First, the actual solutions to what’s happening on campus:
1. Deport foreigners supporting terrorists.
2. Defund the departments responsible for turning campuses into activism hubs.
3. Restore order on campuses using state or federal law enforcement.
Two out of three of those are evergreen and even the third would mostly apply to the BLM riots and other forms of political harassment.
The Antisemitism Awareness Act (H.R.6090) falls far short of that. Despite the false claims on social media, it does little more than allow Jewish students to sue colleges for allowing harassment of Jews under the guise of “anti-Zionism.” It can also help roll back some of the pro-terrorist propaganda in the classroom.
Will it do that?
The actual bill, which few seem to have read, orders the Department of Education to exclusively use the IHRA definition of antisemitism as opposed to using it alongside other definitions. The practical upshot would be to force the department to close the “anti-Zionism” loophole. But in reality, there’s no particular reason to think that the same bureaucrats ignoring campus antisemitism now will start taking it seriously just because the House passed a bill ordering it to.
Will the Senate even take up and pass the bill? Probably not.
Some 70 Democrats, including the “Squad” members and most of the left, voted against it. Sen. Chuck Schumer has indicated he’s not too excited about it. Rep. Nadler being trotted out to attack the bill publicly suggests Schumer is getting cover to kill it.
The Antisemitism Awareness Act is, like a lot of congressional legislation, probably doomed. It does provide grist for antisemites from the left (and now from the right) to spread conspiracy theories. (No, it does not criminalize the Bible. The IHRA definition states that comparing Israel’s fight against Islamic terrorism to Jews killing Jesus is not a political criticism, it’s antisemitism.)
If the bill actually becomes law (and I don’t believe it will), a Trump administration could appoint people who would actually use it as a tool to end some of the abuses by terror-supporting faculty in the classroom.
For now, the vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act has revealed that 70 Democrats are against a bill fighting antisemitism.
That’s what it amounts to, and not much else.
