House to vote on expanded definition of antisemitism amid growing campus protests
WASHINGTON — The House will vote Wednesday on legislation that would establish a broader definition of anti-Semitism for the Education Department to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a nationwide student protest movement over the war between Israel and Hamas.
The bill – co-sponsored by nearly fifty Republicans and more than a dozen Democrats – would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law that prohibits discrimination based on shared interests . origin, ethnic characteristics or national origin.
Action against the bill was just the latest echo in Congress of the protest movement that has taken over college campuses. Republicans in Congress have denounced the protests and demanded action to stop them, putting university officials at 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 began in October after Hamas staged a deadly terrorist attack on Israeli civilians.
If signed into law, the bill would broaden the legal definition of anti-Semitism to include “targeting the State of Israel, understood as a Jewish collectivity.” Critics say the move would have a chilling effect on free speech on college campuses.
“Speech that is merely critical of Israel does not constitute unlawful discrimination,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during a hearing Tuesday. “By including purely political speech about Israel within the scope of Title VI, the bill goes too broad.”
Supporters of the proposal say it would provide the Department of Education with a much-needed, consistent framework to monitor and investigate rising cases of discrimination and harassment against Jewish students.
“It is long past time for Congress to act to protect Jewish Americans from the scourge of anti-Semitism on campuses across the country,” said Rep. Russell Fry, R.S.C., Tuesday.
The expanded definition of anti-Semitism 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.
But efforts by both parties to pass it into law have failed in recent years. The October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas militants in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza have revived efforts to tackle anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses.
Separately, Speaker Mike Johnson announced Tuesday that several House committees will be tasked with a broad investigation that ultimately threatens to withhold federal research grants and other government support from universities, putting a new pressure point on campus administrators struggling to pro- manage Palestinian camps. allegations of discrimination against Jewish students and questions about how they integrate freedom of expression and campus safety.
The House of Representatives investigation follows several high-profile hearings that contributed to the resignations of presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. And Republicans in the House of Representatives promised more scrutiny, saying they would call administrators from Yale, UCLA and the University of Michigan to testify next month.
It all comes at a time when college campuses and the federal government are struggling to define exactly where political speech crosses over into anti-Semitism. Dozens of U.S. universities and schools are facing civil rights investigations by the Department of Education over allegations of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
One of the questions campus leaders are struggling to answer is whether statements like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” should be considered under the definition of anti-Semitism.
The proposed definition faces strong opposition from some Democratic lawmakers, Jewish organizations and free speech advocates.
In a letter sent to lawmakers Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union urged members to vote against the legislation because federal law already prohibits anti-Semitic discrimination and harassment.
“HR 6090 is therefore not necessary to provide protection against anti-Semitic discrimination; instead, it would likely chill the freedom of expression of students on college campuses by falsely equating criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism,” the letter said.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, chairman of the centrist pro-Israel group J Street, said his organization opposes the bipartisan proposal because he sees it as an “unserious” Republican-led effort to continually force votes that divide the Democratic caucus over an issue should not become a political football.”
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Associated Press writers Collin Brinkley and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.