Republicans are struggling to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act as President Donald Trump’s push to defund Harvard University over alleged antisemitism has turned the measure into a flashpoint in his wider campaign against campus free speech and elite universities.
The Trump administration informed Harvard on Monday that it will lose access to federal research grants indefinitely, escalating the president’s broader crackdown on the university over alleged antisemitism and viewpoint discrimination after the Oct. 7 attacks.
With Trump’s intensifying efforts to punish universities and revoke visas of foreign students in the name of fighting antisemitism, even Jewish Democrats are growing reluctant to support a measure they supported in the past for fear it could be weaponized.
The legislation sailed through the House last Congress with broad bipartisan support, but concerns over how the bill defined antisemitism sparked pushback on both sides of the aisle, and the bill ultimately stalled in the Senate. The House has yet to schedule a new vote on the legislation, and a Senate committee hearing last week exposed the divisions.
The bill directs the Department of Education to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which equates much anti-Zionist expression with antisemitism, when reviewing campus discrimination complaints.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force, said Trump’s “use of antisemitism as a pretext and abuse of the First Amendment” is undermining the bill’s path forward, accusing Republicans of using antisemitism as a political weapon.
“The fact that Donald Trump is abusing his power in the name of antisemitism is very troubling, and so it has become harder to find common ground for the task force,” Goldman said, speaking at a Jewish Democratic Council of America conference last week.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), another member of the antisemitism task force who voted in favor of the Antisemitism Awareness Act last year, accused Trump of manipulating concerns about antisemitism to suppress free expression, intimidate schools, and advance a political agenda.
“Trump is weaponizing, distorting, and exploiting the reality of antisemitism to attack academic freedom and to control private and public universities and the nonprofit sector,” Raskin said in a statement.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) argued it cast too wide a net, possibly punishing individuals for voicing political critiques of the Israeli government, even when those views aren’t rooted in hate, extremism, or religion.
“One can criticize the government of Israel, government of any country on Earth for their policies, and that does not make them antisemitic or hateful of the people in any of those countries,” Sanders said. “The people of the United States of America have the right to criticize any government on Earth for their policies.”
Concerns over the measure aren’t limited to Democrats, it’s also drawing pushback from some Republicans over how it handles the definition of antisemitism in campus investigations.
At a Senate markup hearing last week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voted with Democrats on a key provision that clarified that criticizing Israel does not constitute antisemitism.
“In fact, if you look at Brandenburg vs. Ohio, the operative case on [the] First Amendment, every one of these things – the First Amendment isn’t about protecting good speech. It protects even the most despicable and vile speech,” Paul said, explaining his vote.
“Brandenburg was a Nazi and an antisemite and he said horrible things. And the First Amendment, Constitution, and the Supreme Court ruled that you can say terrible things. That’s unique about our country,” he said.
A last-minute amendment from committee Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) includes protection for the right to say that Jews killed Jesus, intended to reassure conservative Christians by explicitly protecting religious expression. The amendment has not yet been adopted since the markup adjourned without a final vote.
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“Republicans need to take a long and hard look in the mirror and decide if preventing antisemitism should come at the expense of preserving the First Amendment,” a GOP consultant, granted anonymity to reflect candidly on the situation, said.
“This has been an extremely easy issue for our people to be on the right side of until Trump overstepped his authority, and you can start to see the cracks emerging among Republicans on this issue,” they said.
In addition, House GOP leaders pulled a bill from this week’s floor schedule that would have penalized international governmental organizations for boycotting Israel, following pushback from conservatives.