jersey’s response to problematic s[*]xual behavior among children. The existing program’s first-year report documented 1,157 youth referred. Their average age? ELEVEN.

➡️The New Jersey Children’s Alliance (the organization administering this program) identifies exposure to inappropriate s[*]xual material as a contributing factor. A separate analysis of 27 studies involving 16,200 children & adolescents found exposure to nonviolent s[*]xual content associated with 82% higher odds of problematic s[*]xual behavior. Exposure to violent/live s[*]xual content was associated with MORE THAN TWICE the odds.

The state allocated $5 MILLION for youth treatment through this program in each of its FY2026 & FY2027 budgets. These children need help. Their families need support. But where was this concern when we questioned exposing children to developmentally inappropriate s[*]xual material in schools???

Reading material DOES NOT have to meet the legal definition of obscenity not to be placed in SCHOOL LIBRARIES. S[*]xually explicit materials may be deemed developmentally inappropriate for the age of a CHILD, and any adult who tells you otherwise is woefully uninformed.

Read the research: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37343427/
Read New Jersey’s program report: https://njcainc.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/NJCA-PSB-Annual-Report_FINAL-1.pdf

Never again should parents’ concerns be dismissed for the social cause du jour. I hope members of this Legislature take a serious look at their votes & how their frenzied echo chamber made it impossible for them to see what was right in front of them. Now we all pay the price, but sadly, the children pay the highest, dangerous, and avoidable price.

The meta-analysis she cites examined 27 studies with 16,200 participants and reported that exposure to non-violent s[*]xual content was associated with an odds ratio of 1.82 for problematic s[*]xual behavior (an 82 percent increase in the odds). Exposure to violent or live s[*]xual content carried an odds ratio of 2.52. The New Jersey Children’s Alliance annual report covering March 2024 through February 2025 recorded 1,157 youth referred to the Problematic S[*]xual Behavior Program, with an average age of 11. Caregivers reported exposure to s[*]xual content among the trauma histories of referred youth. The state has appropriated $5 million for the program in each of fiscal years 2026 and 2027.1

That is the present. The history that produced the contradiction begins with the Freedom to Read Act.

In December 2024, after Governor Murphy indicated he would sign A3446/S2421, Fantasia wrote:

🚨"DIRTY JERSEY" ALERT🚨
@GovMurphy is reported to be signing this misnamed, vile bill into law next week. Keep voting Democrat, and this lunacy will continue.

YOU ARE BEING LIED TO.
The FREEDOM TO READ Act is cleverly titled, yet is not only meant to ensure the free-flow of speech and ideology (legal and protected speech), but also provides cover for the distribution of s[*]xually-explicit materials to minors (illegal). A faction of misguided educators and legislators are feigning ignorance about content.

Some texts are in clear violation of NJ's obscenity for minors statutes. These include "how-to" guides for teens on performing s[*]x acts, how to use s[*]x toys and lubricants, how to take and distribute topless selfies, how to use s[*]x hook-up apps, and how to research their favorite adult performers, with instructions to "pay for your p[*]rn", with the most ironic of warnings to minors that doing so may be illegal. And yes, this garbage is in your high school libraries, accessible to 14-17 year-olds.

Supporters then claim the false narrative that opposition to this bill is simply homophobic, transphobic, hateful, or bigoted. That the materials are "developmentally-appropriate" and have "educational value". They label the opposition as "hateful" and "anti-government".

It's a poorly-defended pivot, a gaslighting strategy using textbook, carefully-crafted and rehearsed propaganda techniques. The plain truth is that distribution under current NJ law is illegal.

Riddle me this- when these texts are read aloud in public meetings or publicly displayed or shared on social media, why are they immediately removed? Why were the NJ State Police instructed to remove such materials from the General Assembly committee meeting room? If the supporting legislators believe these materials are okay for your child's library, why do the same legislators find these materials inappropriate for public view?

I don't believe any legislator or educator who claims to support protecting children from s[*]xual exploitation when they endorse such distribution. Open your eyes. The "freedom to read" could easily be protected with an exemption for access to s[*]xually-explicit materials by minors, and without legal immunity for the adults who provide such.

The Act, now P.L. 2024, c. 96, requires boards of education and public library governing bodies to adopt curation and removal policies based on models developed in consultation with the New Jersey Association of School Librarians and others. It prohibits removal of material because of the origin, background, or views of the material or its creators, or because an individual finds the content offensive. It defines “censorship” to exclude only restrictions on material deemed developmentally inappropriate for the age group served. Section 7 states that a school library staff member who engages in activities required by the curation, removal, and anti-censorship provisions “shall be immune from civil and criminal liability arising from good faith actions performed pursuant to” those sections. A parallel immunity applies to public library staff.5

New Jersey already had a statute addressing the distribution of obscene material to minors. N.J.S.A. 2C:34-3 makes it a third-degree crime for a person to knowingly sell, distribute, rent, or exhibit obscene material to a person under 18. “Obscene material” under that section means any description, narrative account, display, or depiction of a specified anatomical area or specified s[*]xual activity that, by posing, composition, format, or animated sensual details, emits sensuality with sufficient impact to concentrate prurient interest on the area or activity. Specified s[*]xual activity includes human genitals in a state of stimulation or arousal, m[*]sturbation, s[*]xual intercourse, deviate s[*]xual intercourse, and fondling of genitals, pubic region, b[*]ttock, or female br[*]ast.6

The Freedom to Read Act does not repeal 2C:34-3. It supplies immunity from civil and criminal liability for library staff whose “good faith” actions comply with the new curation and alleged anti-censorship rules. Fantasia’s December 2024 question remains: if the same materials are removed when read aloud in a legislative committee room or displayed in public, on what basis do supporting legislators maintain that those materials are appropriate for school libraries serving 14-to-17-year-olds?

Public testimony supplied concrete examples. In September 2024, Michael Archon of Wake Up NJ read passages from books then in New Jersey high school libraries during a hearing on S2421:

This page here is talking about how once while driving got off by rubbing the front on my jeans imagining getting a bl[*]wjob

This next pages talk about a purchase of a new strap on, then reads " I can't wait to have your c[*]ck in my mouth, I'm going to give you the bl[*]w job of your life, then I want you inside me"

This Next page shows 2 girls with one sucking on a strap on....(Hold book)

This book is in Roxbury High School

Next Book.... Let's Talk about it

Besides talking about kinks, and fantasies, this book has a page dedicated to an[*]l play on yourself, "dip just the tip"

How about an excerpt...."Dive deeper with your finger or a b[*]tt plug Just make sure any objects you put up there have a fared base, otherwise, your hungry heinie can gobble it up and the only way to get it back out is a trip to the hospital"

This book is in, North Hunterdon High School.....

He noted that the bill kept challenged material available during review and that a companion measure would withhold state funding from districts that restricted access despite parental objections. Senator Zwicker interrupted the reading.7

Councilman Conor Sweeney has stated that he stands with Fantasia and has pointed to books recommended for children ages 2–5 in the Somerset County Library System that feature and normalize bondage and nudity, alongside Pride Storytime and Pride Prom programming.8

Earlier SafeLibraries posts documented the Act’s roots in American Library Association model language, the role assigned to the New Jersey Association of School Librarians in shaping the required model policy, and the practical effect of keeping challenged material on the shelf throughout multi-month review processes.9 10 11 Those posts also recorded the repeated claim by supporters that opposition amounted to an attack on diverse or LGBTQ-themed materials rather than a question about sexually explicit content and existing criminal law.12 13

The question Fantasia poses is narrow and factual. New Jersey is now appropriating millions of dollars to treat problematic s[*]xual behavior among children whose average age is eleven, and the program’s own administrators identify exposure to inappropriate s[*]xual material as a contributing factor. The same legislature enacted a statute that grants library staff immunity from civil and criminal liability for good-faith compliance with rules that make it more difficult to remove the category of material the research and the program report associate with that harm. The Freedom to Read Act could have protected ordinary reading without that immunity and without treating parental and legislative questions about 2C:34-3 as bigotry. It did not.

Given that the NJ Freedom to Read Act amounts to “the social cause du jour,” and given the double standard Dawn Fantasia identifies between the state’s new spending on problematic behavior among children and the law’s protection of the very materials linked to that harm, thought should be given to repealing the Act and returning control to local school boards. As Fantasia put it, “Now we all pay the price, but sadly, the children pay the highest, dangerous, and avoidable price.” Time to repeal the NJ Freedom to Read Act.

Endnotes

  1. Dawn Fantasia (@DawnFantasia_NJ), X post, 6 November 2026, https://x.com/DawnFantasia_NJ/status/2118552868542177691.
  2. Camille Mori et al., “Exposure to S[*]xual Content and Problematic S[*]xual Behaviors in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” Child Abuse & Neglect 143 (2023): 106255, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37343427/.
  3. New Jersey Children’s Alliance, NJ’s Response to Problematic S[*]xual Behavior Among Minors: Annual Report • March 2024 – February 2025, https://njcainc.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/NJCA-PSB-Annual-Report_FINAL-1.pdf.
  4. Dawn Fantasia (@DawnFantasia_NJ), X post, 4 December 2024, https://x.com/DawnFantasia_NJ/status/1864162025623949632.
  5. P.L. 2024, c. 96 (A3446/S2421), Freedom to Read Act, especially C.18A:34A-7 (school library staff immunity) and C.18A:73-33e (public library staff immunity), https://pub.njleg.state.nj.us/Bills/2024/PL24/96_.PDF.
  6. N.J.S.A. 2C:34-3, Obscenity for Persons Under 18.
  7. Wake Up NJ (@wakeupnj), X post, 30 September 2024, https://x.com/wakeupnj/status/1840818618982089133 (transcript of hearing testimony).
  8. Conor Sweeney (@conorsweeneynj), X post, 6 November 2026, https://x.com/conorsweeneynj/status/2118555498161029122.
  9. Dan Kleinman, “Freedom to Read Act Sets NJASL as Overseer of NJ School Boards…,” SafeLibraries, 23 March 2024, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2024/03/freedom-to-read-act-sets-njasl.html.
  10. Dan Kleinman, “Librarians Suddenly Care About Parental Rights: Freedom to Read Act NJ S2421 A3446,” SafeLibraries, 12 February 2024, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2024/02/librarians-suddenly-care.html.
  11. Dan Kleinman, “NJ Freedom to Read Act Model Policy Is Invalid Since It Was Written by a Fired Librarian,” SafeLibraries, 7 February 2026, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2026/02/nj-freedom-to-read-act-policy.html.
  12. Dan Kleinman, “Freedom to Read Act Needs Legislators…,” SafeLibraries, June 2024, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2024/06/freedom-to-read-act-needs-legislators.html.
  13. “NJ Democrats Protect ‘Freedom’ to Give Obscene Material to Children,” Liberty Sentinel, 1 November 2024, https://libertysentinel.org/nj-democrats-protect-freedom-to-give-obscene-material-to-children/.

Editorial note: Brackets and asterisks appear in a few terms solely to meet Blogger’s posting rules.

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