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Republican Senators Introduce New Campus Antisemitism Bill: ‘Jewish Students Deserve to Be Safe’
US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rick Scott (R-FL) have introduced a new bill that would expand the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to cover antisemitic discrimination on college campuses and codify in law a policy that was previously enacted via executive order during the Trump administration but not followed through by its successor.
Coming nearly a year after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel prompted an explosion of antisemitic hate incidents in US higher education, most notably at the country’s elite schools, the “Preventing Antisemitic Harassment on Campus Act” would levy “escalating penalties” on colleges repeatedly found to have ignored antisemitism, empower the US Department of Education to “monitor private lawsuits” filed by Jewish students against their colleges, and ensure that colleges respond to antisemitic discrimination as rigorously as other hatreds.
For decades, the American Jewish community was one of the only ancestral groups not covered by the Civil Rights Act even as it expanded to provide protections for women and other minorities. In 2019, former US President Donald Trump issued an executive order on combating antisemitism that enforced civil rights protections for Jewish students and recognized Zionism’s centrality to Jewish identity. Since taking office in 2021, the Biden administration has continuously delayed strengthening the order with all of the necessary Department of Education guidance that would enforce it.
If passed, the Rubio and Scott bill would make the Civil Rights Act’s applicability to antisemitism explicit.
“Colleges and universities claim to value diversity and inclusion but have failed to address dangerous antisemitic incidents that have been plaguing campuses for the past year,” Rubio, the principal author of the bill, said on Tuesday in a press release. “My Preventing Antisemitic Harassment on Campus Act is a critical step toward ensuring that our educational institutions carry out their responsibility to protect Jewish students from hate and discrimination.”
Scott added, “Jewish students deserve to be safe, and any college or university in this nation that’s enabling antisemitism on campus and leaving students terrified for their safety must be held accountable. Colleges and universities must reject all forms of hate and prejudice and hold those accountable who are complicit in the rise of antisemitism we are seeing on college campuses across the country. I am proud to join Senator Rubio in introducing the Preventing Antisemitic Harassment on Campus Act to address these issues head-on.”
Anti-Israel activity on college campuses has reached crisis levels in the 11 months since Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught, according to a new report released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) last week. Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents, 52 and 38 respectively. Harvard University, the University of California-Los Angeles, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, the report continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
The ADL also provided hard numbers on the number of pro-Hamas protests which struck campuses across the country following Oct. 7, a subject The Algemeiner has covered extensively. According to the report, 1,418 anti-Zionist demonstrations were held at 360 campuses in 46 states during the 2023-2024 academic year, a 335 percent increase from the previous year.
“Jews and/or Zionists were associated with greed and bloodthirstiness or compared to rodents and other animals,” the report said. “In one incident on April 19, 2024, at the encampment at Yale University, a protester displayed a sign depicting a shirtless Joe Biden cradling and breastfeeding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is drinking drops of blood from dollar signs on Biden’s bosom.”
ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said that the report’s findings were unprecedented and he called on college officials to address the existential threat campus antisemitism poses to the Jewish community.
“The antisemitic, anti-Zionist vitriol we’ve witnessed on campus is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “Since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, the anti-Israel movement’s relentless harassment, vandalism, intimidation, and violent physical assaults go way beyond the peaceful voicing of a political opinion. Administrators and faculty need to do much better this year to ensure a safe and truly inclusive environment for all students, regardless of religion, nationality or political views, and they need to start now.”
Other antisemitic incidents from the 2023-2024 academic year included an assault on Jewish students at Columbia University’s Butler Library, a pro-Hamas activist’s spitting on a Jewish student at the University of California-Berkeley, and the sharing of an antisemitic cartoon by Harvard University faculty, a violation of school policy for which no one was punished.
Legislation addressing the issue has, at times, been opposed by US lawmakers, particularly members of the Democratic Party. In July, Democratic members of the House Ways and Means Committee all voted against the University Accountability Act (UAA), which would tax universities found to have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by failing to prevent or respond to antisemitic hate incidents. Both bills were introduced by Republican lawmakers — including Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), and Drew Ferguson (R-GA). Democrats denounced the bill, as well as another addressing campus antisemitism, as inane and potentially injurious to higher education, according to Jewish Insider.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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IDF Denies Troops Fired on Civilians After Incidents of Settler Violence
Illustrative. Israeli troops during counterterrorism activity in Tulkarem, northwestern Samaria, September 2024. Photo: IDF.
i24 News – The IDF released a statement after an incident during which Israeli soldiers opened fire on Israeli civilians in the West Bank on Saturday night, denying that the trooped fired live ammunition.
This comes at the heels of arson incidents by settlers against Palestinian villages, with clashes breaking out. The IDF said that its soldiers had come under attack on Friday as they entered the area of Kafr Malik, the site of the disturbances, by Israeli civilians. “The undermining of the rule of law and the use of violence by a radical minority harm security and stability in the area.”
The IDF later said that “an initial investigation indicates that IDF forces did not fire live ammunition at Israeli civilians in the area. It should be clarified that the battalion commander’s force operating in the Baal Hatzor area of the Binyamin brigade did not fire live ammunition at all.” On the other hand, the civilians claimed this was false, posting a video that showed shell casings on the ground right next to where the troops were deployed.
Meanwhile, the police requested the remand of six individuals, two of whom are minors, to be extended in connection with the incident.
The IDF later said that, “in another area within the sector, stones were thrown at a military vehicle near the site of the clash by masked individuals from an ambush. The force responded with a warning shot of three bullets.” A possible connection “between this incident and the claim that an Israeli civilian was injured by live fire” is being investigated.
After the incidents late last week, the IDF issued an unusual directive for soldiers to exercise special vigilance and also prepare for scenarios involving nationalist incidents perpetrated by Israeli citizens. The directive was issued after a military vehicle was set on fire inside a Jewish settlement, the tires of an armored David vehicle were punctured, and a community policing caravan near the community of Beit El was also set on fire.
“The security establishment system is highly alert,” a security official told i24NEWS. “We are seeing an escalation on the ground – and if you cannot leave a military vehicle in a Jewish community without it being burned in the sector, it is a sign that the situation is dangerous.”
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Israel Orders Evacuations in Northern Gaza as Trump Calls for War to End
US President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in ceremony of Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
The Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas in northern Gaza on Sunday before intensified fighting against Hamas, as US President Donald Trump called for an end to the war amid renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire.
“Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold talks later in the day on the progress of Israel’s offensive. A senior security official said the military will tell him the campaign is close to reaching its objectives, and warn that expanding fighting to new areas in Gaza may endanger the remaining Israeli hostages.
But in a statement posted on X and text messages sent to many residents, the military urged people in northern parts of the enclave to head south towards the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, which Israel designated as a humanitarian area. Palestinian and U.N. officials say nowhere in Gaza is safe.
“The (Israeli) Defense Forces is operating with extreme force in these areas, and these military operations will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city center to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations,” the military said.
The evacuation order covered the Jabalia area and most Gaza City districts. Medics and residents said the Israeli army’s bombardments escalated in the early hours in Jabalia, destroying several houses and killing at least six people.
At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, relatives arrived to pay their respects to white-shrouded bodies before they are buried.
“A month ago, they (Israel) told us to go to Al-Mawasi (in Khan Younis) and we stayed there for a month, it is a safe zone,” said Zeyad Abu Marouf. He said three of his children were killed and a fourth was wounded in the Israeli airstrike.
“We ask God and the Arabs to move and end this occupation and the injustice taking place against us,” Abu Marouf told Reuters.
NEW CEASEFIRE PUSH
The military escalation comes as Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, begin a new ceasefire effort to halt the 20-month-old conflict and secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages still being held by Hamas.
Interest in resolving the Gaza conflict has heightened following US and Israeli bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
There has also been rising concern over how aid is being distributed to Gazans in the ruined enclave. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed over the past month in the vicinity of areas where food was being handed out, local hospitals and officials have said.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group had informed the mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks, but reaffirmed the group’s outstanding demands that any deal must end the war and secure an Israeli withdrawal from the coastal territory.
Hamas has said it is willing to free remaining hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive, only in a deal that will end the war. Israel says it can only end the war if Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
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Russia Launches Largest Drone Attack Yet Against Ukraine, Kills F-16 Pilot
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
i24 News – Ukraine’s Air Force said that Russia launched 537 drones and missiles against targets throughout Ukraine overnight between Saturday and Sunday, in what what described as the largest attack of the war.
Poland activated aerial defenses and scrambled jets as the six-hour onslaught continued. One Ukrainian F-16 pilot was killed as Kyiv attempted to intercept the missiles and drones, with 475 shot down.
“Tragically, while repelling the attack, our F-16 pilot, Maksym Ustymenko, died. Today, he destroyed seven aerial targets,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“Ustymenko did everything possible, but his jet was damaged and started losing altitude,” the air force said, as quoted in Politico. “He died like a hero!”
The cities of Cherkasy, Lviv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Kyiv were targeted.
The Russia attack came after Ukraine attacked the Kirovske airfield in the Crimean Peninsula, targeting air defenses, drones, and even destroying several helicopters and an air defense system.
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