Colleges that get federal money cannot boycott Israel.
H.R. 4795 — Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act of 2025 · Filed by Virginia Foxx (R-NC) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jul 29, 2025 · Passed chamber
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
The bill bars colleges from joining boycotts of Israel. Israel is called a major strategic partner. Schools must sign a paper each year. They must say they do not block students and teachers from Israel programs. Schools that do not sign lose all federal money.
Who it affects
Students and teachers at colleges are affected. Schools that get federal money are affected. Israeli schools and businesses are affected.
One thing to notice
The bill does not define what counts as a valid business reason. Schools must prove they are not blocking Israel programs, but the bill does not explain what blocking means.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Jul 29, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jul 29, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Education and Workforce and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce”
- Jun 25, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Jun 25, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 24 - 9”
- Sep 3, 2026 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On passage Passed by the Yeas and Nays: 237 - 169 (Roll no. 295)”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
3 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 3 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $1,080,990 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 42 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 61% of bills with any report.
Virginia Foxx, who sponsored the bill, received $453,250 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- American Israel Public Affairs Committee — $810,990 in 1 report
- J Street — $170,000 in 1 report
- Republican Jewish Coalition — $100,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- boycott — refusing to buy from or work with a person or country to make a point
- federal — run by the national government of the United States
- block — to stop or prevent something from happening
- strategic partner — a country that works closely with the United States on important matters
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,862 characters) on Jul 28, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,206 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-17.
“Colleges that get federal money cannot boycott Israel.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr4795/simple Report an error