Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
Jew-hatred in our schools and universities has reached the crisis stage. ZOA commends the House Committee on Education and Workforce for passing three bipartisan bills yesterday. ZOA was directly involved in getting support for these bills, and we salute the co-sponsors from both parties which made passage possible. We strongly urge all House Members from both parties to vote for final passage of all three bills.
The No Antisemitism in Education Act, (H. R. 8476) sponsored by Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) was directly endorsed by ZOA and we were active in securing co-sponsors before the hearing. The bill requires all recipients of federal funds to treat discrimination “motivated by antisemitism in an identical manner to how such school[s] or institution[s] treat discrimination motivated by race.” It explicitly spells out the examples from the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Two Democrats joined all the GOP members of the committee to pass this bill.
The Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act (H.R. 4795) is sponsored by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) would require universities to certify they are not complying with BDS efforts against Israel every year. ZOA has been supportive of this effort since it was introduced last year. It was passed with five Democratic votes as well as all the votes of all the Republicans who were present.
The Student Protection and University Accountability Act (H.R. 9203) is sponsored by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Laura Gillen (D-NY). It requires universities to treat accusations of antisemitism in a rigorous way and notably prevents the Dept. of Education from dismissing complaints before they have been fully investigated. ZOA, which pioneered the submission of many of these complaints, has experienced unacceptable wait times and baseless dismissals of its complaints at times. Although the bill had a Democratic original co-sponsor, only the Republicans in the committee voted to pass this bill.
ZOA director of Government Relations Dan Pollak said:
“We are gratified by the bipartisan way in which two of these bills were passed and pleased with the progress towards protection of Jewish Students’ basic rights that these bills represent. The partisan nature of some of the opposition continues to be frustrating. Even as he voted for the BDS bill, ranking member of the committee Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), brought up objections to all three bills in a disturbing manner, calling the bill he supported ‘a solution in search of a problem.’ It is outrageous to ignore the special status of the antisemitism problem on our campuses today, and not easy to hear the claim that Rep. Fine’s bill ‘establishes one religion as having a higher priority over others.’
“ZOA is proud to have contacted every member of the committee to urge passage of these bills, and gratified that several cosponsors of the ‘No Antisemitism in Education’ bill thanked ZOA for bringing the bill to their attention.
“The double standard between hatred of Jews and all other civil rights laws is exactly the issue here, and ZOA is proud of the leadership of Rep. Fine, Foxx, Gottheimer, Stefanik and Gillen as they take action to begin addressing the actual Jew-hatred in America today.”
ZOA urges every American to contact their Representative by phone or email to urge final passage of all three of these bills on the floor of the House of Representatives, and eventually in the Senate as well.