(May 1, 2024, Washington, DC) – After assiduously working on this bill for many years, EMET is delighted to announce that today the Antisemitism Awareness Act has been overwhelmingly passed by the US House of Representatives by a vote of 320 to 91. The legislation has been passed at a moment when Jewish students attending American academic institutions have been assaulted by an unprecedented wave of antisemitism within the United States.
Many Jewish students have been afraid to cross their campus or their quad wearing a yarmulke on their heads, or a star of David around their necks, for fear of being assaulted. Many times, Jewish students have been surrounded by mobs of thugs that prevent them from walking onto their own campuses or have been prevented from attending their classes. Jewish students have been cornered, intimidated, bullied, and harassed at Columbia University, Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, Carnegie Mellon University, City College of New York, Northwestern University, University of California Los Angeles, University of California at Berkeley, Duke University, Stanford University, to name but a few.
Every student should be made to feel welcome, safe, and accepted within his or her educational setting, and Jewish students should be no exception to this rule. The bully has taken over the campus, and it has become an issue of "free speech for thee, but not for me."
What makes the Antisemitism Awareness Act indispensable for today's crises affecting Jewish students throughout the United States is that it uses the most widely respected definition of antisemitism that exists today, that of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance or IHRA What is unique about the IHRA definition is that it does not simply rely upon classic examples of antisemitism, or that against the Jewish religion or Jewish people, but against the most prevalent kind of antisemitism that exists today, against the collective state of the Jews, Israel.
EMET would particularly like to thank the two lead sponsors of the bill, Mike Lawler, (R-NY) and Josh Gottheimer, (D-NJ), as well as Speaker Mike Johnson, (R-LA). We have done a tremendous amount of work to get passage of this in the House. We are now looking forward to seeing this bill through to its final passage in the US Senate.
Posts
