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House Bill Expands Antisemitism Meaning05/02 06:21
The House passed legislation Wednesday that would establish a broader
definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce
anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a nationwide
student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House passed legislation Wednesday that would
establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education
to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a
nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.
The proposal, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, would codify
the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism
in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law
that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or
national origin. It now goes to the Senate where its fate is uncertain.
Action on the bill was just the latest reverberation in Congress from the
protest movement that has swept university campuses. Republicans in Congress
have denounced the protests and demanded action to stop them, thrusting
university officials into the center of the charged political debate over
Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been
killed since the war was launched in October, after Hamas staged a deadly
terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.
If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would broaden the
legal definition of antisemitism to include the "targeting of the state of
Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity." Critics say the move would have a
chilling effect on free speech throughout college campuses.
"Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful
discrimination," Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during a hearing Tuesday. "By
encompassing purely political speech about Israel into Title VI's ambit, the
bill sweeps too broadly."
Advocates of the proposal say it would provide a much-needed, consistent
framework for the Department of Education to police and investigate the rising
cases of discrimination and harassment targeted toward Jewish students.
"It is long past time that Congress act to protect Jewish Americans from the
scourge of antisemitism on campuses around the country," Rep. Russell Fry,
R-S.C., said Tuesday.
The expanded definition of antisemitism was first adopted in 2016 by the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group that
includes the United States and European Union states, and has been embraced by
the State Department under the past three presidential administrations,
including Joe Biden's
Previous bipartisan efforts to codify it into law have failed. But the Oct.
7 terrorist attack by Hamas militants in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza
have reignited efforts to target incidents of antisemitism on college campuses.
Separately, Speaker Mike Johnson announced Tuesday that several House
committees will be tasked with a wide probe that ultimately threatens to
withhold federal research grants and other government support for universities,
placing another pressure point on campus administrators who are struggling to
manage pro-Palestinian encampments, allegations of discrimination against
Jewish students and questions of how they are integrating free speech and
campus safety.
The House investigation follows several high-profile hearings that helped
precipitate the resignations of presidents at Harvard and the University of
Pennsylvania. And House Republicans promised more scrutiny, saying they were
calling on the administrators of Yale, UCLA and the University of Michigan to
testify next month.
The House Oversight Committee took it one step further Wednesday, sending a
small delegation of Republican members to an encampment at nearby George
Washington University in the District of Columbia. GOP lawmakers spent the
short visit criticizing the protests and Mayor Muriel Bowser's refusal to send
in the Metropolitan Police Department to disperse the demonstrators.
Bowser on Monday confirmed that the city and the district's police
department had declined the university's request to intervene. "We did not have
any violence to interrupt on the GW campus," Bowser said, adding that police
chief Pamela Smith made the ultimate decision. "This is Washington, D.C., and
we are, by design, a place where people come to address the government and
their grievances with the government."
It all comes at a time when college campuses and the federal government are
struggling to define exactly where political speech crosses into antisemitism.
Dozens of U.S. universities and schools face civil rights investigations by the
Education Department over allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia.
Among the questions campus leaders have struggled to answer is whether
phrases like "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" should be
considered under the definition of antisemitism.
The proposed definition faced strong opposition from several Democratic
lawmakers, Jewish organizations as well as free speech advocates.
In a letter sent to lawmakers Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union
urged members to vote against the legislation, saying federal law already
prohibits antisemitic discrimination and harassment.
"H.R. 6090 is therefore not needed to protect against antisemitic
discrimination; instead, it would likely chill free speech of students on
college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government
with antisemitism," the letter stated.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the centrist pro-Israel group J Street, said
his organization opposes the bipartisan proposal because he sees it as an
"unserious" effort led by Republicans "to continually force votes that divide
the Democratic caucus on an issue that shouldn't be turned into a political
football."
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