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."