Rep. James R. Walkinshaw (D-Va.) released a letter pushing back on House Education and Workforce Committee chairman Tim Walberg’s probe into alleged antisemitism in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), arguing the inquiry “gives the troubling impression that a handful of school districts are singularly responsible for a crisis that is national in scale.”
Walberg (R-Ill.) announced on Nov. 24 that the committee is investigating FCPS, Berkeley Unified and the School District of Philadelphia after “disturbing reports of Jewish students being harassed.”
The committee’s press release alleged that incidents in FCPS predated the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and requested records and communications related to complaints. The probe comes amid mounting federal pressure on schools to address antisemitic harassment.
Walkinshaw said in his letter that “antisemitism must be confronted wherever it appears. On that we agree,” but added, “We certainly cannot do it by throwing stones from glass houses,” citing alleged incidents in Walberg’s Michigan district, including one in which “an assignment was given to high school students instructing them to role-play as a pro-Hamas student organizer.”
Calling the committee’s focus “selective scrutiny,” Walkinshaw pointed to the Anti-Defamation League’s latest audit showing a record 9,354 antisemitic incidents nationwide in 2024, saying “no community is insulated, and no institution is exempt.”
“Antisemitism is not a partisan problem,” he said, adding that “vicious antisemites such as Nick Fuentes” have been mainstreamed and courted “on the political right,” and that U.S. President Donald Trump once had Fuentes and Kanye West at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
FCPS has said that it will cooperate with the investigation.
Walkinshaw, however, suggested the committee should “look inward as well as outward” and apply a balanced and evidence-based approach that acknowledges “antisemitism wherever it appears, not only where it is politically expedient.”
