House passes bill broadening federal definition of antisemitism amid campus protests over Gaza war

The House passed legislation on Wednesday that would establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to use in enforcing anti-discrimination laws. The measure, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, is the latest congressional response to a nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.

The proposal would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin. The bill now goes to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. If the Senate passed it and it were 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 on college campuses.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during a hearing Tuesday that “speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination,” adding that the bill “sweeps too broadly” by bringing purely political speech about Israel within Title VI. Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C., said Tuesday that “it is long past time that Congress act to protect Jewish Americans from the scourge of antisemitism on campuses around the country.” Advocates of the proposal say it would give the Department of Education a consistent framework to investigate rising cases of discrimination and harassment targeted at Jewish students.

The action is one of several congressional responses to the protest movement that has swept university campuses. Republicans in Congress have denounced the protests and demanded action to stop them, placing university officials at the center of a charged debate over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. The source reports that more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began in October, after Hamas staged a deadly terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.

The expanded definition was first adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental group that includes the United States and European Union states. The State Department has embraced it under the past three presidential administrations, including that of Joe Biden. Previous bipartisan efforts to codify it into law have failed. The Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza have renewed efforts to target incidents of antisemitism on college campuses.

Separately, Speaker Mike Johnson announced Tuesday that several House committees will conduct a wide probe that could ultimately threaten to withhold federal research grants and other government support from universities. The investigation follows high-profile hearings that helped precipitate the resignations of presidents at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. House Republicans said they were calling on administrators of Yale, UCLA and the University of Michigan to testify next month.

On Wednesday, a small delegation of Republican House Oversight Committee members visited an encampment at George Washington University in the District of Columbia and criticized the protests and Mayor Muriel Bowser’s refusal to send in the Metropolitan Police Department. Bowser confirmed on Monday that the city and the police department had declined the university’s request to intervene. “We did not have any violence to interrupt on the GW campus,” she said, adding that police chief Pamela Smith made the final decision.

Dozens of U.S. universities and schools face Education Department civil rights investigations over allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia, as colleges and the federal government struggle to define where political speech crosses into antisemitism (Proverbs 18:17).

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